dr. Florian van Leeuwen

Bio

I am a social psychologists. My research includes three topics: disgust and prejudice, political violence, and precautions. See below for more details. 

My approach to research is evolutionary psychology. That is, I assume that the mind includes mechanisms that have been designed by natural selection to serve survival and reproduction. Biologically-informed conjectures about what our psychological mechanisms are designed to do, serve as a guide for discovering how the mind works.

I use quantitative research methods. I mostly use experiments (for example memory and reasoning tasks) and analysis of survey data.

Expertise

Disgust and prejudice

People have motivations to avoid infection with pathogens and disgust plays a key role in such avoidance behavior. Does disgust influence broader social phenomena, such as outgroup prejudice and conformity?

Psychological factors underlying political violence

Political violence is a disruptive phenomenon and most explanations of it make assumptions about psychological processes. Together with Michael Bang Petersen and Henrikas Bartusevičius, we researched how political violence relates to psychological factors, such as status-seeking and inequality.

Beliefs and precautions

I work on the project “Understanding vaccination hesitancy” funded by the Herbert Simon Research Institute (with Mitchell Matthijssen, Mariëlle Cloin, Ien van de Goor, and Peter Achterberg). We research how people make decisions about vaccinations with the aim of helping people make better decisions about taking precautions.

Courses

• RM: Foundations of Social Psychology
• Master's Internship Work & Org.Psych.
• Master's Thesis Work & Organization Psy.
• Master's Thesis Economic Psychology
• Bachelor's Thesis: Work and Org. Psych.
• Bachelor's Thesis: Economic Psychology
• Bachelor's Thesis: Social Psychology
• Attitudes and Advertising
• Applied Social Psychology
• Master's Internship Economic Psychology

Collaboration

I have substantial experience with interdisciplinary research. Over the last decade, I have worked together with anthropologists, political scientists, and sociologists. Together we can do better science.

Recent publications

1. Political repression motivates anti-government violence

   Bartusevicius, H., van Leeuwen, F., & Petersen, M. B. (2023). Political repression motivates anti-government violence. Royal Society Open Science, 10(6), Article 221227.

2. Do cues of infectious disease shape people's affective responses to s…

   Ren, D., Wesselmann, E. D., Loh, W. W., van Beest, I., van Leeuwen, F., & Sleegers, W. W. A. (2023). Do cues of infectious disease shape people's affective responses to social exclusion? Emotion, 23(4), 997-1010.

3. A behavioral immune system perspective on disgust and social prejudice

   van Leeuwen, F., Jaeger, B., & Tybur, J. M. (2023). A behavioral immune system perspective on disgust and social prejudice. Nature Reviews Psychology. Advance online publication.

4. Do experimental manipulations of pathogen avoidance motivations influ…

   van Leeuwen, F., Jaeger, B., Sleegers, W. W. A., & Petersen, M. B. (2023). Do experimental manipulations of pathogen avoidance motivations influence conformity? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Advance online publication.

5. Emotions in politics

   van Leeuwen, F., & Petersen, M. B. (Accepted/In press). Emotions in politics. In L. Al-Shawaf, & T. Shackelford (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of evolution and the emotions