Leiden psychologist Wilco van Dijk and communication scientist Jaap Ouwerkerk of VU University Amsterdam published a book about the emotion Schadenfreude. The authors describe what the emotion Schadenfreude really is, when people experience the emotion, and what role it plays in social relations.

Book by Soledad Valdivia Rivera

What is the relation between the experience and the act of exclusion?

Why does social anxiety increase in adolescence and how does it grow out of control in some adolescents?

Are there any differences in gaze behavior between high and low socially anxious individuals? What factors influence the relation between social anxiety and gaze behavior?

The consequences of social tendencies for the legislation and institutions in the fields of social security, the labor market policy and pension reform are examined in this multdisciplinary research program..

... examines how different motives stemming from people’s interdependencies and social identities influence decision making in social contexts.

Inaugural Lecture

Developments in globalization and industrialization continuously push governments, international organizations and NGOs to reexamine the opportunities available to people at all levels of society to attain basic socioeconomic necessities. Research into existing social justice initiatives has shown a…

This thesis, conducted in the framework of ERC Starting grant project BABYLON (PI: Caroline Waerzeggers), presents an investigation into Babylonian society, focusing on the city of Borsippa during Neo-Babylonian and early Persian rule (c. 620-484 BCE).

Building on the recent initiative to truly globalize the field of international relations, this book provides an innovative interrogation of regionalism.

This dissertation takes an important step in understanding the phenomenon of non-take-up of social support and what it means for contemporary social policies.

Why do some children confront social challenges with confidence, whereas others experience difficulties? What is the role of child temperament and child emotional dispositions? What is the role of parenting? This project aims to shed light on the mechanisms explaining shyness and confidence in response…

When and how does social anxiety develop? How can it go astray in some adolescents? How can we help troubled young people to attend school regularly and return to a normal developmental pathway?

How can cardiovascular responses index challenge and threat motivational states? How do challenge and threat states shape, and are shaped by, social relations?

A neurobiological perspective on individual differences in social competence

Social Citizenship & Migration (SCM) is one of the two pillars within the Leiden University programme Citizenship and Global Transformations. The latter is one of the eight interdisciplinary programmes launched by Leiden University in 2020. The Social Citizenship & Migration pillar is led by the Faculties…

The studies outlined in this volume explore how connectedness continues to change Africa and how Africa continues to shape the social life of connections.

Humans are fundamentally a social species, rather than individualists.

Do you have to be able to say everything on Twitter and Facebook? Is Instagram morally obliged to remove photos from attacks? Should we allow the terrorist group to recruit new members on the internet?

Dissertation

What are the developmental pathways to social anxiety (disorder), the causal processes and maintaining factors? How do these factors interact in the development of social anxiety disorder? How can this knowledge be used to design and implement effective preventive intervention programs for youth?

Graduate School of Humanities on Social Media

There are several ways to stay up to date via social media.

Keeping in touch with others will benefit your studies and work.

Serious forms of anxiety concerning other people’s opinions can hinder teenagers at school in social interactions or carrying out tasks. Psychologist Anne Miers is looking for ways to reduce this so-called ‘social anxiety’.

Day-to-day activities are important in the development of social identities, the establishment of social standing, and the communal understanding of societal rules. This perspective is broadly referred to as practice theory and relates to the power of an overarching social structure and the individual…

The precise psychobiological mechanisms leading to chronic physiological stress responses have not been sufficiently explained, although stress is a major risk factor for disease and early death. A problem for conventional stress theory is that most of these responses seem to occur in situations without…

Sanne Kellij and colleagues systematically reviewed 142 articles, examining evidence for three hypotheses on the relation between victimization and social information processing.

Understanding the complexities of world affairs requires an ability to think critically and to draw insights from a variety of perspectives, sources, and analytic frames. Leiden University’s Master of Arts in International Relations addresses these needs through distinctive humanities-based training…

The [A]Social Creatures Lab is an interdisciplinary research lab that focuses on understanding social interaction with and between artificial creatures. Researchers and students from the Media Technology group collaborate in it.

The [A]Social Creatures Lab is an interdisciplinary research lab that focuses on understanding social interaction with and between artificial creatures. Researchers and students from the Media Technology group collaborate in it.

The [a]social creatures lab focusses on understanding social interaction with and between artificial creatures.

The [a]social creatures lab focusses on understanding social interaction with and between artificial creatures.

Humanities

This interdisciplinary research project explores several adaptive machine learning methods which can give insight into the interaction between human and machine. The ultimate goal is open and natural communication between humans and AI that should result in mutual trust, cooperation and coordination…

There are five institutes at the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences:

We are very happy to welcome you to spend a semester or year studying with us at the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences. This website will provide you per programme with information on your course schedules and much more.

Efficiently responding to others’ emotions has great survival value, especially for social species, such as primates, who establish close, long-term bonds with group members. The closest living relatives to humans are the chimpanzee and the bonobo. Studying these species, and comparing them on the exact…

Social anxiety runs in families, but the neurobiology underlying this genetic vulnerability is until now largely unknown. The unique Leiden Family Lab study on Social Anxiety Disorder (LFLSAD) aims to broaden our knowledge with respect to this genetic susceptibility.

This research aims to investigate how different social forces interact with hydropolitics in the Eastern Nile Basin and what are the constraints of engagement.

In the specialisation Social and Organisational Psychology, part of the Master in Psychology, you study behaviour in formal and informal groups, such as sports or work teams.

The Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences brings together high-quality research and outstanding teaching in the disciplines of cultural anthropology, education and child studies, political science, psychology, science and technology studies, as well as in multidisciplinary approaches.

An analysis of pot decoration and hut distributions from the Central European Neolithic communities of Elsloo and Hienheim.