Phd Position: Adolescents' Susceptibility to Misinformation

Vacancy number

15506

Job type

PhD positions

Hours (in fte)

1,0

External/ internal

External

Location

Leiden

Placed on

4 March 2025

Closing date

1 April 2025 28 more days to apply

**PhD position: Adolescents’ Susceptibility to Misinformation (1.0 fte, 4 years)**

**What you will do**
You will do fundamental research that carries practical implications for enhancing youth’s resilience to misinformation. It is considered an asset if you have a passion for doing research with societal impact and for engaging youth in research. Join our team in unravelling the intricacies of online behaviour and contributing to a smarter, safer digital experience for today's youth. The project involves cognitive computational modelling such as reinforcement learning of veracity judgements, as well as language analyses. Advanced knowledge of data analyses, including language analyses and computational modelling is required for this project.

Your responsibilities involve:

- Designing and carrying out new experiments to test adolescents’ misinformation susceptibility
- Recruiting participants and collecting data, including social media data (participant age range 11-24 years old)
- Performing advanced data analyses on social media and experiment data, such as language analyses and computational modelling of behavioural data
- Report results in scientific articles in international journals, culminating in a dissertation
- Presenting at national and international scientific conferences
- Supervise BSc and MSC thesis projects

This is a four-year position with a preferred starting date of July 1st 2025, and is funded by the European Research Council (ERC) grant awarded to Dr. Ili Ma (Leiden University). The supervisory team consists of Dr. Ili Ma (Leiden University), Dr. Anna van Duijvenvoorde (Leiden University), and Dr. Wouter van den Bos (University of Amsterdam).

**Where you will work**
The Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences consists of five institutes: Centre for Science and Technology Studies, Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology, Political Science, and Psychology. The faculty has approximately 7000 students and 1000 staff members. Within the institutes, not only education is provided but also groundbreaking research is conducted that pushes the boundaries of our understanding of human behaviour and societal structures. What makes our faculty unique is the diversity of research topics, the various styles of teaching, and the way professional support is organized; this provides you with the opportunity to explore and develop your interests and expertise. Visit our website for an impression: Welcome to the Leiden Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences - Leiden University.
- Institute of Psychology_
The Institute of Psychology educates new generations to contribute to the challenges of our society, now and in the future, based on leading behavioral scientific research and education. This is achieved through collaboration both within and outside our institute in the field of Psychology and related research areas, both fundamental and applied. The broad bachelor's program and a wide variety of master's specializations also contribute to this goal. Within the institute and the academic community, there is a committed and passionate atmosphere. The themes of Health and Well-being, Social-Cognitive-Affective Decision Making, Development and Learning, and Advanced Behavioral Research Methods guide research and education. The institute values conducting these activities in a safe and inclusive environment and provides space for new developments such as open science, recognition and appreciation, and interdisciplinarity, which are anchored in its strategy. With approximately 5,000 students and 600 staff members, the institute includes the Institute Office, the Department of Bachelor Education, and 6 units for education and research: Health, Medical and Neuropsychology, Clinical Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Developmental and Educational Psychology, Social, Economic and Organisational Psychology, and Methodology and Statistics. The PhD position is embedded in the Unit of Developmental and Educational Psychology.

**What you bring**
- A completed or upcoming (research) master's degree in Developmental Psychology, Data Science, Methods & Statistics, Cognitive Science, or related field
- Strong analytic, research, and organisational skills
- Experience with R and/or Python and experiment programming
- Experience with computational modelling and/or language analyses
- Excellent oral and written communication skills in English
- Proficiency in Dutch is highly preferred, as you will be frequently interacting with youth
- Affinity for working with adolescents and young adults, and affinity with the topic
- Collaborative mindset, openness to learning new skills and willingness to share knowledge
- Enthusiastic about translating scientific findings to practical implications

**What we offer**
Our goal is to