Your job
Are you a curious, ambitious, and highly motivated individual with a passion for understanding human behavior and promoting healthy lifestyles? Do you want to contribute to cutting-edge research on behavior change interventions and make a positive impact on human and planetary health? Then we may be looking for you!
The Consumption Healthy Lifestyles Group (CHL) at Wageningen University and Research is looking for a PhD candidate for the NWO funded project ‘On the malleability of confidence in preferences’. This project examines basic underlying psychological mechanisms of durable behavior change.
Many people worldwide struggle with overconsumption of health-harming products such as high-calorie foods Behavior change is very difficult, however, as it often requires a change from subjectively very attractive options (e.g., red meat with fries) to initially less attractive options that are considered more valuable on the long run (e.g., plant-based dishes). This raises the question how preferences for attractive but less healthy and less sustainable products can be durably changed.
Directing behavior away from attractive tempting options toward options in line with one’s goals can be accomplished by making the tempting options psychologically less attractive. Research has shown that this may be accomplished by cognitive training and learning tasks. However, such tasks do not always lead to durable changes in behavior. What is needed is a better understanding of how psychological interventions that target the subjective value of choice options can have durable effects on behavior.
Interestingly, recent work has uncovered one important correlate of consistency in the perceived attractiveness of products, and consistency in choices for products, which provides a window to examine how the durability of psychological interventions in steering behavior can be boosted. Specifically, when people are more confident in their evaluations and choices, they are also more consistent in their evaluations and choices. What is unclear, however, is to what degree confidence in preferences is malleable. People acquire preferences for products such as candy or apples through experiences. When these experiences are more similar (candy is almost always tasty) we gain more confidence in our preferences than when the experiences are more dissimilar (apples can be tasty or bland). Confidence in preferences is useful as it summarizes previous experiences, but it may cause difficulties with resisting temptations and creating durable behavior change. This project examines the changeability and malleability of confidence in preferences, and how this confidence can hamper and stimulate resisting temptations.
We will examine how different cognitive training and learning tasks (reinforcement learning, go/no-go training, cue-approach training) influence preferences and confidence in those preferences in a series of controlled experiments. Furthermore, we will examine how confidence in preferences is related to difficulties in behavior change, and resisting temptations, in everyday life using experience sampling.
The appointed candidate will dive specifically into the theoretical psychological underpinnings of preferences and preference change, and experimental methods from cognitive psychology in online and lab settings to test theoretical predictions empirically. These experiments will be complemented with ecological momentary assessments in the real world.
You will work at WUR in a team together with Prof. Dr. Harm Veling (WUR), Dr. Sanne Raghoebar (WUR) and Dr. Chao Zhang (TU/e).
Your qualities
The ideal candidate must have the following qualities:
- A recently completed master’s degree (preferably a research master) in Psychology, Behavioural Economics, Behavioural Science, or a related discipline;
- Ability to translate theoretical predictions into experimental tasks;
- Background in quantitative methods for behavioral research (e.g., behavioral experiments, Ecological Momentary Assessment) and solid statistical skills (e.g., R);
- Ability to program laboratory and online experiments in open source software (e.g., PsychoPy, lab.js), or eagerness and talent to acquire this ability;
- Affinity with scientific research in the domains of psychology, value-based decision-making, self-control and consumption (e.g., of food, alcoholic beverages, smartphone applications);
- Motivation to develop as an independent scientific researcher;
- Good social and communication skills;
- Fluency in English language.
For this position your command of the English language is expected to be at C1 level. Sometimes it is necessary to submit an internationally recognized Certificate of Proficiency in the English Language. More information can be found here.
We offer you
Wageningen University & Research offers excellent terms of employment. A few highlights from our Collective Labour Agreement include:
- study leave, and partially paid parental leave;
- working hours that can be discussed and arranged so that they allow for the best possible work-life balance;
- the option to accrue additional compensation / holiday hours by working more;
- there is a strong focus on vitality and you can make use of the sports facilities available on campus for a small fee;
- a fixed December bonus of 8.3%;
- excellent pension scheme.
In addition to these first-rate employee benefits, you will receive a fully funded PhD position and you will be offered a course program tailored to your needs and the research team.
The gross salary for the first year is € 2.541,- per month rising to € 3.247,- in the fourth year in according to the Collective Labour Agreements for Dutch Universities (CAO-NU) (scale P). This is based on a full-time working week of 38 hours.
This position is for 0.8 fte for a duration of 5 years.
There are plenty of options for personal initiative in a learning environment, and we provide excellent training opportunities. We are offering a unique position in an international environment with a pleasant and open working atmosphere.
You are going to work at the greenest and most innovative campus in Holland, and at a university that has been chosen as the “ Best University ” in the Netherlands for the 18th consecutive time.
Coming from abroad
Wageningen University & Research is the university and research centre for life sciences. The themes we deal with are relevant to everyone around the world and Wageningen, therefore, has a large international community and a lot to offer to international employees.
Our team of advisors on Dutch immigration procedures will help you with the visa application procedures for yourself and, if applicable, for your family.
Feeling welcome also has everything to do with being well informed. Wageningen University & Research’s International Community page contains practical information about what we can do to support international employees and students coming to Wageningen. Furthermore, we can assist you with any additional advice and information about helping your partner to find a job, housing, schooling. For instance under the “30% rule”, certain categories of international staff can receive tax exemption on approximately 30% of their gross salary.
Do you want more information?
For more information about this function, please contact Prof. Dr. Harm Veling, by email:harm.veling@wur.nl
For more information about the procedure, please contact Noorien Abbas, Corporate Recruiter, by email: noorien.abbas@wur.nl.
Do you want to apply?
You can apply directly using the apply button on the vacancy page on our website which will allow us to process your personal information with your approval.
Please upload your motivation/cover letter, CV and grade list.
This vacancy is open until 28 August 2023. We hope to schedule the first interviews on 14 and 21 September 2023.
Equal opportunities
Wageningen University & Research (WUR) employs a large number of people with very different backgrounds and qualities, who inspire and motivate each other. We want every talent to feel at home in our organisation and be offered the same career opportunities. We therefore especially welcome applications from people who are underrepresented at WUR. For more information please go to our inclusivity page. A good example of how WUR deals with inclusiveness can be read on the page working at WUR with a functional impairment.
We are
Wageningen University & Research
The mission of Wageningen University & Research is “To explore the potential of nature to improve the quality of life”. Under the banner Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen University and the specialised research institutes of the Wageningen Research Foundation have joined forces in contributing to finding solutions to important questions in the domain of healthy food and living environment. With its roughly 30 branches, 7,200 employees (6,400 fte) and 13,200 students and over 150.000 participants to WUR’s Life Long Learning, Wageningen University & Research is one of the leading organisations in its domain. The unique Wageningen approach lies in its integrated approach to issues and the collaboration between different disciplines.
Read the 5 reasons why your future colleagues enjoy working at WUR and watch this video to get an idea of our green campus!
https://www.youtube.com/embed/ApLORCXXhm4?enablejsapi=1&origin=https://www.wur.nl
About CHL
This position will be part of Consumption Healthy Lifestyles Group. This is a young and ambitious chair group keen to unravel the origins of healthy and sustainable consumption and lifestyle practices. These behavioural insights are used to design, evaluate and implement strategies to enable healthy and sustainable lifestyles. These strategies include upstream environmental and downstream behavioural interventions acknowledging that individual behaviour is socially embedded and arises in specific times and places. The work of the group is characterized by an inter- and transdisciplinary approach where different academic disciplines (e.g., sociology, psychology, public health, epidemiology and geography) and professional fields (policy, practice) collaborate.
We will recruit for the vacancy ourselves, so no employment agencies please. However, sharing in your network is appreciated.