This study aims to determine whether there is a relationship between a leader's personality and the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Firstly, I created a theoretical framework regarding this case,...Show moreThis study aims to determine whether there is a relationship between a leader's personality and the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Firstly, I created a theoretical framework regarding this case, after which I used the Profiler Plus program to measure the Leadership Trait Analysis (LTA) of Obama and Trump. Finally, the extent to which leadership style played a role in the full withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan under Trump that did not take place under Obama will be determined. This thesis is an addition to the LTA theory and could be a stepping stone for further research around leadership traits in combination with foreign policy decision-making.Show less
Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
closed access
Prediction-based learning is an effective teaching method for building factual knowledge, i.e., semantic learning. Its effectiveness likely depends on its potential to elicit surprise in learners....Show morePrediction-based learning is an effective teaching method for building factual knowledge, i.e., semantic learning. Its effectiveness likely depends on its potential to elicit surprise in learners. Only a few studies tested this hypothesis using a prediction-based learning framework comparable to semantic learning in the classroom. Most of these studies used physiological measures of surprise. However, the link between prediction-based semantic learning and learners' metacognitive surprise remains to be investigated. Using mixed models, we tested and explored to what degree participants' (N = 41; Mage = 21.9 years, SD = 1.5, 73% female) metacognitive surprise about the learning material (numerical trivia facts) explained how well participants learned (continuous metric) and recalled (binary metric) this material during a numerical-fact learning task designed to resemble classroomlike prediction-based learning. In line with our hypothesis, preregistered analyses showed that the more surprising participants found a fact, the more they learned from it. Extending previous work, we found that this link remained when controlling for a) between-fact differences in learning potential and b) facts already known to the participants and when c) participants failed to recall a fact correctly. Further extending previous work, our exploratory analyses suggested that learning also improved when participants perceived the facts as nonsurprising. So, the link between metacognitive surprise and learning may be u-shaped rather than linear. Altogether, these findings hint that learners'surprise about the learning material is one of the factors explaining to what degree learners learn from their prediction mistakes to update their factual knowledge. We forgo conclusions about the link between metacognitive surprise and recall accuracy since the confirmatory and exploratory results were ambiguous and negligibly small.Show less
International migration has reached record levels over the past five decades, and the expectation is that these levels will continue to proliferate. As immigration is at the forefront of the world...Show moreInternational migration has reached record levels over the past five decades, and the expectation is that these levels will continue to proliferate. As immigration is at the forefront of the world’s agenda, a burgeoning literature is interested in exploring the drivers of public attitudes toward immigrants. The scholarly literature mainly focusses on two sources of immigration attitudes: economic and cultural threat perceptions. However, these studies generally focus on developed countries, even though there are similar levels of migration in developing countries. This study addresses this sample bias by conducting a large-N observational analysis of the effect of economic and cultural threat perceptions on public attitudes toward immigrants in developing countries. Furthermore, this study conducts a second analysis to explore how countries’ development status affects the relationship between economic or cultural threat and immigration attitudes. The findings suggest that perceptions of economic and cultural threat are important explanatory factors for citizens’ immigration attitudes in developing countries. Moreover, the second analysis indicates that both economic and cultural threat have a stronger effect on immigration attitudes in developed countries than in developing countries. Taken together, these findings reinforce the relevance of the existing economic and cultural threat theories and shed light on the formation of public attitudes toward immigrants in developing countries.Show less
In dit scriptie-onderzoek wordt kwantitatief onderzoek gedaan naar of kiezers die een gebrek aan regionale vertegenwoordiging voelen in de nationale politiek in Nederland daardoor eerder op nieuwe...Show moreIn dit scriptie-onderzoek wordt kwantitatief onderzoek gedaan naar of kiezers die een gebrek aan regionale vertegenwoordiging voelen in de nationale politiek in Nederland daardoor eerder op nieuwe partijen zullen stemmen. De uitkomst in dit scriptie-onderzoek is dat met de verzamelde data (Nationaal Kiezersonderzoek van 2017 en 2021) geen conclusies hierover kunnen worden getrokken, maar de verwachting blijft staan dat het een eventueel invloed kan hebben op het ander.Show less
Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
under embargo until 2024-12-22
2024-12-22T00:00:00Z
Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is a disorder characterized by impairments in interpersonal functioning such as experiencing difficulties in forming and maintaining relationships. These impairments...Show moreSocial anxiety disorder (SAD) is a disorder characterized by impairments in interpersonal functioning such as experiencing difficulties in forming and maintaining relationships. These impairments have negative intrapersonal consequences for individuals with SAD on different levels such as the physiological, behavioral, and psychological level. A newer perspective on SAD has suggested that it also negatively impacts the interaction partner (i.e. interpersonal consequences of the disorder). According to this perspective, certain verbal and nonverbal behaviors and thought or feeling content of the healthy interaction partner are affected while interacting with an individual who have SAD. The current study investigated the intra- and interpersonal consequences of SAD on the physiological, behavioral, and psychological level during initial interactions. Participants played a dyadic trust game (23 same-gender dyads) while their electrodermal activity (EDA) was continuously measured and filled in self-report measures during and after the game. The dyads consisted either of one participant scoring high on social anxiety (SA) and one low on SA (i.e. SA dyads) or two participants scoring low on SA (i.e. control dyads). EDA was used as the measure on the physiological level, participants’ trust ratings were the measure on the behavioral level, and the discrepancy between self and partner reports on positive/negative personal attributes to explore cognitive biases was the measure on the psychological level. We expected to observe higher EDA synchrony, lower trust ratings, and higher discrepancy between self and partner reports in SA dyads compared to control dyads. Results showed no difference between dyads on all levels indicating that we were not able to observe the predicted effect of finding intra- and interpersonal consequences of SAD in SA dyads. The most important implication of the current study is that, it included three different levels of SAD, in contrast to earlier studies that mainly focused on one level. This provides a useful example for how future studies might be designed and conducted.Show less
