Title Promoter Affiliations Abstract "Developing optimal experience sampling measures of psychological processes" "Olivia Kirtley" "Contextual Psychiatry" "The goal of this project is to develop a gold standard for the real-time assessment of three transdiagnostic processes involved in mental illness: affective stress recovery, social interaction, and suicidal and non-suicidal self-injurious thoughts and behaviours (SITBs). The success of just-in-time adaptive interventions (JITAIs) that target transdiagnostic processes in daily life depends on the ability to reliably and validly measure those processes and identify at-risk moments. The validity of ESM findings depends on the use of adequate measures (items). However, a large variety of ESM items with unknown psychometric properties are currently being used, which have not undergone any formal evaluation. This PhD project aims to address these measurement barriers to developing JITAIs, by developing and psychometrically validating gold standard ESM items to assess the three transdiagnostic processes, using novel qualitative and quantitative techniques." "Identity and personality transactions and interactions in adolescence and young adulthood: associations with psychological adjustment and physiological processes." "Luc Goossens" "School Psychology and Development in Context" "When people are describing themselves, they typically refer to characteristics such as outgoing, friendly, and messy. Exactly these kinds of characteristics define ones personality. In adolescence (ages 12 to 18 years) and young adulthood (ages 19 to 30), another aspect of individuality, identity formation, also becomes more salient. Identity formation refers to whether individuals identify themselves with and commit themselves to choices in important developmental domains, such as education, friendships, work, and romantic relationships. Throughout the years, there have been a great deal of studies on personality and identity formation, but very few studies have examined these two key aspects of individuality together in the same design. The purpose of the current project is to get a grasp on how personality and identity relate to and interact with one another by pursuing three research goals: (1) studying how personality traits affect and are affected by occupational and romantic identity, and by life-transitions with regard to occupation and romantic relations; (2) examining whether identity formation affects the way personality is associated with internalizing (e.g., depression) and externalizing (e.g., aggression) problem behavior; and (3) examining how personality and identity are related to a physiological marker of stress, that is, the stress hormone cortisol." "The process basis and predictive value of emotion dynamics for psychological well-being." "Peter Kuppens" "Quantitative Psychology and Individual Differences" "Our well-being is not only reflected in how we feel on average, but also in how our feelings change. Studying the patterns and regularities of these changes provides a wealth of information about how we emotionally respond to events and how we regulate our emotions, for better or for worse. While we know that these emotion dynamics play an important role for our well-beging, researchers have yet come to understand what lies at the basis of particular patterns of emotion dynamics, and what role they play in our well-being. With this project, we aim to uncover the processes that underlie how people's feelings vary across time and carry over from one moment to the next, and how they impact their well-being. At the core of this project lies a large-scale longitudinal study in which a cohort of late adolescents is followed during the challenging transition into higher education. The data will be used to (1) cross-sectionally examine the processes underlying key dynamical emotion characteristics and their relationship to personality, emotion reactivity and regulation, and (2) longitudinally examine how these characteristics prospectively predict, and are predicted by, well-being, adjustment, and imprtant life outcomes. The outcome of this project is expected to provide concrete insights into factors contributing to human thriving and suffering, and provide clues to how we can cultivate the former and combat the latter." "The process basis of emotion dynamics in relation to psychological well-being and maladjustment." "Peter Kuppens" "Quantitative Psychology and Individual Differences" "Our well-being is not only reflected in how we feel on average, but also in how our feelings change. Studying the patterns and regularities of these changes provides a wealth of information about how we emotionally respond to events and how we regulate our emotions, for better or for worse. While we know that these emotion dynamics play an important role for our well-being, researchers have yet come to understand what lies at the basis of particular patterns of emotion dynamics. With this project, we aim to uncover the processes that underlie how peoples feelings vary across time and carry over from one moment to the next, and how they impact their well-being. The basic idea we want to examine in this respect is that emotion dynamics are to a large extent determined by how people deal with emotionally laden information. The outcome of this project is expected to provide concrete insights into factors contributing to human thriving and suffering, and provide clues to how we can cultivate the former and combat the latter." "A Cultural Psychological Approach to Acculturation: Developing tools to capture psychological acculturation and exploring the micro-processes that account for cultural fit in intercultural interactions." "Jozefien De Leersnyder" "Social and Cultural Psychology" "The current research is part of a bigger research program in which I further develop and empirically test a cultural psychological approach to acculturation. This approach centers on the notion of ‘cultural fit’ – i.e., the extent to which an individual’s pattern of psychological functioning is similar to the typical pattern of others in the socio-cultural context. In the coming two years, I intend to focus on two of the four research lines that I outlined to test this novel theory on acculturation. Firstly, I will develop measures to capture cultural changes in cognition, motivation and self-concept in both majority and minority youth in Belgium. Secondly, I plan to explore some of the micro-processes that occur in intercultural interactions and that account for increases in cultural fit, especially in the domain of emotion. For instance, I will conduct an experiment testing to what extent emotional fit in majority-minority dyads is a function of negotiating ‘common ground’ on the meaning of situations." "The role of psychological factors and central neurotransmitter systems in visceral and somatic pain in health and functional somatic disorders." "Jan Tack" "Translational Research in GastroIntestinal Disorders" "Functional Dyspensia (FD) is characterized by chronic/recurrent pain/discomfort in the gastroduodenal region that cannot be explained by structural or biochemical abnormalities. The pathophysiology of FD remains incompletely understood, but consists probably of a complex interaction between biological, psychological and social factors. More specifically, peripheral and/or central sensitization at different levels of the 'brain-gut axis' may play an important role; this mechanisms can be influenced by psychological processes. Our group showed earlier that FD patients are characterized by maladaptive pain modulatory responses at the brain level and that these abnormalities correlate with psychological processes (anxiety, history of secual/physical abuse). The exact pathophysiological mechanisms underlying the relationship between psychological processes and visceral pain remain, however, incompletely understood. The general aim of this project is: 1. further study of the mechanisms by which psychological processes influence gastric sensorimotor function and symptom generation in FD, using psychophysiological studies; 2. further study of brain mechanisms of gastric sensitivity in health & FD, with special interest in the influence of psychological processes on and the role of neurotransmittersystems in pain modulating brain responses, using functional brain imaging (PET radioligand studies, fMRI)." "What influences the processing of implicatures? An experimental psychological investigation." "Walter Schaeken" "Laboratory for Experimental Psychology, Brain and Cognition" "In communication, people often intend to convey more than the words they literally utter. The literal, semantic meaning of a sentence can be enriched by its implicit, pragmatic meaning. The term implicature refers to an interpretation of what a speaker didnt explicitly say but intendedto say. Two broad categories of implicatures can be distinguished. On the one hand, there are conversational implicatures of which the scalar implicature is the most widely investigated subtype. On the other hand, there are conventional implicatures which have rarely been experimentallyinvestigated. This dissertation discusses both types of implicature from a developmental point of view. In scalar implicature research, it has often been concluded that adults are more pragmatically competent than children. This was interpreted as indirect evidence that inferring a scalar implicature is cognitively effortful and requires working memory. Other evidence showing that working memory is involved in scalar implicature processing was presented among others by Bott and Noveck (2004) and De Neys and Schaeken (2007). However, Katsos and Bishop (2011) showed that certain task characteristics can conceal childrens pragmatic competence and therefore lead to the wrongly drawn conclusion that children are pragmatically incompetent. This shows that it is worth investigating the role of age, task characteristics and working memory in implicature research, especially for conventional implicatures of which little experimental information is available. In Chapter 2 of this dissertation, a scalar implicature study is described in which we look at the effect of age, working memory capacity and task features on processing the scalar implicature from some. Age and task characteristics were found to greatly influence the number of pragmatic responses whereas an effect of working memory was absent.In Chapters 3 to 7, the conventional implicature stemming from but combined with so and nevertheless- wasinvestigated. Our primary interest was finding out whether the conventional meaning of these instruction words is indeed understood. Secondly, we investigated the effect of age, working memory and task characteristics as well. Our results showed that adults seem to have a pretty good understanding of the conventional meaning of these words whereas childrens performance revealed lower competence. In fact, using a three-point scale instead of a binary response format in Chapter 5 seemed to reveal that these sentences are really difficult for children and that they oftendont know what they have to answer. With regards to the working memoryeffect, we found no influence of working memory on conventional implicature processing. This leads to the conclusion that conventional implicature processing happens automatically." "A Cultural Psychological Approach to Acculturation" "Jozefien De Leersnyder" "Social and Cultural Psychology" "In the current research program, I further develop and empirically test a cultural psychological approach to acculturation. This approach centers on the notion of ‘cultural fit’ – i.e., the extent to which an individual’s pattern of psychological functioning is similar to the typical pattern of others in the socio-cultural context. I start from the cultural psychological insights that people are socially ‘wired’ to fit their socio-cultural context and that cultural fit bears positive consequences in terms of both well-being and social thriving. I then bring these insights into traditional acculturation psychology to argue that when people migrate to another socio-cultural context, not only their explicitly endorsed cultural attitudes and identities may change – as has been the focus of traditional acculturation research – but also the ways feel, think and act may change, such that immigrant minorities may come to fit their new/other socio-cultural context.I spell out four research lines to empirically test this novel theory, thereby drawing on both my expertise and previously gathered preliminary evidence in the domain of emotion. Research line 1 makes use of cross-sectional studies to map the acculturation of a wider range of psychological processes (e.g., cognition, motivation, self-concept). Research line 2 employs two large scale studies that document the complex interplay between the acculturation of explicit domains (e.g., identity) and implicit domains (e.g., cognition) across time and different social contexts. Research line 3 consists of a series of longitudinal, interactive experimental studies that investigate the socialization processes that occur in intercultural interactions, and that may account for psychological acculturation and cultural fit. A final research line cuts across all other three to address the question how acculturation – in its complex, multi-faceted and context-dependent form – is associated with minorities’ well-being and educational outcomes." "The role of central neurotransmittersystems and psychological factors in the perception and suppression of visceral pain in health." "Jan Tack" "Translational Research in GastroIntestinal Disorders, Nuclear Medicine & Molecular Imaging, Public Health Psychiatry" "Visceral pain is a core symptom of most functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGID). Pathogenetic factors may include peripheral or central sensitization; these may be driven by cognitive-affective processes and their neural substrates. FGID are characterized by chronic/recurrent abdominal pain/discomfort in the absence of an underlying structural or biochemical abnormality that explains the symptoms. Previous studies by our group, together with psychopysiological and brain imaging evidence on rectal sensation and esophageal distension, provide converging evidence for a key influence of cognitive-affective factors on gastrointestinal sensation and its central nerous system (CNS) correlates in health and disease. However, the mediating pathophysiological mechanisms underlying the close reciprocal relationship between pain and emotion-cognition remain incompletely understood, especially for visceral pain, although there is indirect evidence for the involvement of the endogenous opioid system. The general aim of the current project therefore is 1. to study the mechanisms by which cognitive-affective processes interact with gastric sensorimotor function & symptom generation in functional dyspepsia (FD) in more detailed psychophysiological studies; 2. to study the CNS correlates (inclusing brain neurotransmitter systems) of gastric sensation in health and disease in more detail, with special emphasis on the role of cognitive-affective pain modulatory processes." "A Cultural Psychological Approach to Acculturation." "Jozefien De Leersnyder" "Social and Cultural Psychology" "In the current research program, I further develop and empirically test a cultural psychological approach to acculturation that centers on the notion of ‘cultural fit’ – i.e., the extent to which an individual’s pattern of psychological functioning is similar to the typical pattern of others in the socio-cultural context. I start from the cultural psychological insights that people are encouraged and rewarded to fit their socio-cultural context. I then bring these insights into acculturation psychology to argue that when people migrate to another socio-cultural context not only their explicitly endorsed cultural attitudes and identities may change – as has been the focus of traditional acculturation research – but that their new cultural engagements may also affect the ways in which they feel, think and act, such that immigrant minorities may come to fit their new/other socio-cultural context. Over the next 10 years, I plan to focus on four research lines to empirically test this novel theory, thereby drawing on both my expertise and previously gathered preliminary evidence in the domain of emotion. Whereas Research Line 1 aims to document the acculturation of a wider range of psychological processes and Research Line 2 aims to map the complex interplay between the acculturation of explicit (e.g., identity) and implicit (e.g., emotion) domains across time and across different social contexts, Research Line 3 focuses on the micro-processes of socialization that occur in intercultural interactions, and that may account for psychological acculturation and cultural fit. A final research line cuts across all other three to address the question how acculturation – in its complex, multi-faceted and context-dependent form – is associated with minorities’ well-being and educational outcome."