It is good for a judge to have some empathy with victims and offenders. But too much empathy can be harmful to the practice of the law, as PhD candidate Claudia Bouteligier has found. Literature may offer a solution. PhD defence 18 September.

Over recent years Leiden University has taken some significant steps forward in innovation in teaching and learning and in diversity. But there is still a lot to be done. These were the comments by governors, lecturers and scholars during the farewell seminar for Vice-Rector Simone Buitendijk on 27…

Patients who feel understood will recover faster. But how can doctors become more empathetic? By reading literary works, suggests emeritus Leiden Professor of Medical Psychology, Ad Kaptein. He discusses this issue in his book ‘Helende woorden – romans over ziek-zijn’ (Healing words - novels about…

Researcher Max van Duijn and PhD student Bram van Dijk apply language models to stories told by children to investigate empathy. For this research, they received the Best Paper Award at the Computational Natural Language Learning Conference in Singapore.

Man is nature's mind-reading champion: we are better able than any other living beings to empathise with others. This comes in part from our story-telling culture, according to Max van Duijn. PhD defence 20 April.

Empathic or anxious mistakes? A neurocognitive investigation of the development of social performance monitoring in youth growing up in stressful versus non-stressful environments

The aim of this thesis was to study the link between hearing loss, language skills, and social functioning in deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children. Sufficient language skills are an essential prerequisite to develop appropriate communication skills, in order to join in conversations with others.…

We aim to create an innovative e-learning and virtual reality training that helps healthcare providers to optimize placebo effects and minimizes nocebo effects via their communication.

Predictors of work functioning in persons with multiple sclerosis

In her book Between Smiles and Grimaces, Mariska Kret shows us what differences there are between humans and animals, and more importantly, what similarities.

How do young adults find their way in an increasingly complex society? In Leiden, as part of the GUTS project, we study how brain development and self-regulation play a role in this process.

What is the role of stress and stress-related hormones in emotion regulation?

In this second installment of the Homo Mimeticus series (Leuven UP), international scholars further the field of mimetic studies from perspectives as diverse as philosophy, political theory, literary/media studies, and the neurosciences.

We study how communication can heal and harm when patients are confronted with an illness. Most of our studies focus on serious illnesses such as advanced cancer. Communication lies at the heart of medicine, yet we do not always know which specific communication helps patients. Moreover, many complaints…

On 18 september 2018, Claudia Bouteligier defended her doctoral thesis 'Dialoog in recht en literatuur. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. mr. dr. A. Ellian.

Who inspired you to see a subject in a whole new light? The Teacher of the Year Award celebrates those who not only share knowledge but also spark curiosity, connect with students, and bring research to life. Meet the finalists for 2025!

How do children learn to see the world through someone else’s perspective? Max van Duijn, assistant professor at the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS), receives 24,167 euros from the Elise Mathilde Foundation and the Leiden University Fund (LUF). With this grant he will set up a…

Why do children with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have difficulties with acquiring emotion regulation skills; and how is this related to their social impairments and comorbid psychopathology?

Development and validation of instruments that can measure different aspects of emotional competence in children with normal and atypical development, and in different cultures

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

How does having limited access to the social world affect Deaf or Hard of Hearing (DHH) children’s emotional development? And in turn, how do impairments in emotional functioning affect social development and the development of psychopathology?

The overarching aim of this theme is to increase our understanding of the mechanisms underlying altered cognitive, affective, and social behavior in relation to mental health problems.

This PhD project investigates the forms, functions, meanings, and socio-cultural values embedded in Palenda, in order to understand how it reflects and shapes the worldview of the Muna people (Mieno Wuna) through metaphor.

The lecture series 'Humanity in the Automated State' examines how AI and automated systems are transforming government and public administration and what it means to be human within these digitised institutions.

Here I propose to study the relationship between autonomic pupil-synchronisation and trust, at the behavioural and neural level, and examine a targeted set of possible contextual moderators.

Our leadership model consists of four competences that align with our core values. Each leadership competence expresses two opposing qualities. The goal is not to prioritise one of these qualities over the other, but to find the right balance between them. Effective leadership starts with awareness…

The Forensic Family and Youth Care Studies research group conducts innovative high-quality research aiming to gain knowledge about deviant developmental trajectories of vulnerable children, adolescents, and families, about how to prevent problematic development and how to intervene when necessary.

Contemporary Maya Calendars

On this page you will find more information about the selected projects of the Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) Fund for 2026.

Managing a remote team calls for a different leadership style.

What is emotion in human and nonhuman animals? How do emotions get to expression and how do they impact on our interactions, our decisions to trust, distrust or cooperate? Why do we mimic and synchronise affective processes?

Mathematician Stéphanie van der Pas and psychologist Sandy Overgaauw have been nominated for the New Scientist science talent competition, a prize for the most talented scientist in the Netherlands and Flanders.

Every person on earth can read another person’s mind. Not in the way psychics or witches do, but by putting themselves in the shoes of others and considering how they perceive the world. This kind of empathy greatly facilitates communication and interaction. Max van Duijn studies this phenomenon to…

Sandy Overgaauw has been awarded a 25,000 euro grant from the LUF for her research into PTSD in Syrian refugee children in the Netherlands. The research should lead to a screening method that can be used to determine which children are at higher risk of developing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD…

Leiden University social scientists have shown that customised intervention pays off. A new fundamental research-based approach in children who are in danger of going off the rails has delivered spectacular results.

Evidence and Care-work in a home visiting program to promote maternal sensitivity and parental reflective functioning in Alexandra township, Johannesburg, South Africa.

Leiden University neuropsychologists have shown that customised intervention pays off. A new fundamental research-based approach in children who are in danger of going off the rails has delivered spectacular results.

The center studies the many ways in which issues of law and justice are dealt with in art and literature with a focus on liminal issues and cases. These are issues and cases where law comes to the limits of what it is capable of dealing with and art and literature explore the implications of what is…

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How do contemporary authorship and scholarship work together to shape the way that early twentieth century literary and cultural movements are remembered today?

What do ten-year-old children and chatbots have in common? PhD researcher Bram van Dijk studied language development in both children and AI language models. ‘It’s actually quite practical that we attribute human traits to a chatbot.’

The research conducted at the Health, Medical and Neuropsychology unit investigates the psychological factors of health and disease, which allows for the development of innovative treatments.

Primary-school teachers who aren’t Muslim themselves but do have Muslim children in their class sometimes face dilemmas and cultural or religious differences. The ‘Islam in the Classroom’ course at the Leiden Islam Academy can help them resolve these. A new round begins on 9 September.

Dutch politics is becoming increasingly polarised, and forming stable governments seems more difficult than ever. In the heat of the election race, a psychologist and a historian offer cool-headed advice.