PhD Conferral Mrs. Suzanne Brugman, MSc.

Keywords: aggressive behavior, forensic psychiatry, recidivism risk, cognitive predictors

"Will he aggress again? A study on the cognitive predictors of aggressive behavior"

In forensic psychiatry, it is important to carefully assess the recidivism risk of patients going on leave or being released. This is complicated work, because the wrong assessment can have serious consequences for society. In this research we looked for cognitive predictors of aggressive behaviour that could be assessed in a reliable way using computer tasks. We found that measuring cognitive processes (e.g. attention, emotion recognition, interpretation) helps predict aggressive behaviour. In the future these cognitive tasks can possibly be used to support current risk assessment in forensic psychiatry.