Research EPP

Led by: Anita Jansen

The ‘eating group’ examines causal and maintaining psychological mechanisms of eating disorders and obesity. The research involves a large number of related projects, linked by the overall aim of elucidating the psychological mechanisms of overeating, craving, weight control, dieting, starvation, body loathing and so on. Also, the effects of manipulation of these mechanisms are studied, e.g. in experimental treatment studies. Some current areas of interest include: cognitive processes and biases leading to food cravings and body dissatisfaction, dietary restraint and its role in overeating (is restraint a cause or a consequence of overeating or are both related in another way?), food cue reactivity and overeating/starvation, negative affect and overeating, the learning of taste preferences, sensory-specific satiety, self-control, the willingness to work for food, working memory deficits and excessive drinking, thought-shape fusion, and the cognitive and behavioural treatment of eating disorders and obesity.

For example, in several experiments we found that food cue exposure increases overeating whereas enduring exposure to tasty foods with response prevention, i.e., smelling the food intensely without eating, reduces craving and appetite. It is a very robust and counterintuitive finding; why is appetite reduced after food cue exposure without eating? Also of interest are the clinical implications of this finding.

Another line of research shows that eating disordered patients lack a positive body image bias. Healthy normal females were found to be characterised by a self-serving or rose-coloured interpretation of their own beauty, whereas eating disordered participants appeared to be quite realistic in their own evaluations. Eye movement registrations show that the eating disordered participants in particular focused on their own ‘ugly’ body parts, whereas healthy controls focus on their own ‘beautiful’ body parts. When looking at somebody else, this pattern is reversed: eating disordered participants focus on one others ‘beautiful’ body parts, whereas the healthy controls focus on one others ‘ugly’ body parts. What is the causal status of this looking pattern for body satisfaction? These are just two randomly chosen examples of all the exciting research and thrilling studies of the eating group.

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Led by: Linda van Kleef & Madelon Peters

The Experimental Health Psychology (EHP) research group studies the role of psychological processes in bodily symptoms in humans. It aims at furthering the understanding of psychologic mechanisms underlying health and disease and applies this knowledge to prevention, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation of individuals with ill health.

The three main research lines are:

• pain and pain disorders
• tinnitus and vestibular complaints
• sexual functioning and sexual pain conditions

The approach is primarily experimental and encompasses fundamental research (including psychophysiological studies), prospective longitudinal studies as well as therapeutic intervention studies. A common theme across the various topics is the role of learning processes in the etiology, maintenance, and treatment of bodily symptoms.

Led by: Cor Meesters

The Clinical Psychology section clusters diverse research themes within the field of psychopathology with one common focus: empirically-based studies directly inspired by clinical practice. The section works in close collaboration with mental health care clinics in the Netherlands, where participants for the studies are recruited and tested. Several members of the Clinical Psychology section combine their jobs as researchers with that of therapist at the Academic RIAGG Maastricht, in the anxiety, mood, personality disorders or children and adolescence programmes. This enables them to witness first-handed what the clinical field is most in want of and to set up studies that are of high importance and relevance to clinical practice.

The studies carried out in the Clinical Psychology section include both experimental laboratory and therapy-effectiveness studies. The research lines of the members of the section focus around four themes: personality disorders, anxiety disorders, mood disorders and developmental disorders. Examples of current research topics are cognitive models and treatment of borderline personality disorders, psychopathy and aggression (personality disorder group); social evaluation of social phobics, conditioning and treatment approaches (anxiety disorder group); mechanisms of change and therapy-effectiveness of depression treatment (mood disorder group); and internalising and externalising disorders, anxiety, depression and personality in youngsters (developmental disorder group).

At present, the members of the Clinical Psychology section are either full (1), associate (1) or assistant professors (5), post-docs (1) or PhD students. Since the staff is relatively young and enthusiastic, this group has a strong potential to grow.

Members of our group teach in the master Mental Health, Adult and Child tracks (Faculty of Health Medicine and Life Sciences, UM); the Research Master Psychopathology (Faculty of Psychology and Neuropsychology, UM); and at Rino Zuid (post-doctoral training for Health Psychologist and Clinical Psychologist).

The Forensic Psychology Section strives to generate knowledge that serves to enhance the quality of legal decision making in both criminal and civil cases. Our mission is to describe, explain, predict, and provide solutions for legal and forensic psychological issues that have a real impact on the lives of victims, suspects, offenders and on professional practice. We aim to create quality in legal and forensic psychology and to train young psychologists to work in the field of criminal and civil law. Thus, our research focuses on core investigative procedures (e.g., interrogation), decision making (e.g., eyewitness testimony, expert bias), and forensic risk assessment (e.g., predicting recidivism).

To find out more about our activities visit the Forensic Psychology Section webpage.