February 9, 2024

I am honored to be part of the faculty at the summer school on “The Human Mind and the Open Society”. The two-week course takes place at the Central European University in Budapest and focuses on the adaptability of the human mind to the quirks of contemporary human social environments (or the other way round).
Course dates are July 8–19. Find more information here »»

December 28, 2023

Ana Macanovic, with whom I worked together for the past four and a half years, will publicly defend her PhD dissertation "Trust in the Shadows: The Role of Communication in Extra-Legal Contexts" at the Utrecht University Hall, on April 19, 2024.
Access the livestrem as from 10:15 here »»

December 27, 2023

Yes, there is! I am very pleased that this paper, coauthored with Ana Macanovic, has now found its home. Using state-of-the-art text mining methods, we show how online markets for illegal goods are morally embedded in the motivational landscape of voluntary information exchange through reputation systems.
Open access to full paper here »»

December 26, 2023

Happy to be part of the organizing team of the International Meeting on Experimental and Behavioral Social Sciences (IMEBESS). The conference takes place in Riga at the University of Latvia.
Abstract submission is open, and the full program will be published in due time here: »»

September 15, 2023

Ruohuang Jiao, with whom I worked together for the past four (plus) years, will publicly defend her PhD dissertation "Reputation effects in peer-to-peer online markets: meta-analyses and laboratory experiments" at the Utrecht University Hall, on November 24, 2023.
Access the livestrem as from 16:15 here »»

August 11, 2023

Excited to present my latest work at the ODISSEI Conference for Social Science. The conference brings together “computational social scientists to discuss data, methods, infrastructure, ethics, and theoretical work related to digital and computational approaches in social science research.”
See the full program here »»

July 31, 2023

Kasper Otten, with whom I worked together for the past four years, will publicly defend his PhD dissertation "Cooperation in changing groups" at the Utrecht University Hall, on September 8, 2023.
Access the livestrem as from 12:15 here »»

June 26, 2023

I have been kindly invited to take part in a plenary discussion on "Theory Testing and Replicative Research" at the first workshop of the working group "Methodology in the Social Sciences" organized by the Academy of Sociology.
See the full program here »»

May 2, 2023

Financed by the Dutch Science Foundation (NWO), this exact, multilab replication of a study by Gürerk, Irlenbusch, and Rockenbach published in Science in 2006, has now been published.
Open access to full paper here »»

March 12, 2023

Happy to be part of the revival of the International Meeting on Experimental and Behavioral Social Sciences (IMEBESS). The conference takes place in Lisbon at the Lisbon School of Economics & Management.
See the full program here »»

October 27, 2022

Hot off the press our paper on how group changes affect cooperation. We analyze a large dataset from an online public goods game comprising around 1.5 million contribution decisions made by 135 thousand players in 11.3 thousand groups with 234 thousand recorded changes in the composition of these groups. We find that changes in group composition negatively relate to cooperation in public good provision, mainly because newcomers contribute less than incumbents. During the process of moving from newcomer status to incumbent status, individuals increase their contribution to the public good.
Open access to full paper here »»

September 15, 2022

Proud to be awarded the Ig Nobel Peace Prize 2022 together with ten other colleagues. The prize recognizes creativity and humor, two dwindling ingredients of scientific inquiry in times of crises and impact.
Watch the full award ceremony here »»