| Job specification: |
- Following funding of the project “When you say “women collaborate more”, do I hear you say that men do not collaborate? Consequences of communicators’ choices of comparative formats in messages about social groups” by the Special Research Fund of KU Leuven – University of Leuven (C14/19/56), we have an opening for a four-year fully-funded predoctoral position in the Centre for Social and Cultural Psychology (CSCP) of KU Leuven – University of Leuven, Belgium.
- The project focuses on observers’ responses to verbal claims about social groups as a function of the extent to, and the manner in which the claim renders the underlying intergroup comparison explicit. People who read or hear messages about similarities and differences between social groups may respond differently to messages that are logically equivalent but that are worded differently (e.g., ‘Women are more intuitive than men’ vs ‘Men are less intuitive than women’).
- The project’s results will thus contribute to the understanding of why some messages entail stereotype change whereas others do not, will yield recommendations for communication training, and will help the general audience analyze media messages.
- The project consists of a series of experiments where the main independent variable is the comparative format of stimulus claims and dependent variables include both self-report and implicit measures. The claims will mainly pertain to stereotypes of gender and age groups. The PhD candidate will conduct the experiments in the project (with sufficient room for creative contribution) and report the results in international journals and at national and international conferences. S/he will devote a small part of his/her time (10% max) in educational tasks (e.g., supervising exams, coaching tutorials) and will co-supervise master’s theses about specific studies in the project.
|