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PhD Student: Xinyao Zhang MSc

Polarization, a societal phenomenon characterized by profound and persisting divisions in attitudes, affect, and social behaviors, poses challenges to democracy and social cohesion. This PhD project seeks to uncover the underlying individual and group-level mechanisms involved in societal polarization, with a specific focus on biased information processing and its interactions with group-level norms. By combining self-report measures and neuroimaging techniques such as fMRI, the project aims to elucidate the cognitive processes underpinning biased information processing and sharing. Subsequently, based on the acquired insights, this project will utilize a combination of web-based and/or laboratory experiments to identify and compare interventions designed to facilitate depolarization. The project will provide innovative insights into both the polarization theory and social neuroscience methodologies, while also developing interventions with broader applicability for promoting societal depolarization.

X. (Xinyao) Zhang

PhD Student

Dr. G. (Gijs) Schumacher

Supervisor

Dr. B.N. (Bert) Bakker

Supervisor

Dr. C. (Christin) Scholz

Supervisor