jSchool 2021: Applications closed.

We would like to thank everyone who has applied to the 2021 jSchool!

The jSchool offers the chance to gain valuable experience in designing cross-cultural research in small groups under supervision of early-career researchers. The event is a platform for psychology students to conduct research in an international setting and in their field of interest, with the aim to produce meaningful insights suitable for publication in scientific journals.

How to apply

Applications for the 2021 jSchool have now closed. Applications for jSchool 2022 will open in spring 2022. All information on how to apply will be shared on our website and social media channels..

Dates & Format

This year’s jSchool will run from the 6th July to the 11th July 2021. 

In light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the JRP team has taken the decision to substitute the jSchool 2021 in Siena with a virtual jSchool, allowing students to participate from the comfort of their home.

Theme

The theme of jSchool 2021 is Inequality: Behavioural science to confront systemic and social barriers.

Projects

An intersectional lens to the theory of planned behaviour (Supervisor: Sanne Verra)

Sanne Verra is a PhD candidate at the Department of Interdisciplinary Social Science at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. Her PhD aims to understand how multiple, time-varying, interlinked environmental conditions, in interaction with individual factors, contribute to socioeconomic inequalities in health and health behaviours. Sanne has a background in European Public Health and Public Policy and Human Development (Maastricht University), and gained experience leading behavioural experiments at the municipality of The Hague.

Project details

Socioeconomic, racial/ethnic, and gender inequalities in health behaviour persist worldwide. Personal factors (such as race and gender) that influence health inequalities are often studied in isolation. In reality, individual experiences are not restricted to one layer of (dis)advantage alone. The multiplication of layers of personal factors (i.e. being female x Black x low income) allows us to uncover deprivations that are greater than the sum of their single-factor parts. This research project uses an intersectional approach to examine inequalities in subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, attitudes, and healthy eating behavior at intersections of advantage and disadvantage. This may allow us to uncover systemic inequalities in health behaviour. 

Framing equality: The role of choice framing on attitudes towards progressive taxation (Supervisor: Silvia Filippi)

Silvia Filippi is a first-year PhD student in Psychological Sciences at the University of Padua. Her main research interests are economic inequality and wealth redistribution. Specifically, her project focuses on the role of linguistic frames in shaping people’s attitudes towards progressive taxation and tax compliance. She is also interested in topics related to gender equality, collaborating with Utrecht University and University of Amsterdam (UvA).

Project details

The gap between the rich and the poor is increasing and negatively impacting a raft of social and health outcomes. Nevertheless, people’s desire for greater equity rarely translates into support for concrete redistribution strategies such as progressive taxation, an effective tool for reducing economic inequalities. Therefore, investigating the barriers to endorsing progressive taxation is crucial. Furthermore, little attention has been given to the role of framing (i.e., the way taxes are presented to citizens). The aim of this project is to identify the barriers to endorsing progressive taxation through the lens of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (focusing on the role of social norms, attitudes and perceived behavioural control), as well as to shed light on the effect of tax choice framing on people’s tax compliance.

Predicting support or a lack thereof: How do policymakers navigate the highly polarised public policy space? (Supervisor: Jelka Stojanov)

Jelka Stojanov is a DPhil (PhD) candidate at the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford and an Applied Behavioural Scientist at the Center for Policy Innovation. Her research centres around the question of how group membership, social context, and (meta-)stereotypes disrupt different psychological processes, primarily emotion perception and empathy. She is equally interested in understanding behavioural consequences of these processes (e.g., intergroup harm) as well as designing and evaluating interventions to reduce intergroup bias in different domains.

Project details

Public opinion is known to shape public policies, especially when the policy issue at stake is highly salient. However, little is known about the psychological factors influencing public attitudes to specific policy approaches and interventions. Even though policymakers are generally considered adept at predicting responses to policies even in the absence of up-to-date, representative data, gauging public support for a particular policy in increasingly polarised environments, where disagreements and animosities are amplified, might be a challenge. In this project, we will investigate both public responses to different policy approaches, as well as how these relate to the policymakers’ predictions about public opinion. which together has the potential to inform efforts to effectively communicate with and include the public in the policymaking process.

Contact us

Before getting in touch with us, please have a look at our Student Application Guide and Frequently Asked Questions.

If you think you still do not have an answer to your question, please get in touch with the jSchool Team via email at [email protected].