2 PhD positions in Psychophysiological Stress Responses and Subjective Experiences in Aggressive Interactions at Tilburg University Tilburg University in Netherlands

Tilburg University is advertising 2 PhD positions within the NWA-funded project “De-escalating Aggressive Encounters between Frontline Workers and Citizens (DE-ESCALATING)”. The positions are based in the Tilburg School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Department of Developmental Psychology, and focus on stress, behavior, and decision-making in real-life social interactions.

The project is highly interdisciplinary and combines psychophysiology, stress responses, multimodal data integration, behavioral observation, video analysis, qualitative research, surveys, and field experiments. It aims to understand how aggressive encounters escalate and how they can be de-escalated, with direct relevance for frontline workers such as police officers, public transport staff, service workers, and healthcare professionals.

PhD Position 1 focuses on physiological stress responses, including heart rate, arousal, and other psychophysiological signals, and how these relate to behavior and de-escalation in context. PhD Position 2 focuses on subjective experiences, perceived threat, emotions, cognition, and decision-making, and how these connect to physiological and behavioral data.

The post emphasizes collaboration with academic and societal partners, including regular in-person meetings at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam laboratory of Prof. dr. Marie Rosenkrantz Lindegaard. The work includes independent research, data collection, statistical/computational analysis, publications, conference presentations, open science, and some teaching/supervision duties.

Eligibility highlights: a relevant MSc degree is required, along with motivation, curiosity, proactivity, and interest in multidisciplinary research. The vacancy is for full-time PhD employment and is funded by the NWA project.

Funding: full-time appointment (1.0 fte), initial 12-month contract with extension to 36 months, and a gross monthly salary of €3,059–€3,881.

Deadline: 2026-06-08.

Interested candidates should review the vacancy text and apply via the provided application link.