About Me

My name is Anouk van der Weiden. Others describe me as reliable and non-judgmental, and ​like to come to me for feedback and a good conversation. Sometimes I may take life a bit ​seriously, but I can also enjoy a good dose of strangeness. I love to discover new things; in ​myself; in others; e.g., in a course on 'theater techniques for education’; trying to learn ​Danish, or fumbling on a surfboard. I do not shy away from my insecurities and like to ​explore my boundaries to keep expanding my comfort zone.

After graduating as a social psychologist, I studied (perceived) action control and self-other ​inclusion. I have studied these topics in interdisciplinary teams, bridging different research ​cultures in social, health, and neuro-psychology, as well as psychiatry. This research has ​been published in high-impact journals and has been awarded with several grants.

In my academic career, I developed a passion for teaching. Drawing from my own learning ​experiences, I always aim to appeal to students’ autonomy by limiting process-control, and ​maximizing guidance in the acquisition of new knowledge and skills through stimulating ​questions and activities.

Critical Literacy

Critical literacy is an essential skill in both research and in our research-based teaching.

In their future careers, Psychology students are often asked for evidence-based advice and ​interventions. This evidence-based advice requires them to critically assess how valid and ​applicable findings and conclusions in scientific articles are.

However, students indicate that they do not yet know how to critically read and apply ​scientific literature. For this purpose, we are developing and testing an online training that is ​aimed at helping students to actively practice critical reading from introduction to discussion, ​and to translate findings into follow-up research and interventions, while receiving immediate ​feedback.

For the full project description and plan, click here.

Teaching

Currently, I am the teaching coordinator of the department of Social, Economic and ​Organisational Psychology at Leiden University, and I teach topics on e.g., group dynamics, ​economic and consumer psychology, autonomy, and dealing with reactance. I teach these ​topics to students in our Bachelor and Masters’ programmes and to professionals via the ​Knowledge Centre Psychology and Economic Behavior. I also supervise thesis projects on ​diverse topics (see Research).

Furthermore, I am constantly involved in evidence-based improvements of our teaching and ​have recently commenced testing the effectiveness of such teaching innovations. In 2022, I ​received a Comenius Teaching Fellowship to develop, implement and test online modules ​that train students in critical reading, application, and writing skills (see Critical Thinking). In ​due course, the modules, practical guidelines, and evaluation reports will be openly shared ​to facilitate implementation in other programmes.

Research

Besides continuing my research on joint action control and experiences of control, I am ​currently studying the effects of several teaching innovations, as well as the role of goal-​directed processes in pro-environmental behavior.

Most recent publications:

van der Weiden, A., Porcu, E., & Liepelt, R. (2022). Action prediction modulates self–other ​integration in joint action. Psychological Research, 87, 537-552.

Kip, A., Blom, D., & van der Weiden, A. (2021). On the course of goal pursuit: The influence of ​goal progress on explicit judgments of self-agency. Consciousness & Cognition, 96, 103222.

van der Weiden, A., Pril, D., Dittrich, K., Richter, J., & Lammers, J. (2021). How vertical elevation ​affects self-other integration as measured by the joint Simon effect. Acta Psychologica, 220, ​103404.