Internships

We welcome national and international students who wish to undertake a research internship in our lab.

There are many projects in social neuroscience running in the lab, offering numerous opportunities for interns. We support interns who wish to apply for grants, such as ERASMUS+. Please check with your university the financial supports you can access before applying. Our faculty provides support to international students (e.g., housing, VISA), which you can learn more about here: https://www.ugent.be/pp/en/exchange-students#Contact

Below, you will find some internship positions that will open in the coming months. Internships involve physical presence in the lab and active participation, we don’t accept remote internships. If you are interested, please contact us and send your CV and a motivation letter. The duration of the internship must be agreed upon with the responsible researcher and the head of the lab. Depending on the length of the internship, interns may be given varying levels of autonomy to conduct research projects, either independently or under guidance. Typically, research internships last between 3 and 9 months. Most of the internships are in English, but some internships with special populations such as inmates/prison guards require knowing French and/or Dutch. If you are interested, please send your CV and a motivation letter to Emilie.Caspar@Ugent.be, along with the proposed topic, the expected start and end dates of the internship, and the type of financial support you may have access to.

Please note that internship positions in Belgium are unpaid, as they are part of the standard Master’s curriculum. Before applying, make sure you can cover your stay through a grant, such as the Erasmus+ program.

Internship #2: Turning a blind eye: using immersive virtual reality (IVR) and neurophysiology to investigate bystander intervention and whistleblowing when prison guards witness violent misconduct by colleagues

This mixed-methods study will examine how prison guards and inmates perceive—and respond to—misconduct by both inmates and officers, and which individual and organizational factors predict a guard’s self-reported likelihood to intervene or report. In Phase 1, semi-structured interviews (in Flemish and French) with inmates and guards will generate a comprehensive inventory of misconduct behaviors and refine illustrative scenarios. In Phase 2, a separate sample of guards will rate each scenario on frequency, perceived severity, willingness to intervene, and willingness to report; they will also complete validated measures of demographics, personality (conscientiousness, agreeableness, Machiavellianism), empathy, self-efficacy, procedural/distributive justice perceptions, and supervisor support. Quantitative modeling will identify key predictors of intervention and reporting, drawing on bystander intervention, whistleblowing, and counterproductive work behavior frameworks. Finally, focus groups will translate the most prevalent and impactful scenarios into scripts for immersive virtual-reality simulations to be used in later stages of the project. By uncovering the traits and cultural pressures that keep guards from speaking up, this study will inform practical strategies to encourage reporting and help correctional staff uphold high ethical standards on the job. French and or Dutch will be considered as asset for this position.

Internship #3: Individual differences in resistance to immoral orders

Imagine a situation where someone orders you to do something immoral. Would you comply, or would you disobey? Some people are more likely to disobey those orders than others. This is called prosocial disobedience, meaning that they will not allow being coerced into causing pain to another person. Some cognitive processes, such as feeling of responsibility or sense of agency were already identified using different imaging studies (e.g. Caspar et al., 2021a). Milgram’s experiments on obedience have shown that situational and social factors play a role when it comes to obedience. Caspar et al. (2021b) introduced a new paradigm that eliminated the need for cover stories, and which is adaptable to neuroscientific methods to investigate disobedience, giving the field a new boost. Individual differences that could support disobedience have not yet been invested thoroughly. In this project, you will investigate individual differences that could help explain the difference in disobedience to immoral orders that exists between people.

Internship #4: What guides individual priorities toward ecological or social behaviors? A cross-cultural online study.

Climate change and its significant consequences are now widely recognized and affect all regions of the world. Despite the immediate and future threats of climate change to human well-being and lifestyle, collective or individual awareness remains insufficient to counter this crisis. Identifying and understanding the processes involved in the (lack of) behavioral change is a major challenge. Indeed, understanding how individuals decide to act in a pro-environmental manner remains unclear. Based on social psychology theories, our hypothesis is that pro-environmental behaviors have a pro-social dimension, involving similar cognitive processes. But it becomes less clear what would happen if individuals are exposed to dilemmas that include both social and ecological components (e.g., taking a flight to support refugees of a natural disaster or avoid the trip to reduce their carbon footprint). Thus, the aim of our research project is to investigate how individuals will rank ecological and social behaviors according to their moral judgment, and which factors influence this prioritization. We will particularly focus on age, gender, education level, nationality or ethnicity, socio-economic status (SES), belief or religiosity, political ideology, and cultural habits relating to ecology.

For this project, we are looking for a student to conduct an online behavioral study exploring decision-making related to environmental or social actions. The student should have quite strong programming skills in order to finalize the coding of the online task (currently written in Python and needing to be exportable to JavaScript). They will then be responsible for sharing and disseminating the task as widely as possible in order to reach a diversified sample of participants. Preliminary exploratory analyses of the initial results obtained will also need to be conducted.

As this is a collaborative project between Professor E. Caspar (UGent, Belgium) and Dr. L. Tricoche (INRIA Bordeaux, France), the student will need to demonstrate a good degree of autonomy and be comfortable with partially remote supervision.

Internship #5: The cognitive processes of pro-environmental decision-making in children and adolescents: is acting for the environment acting for others?

Climate change and its considerable consequences are now widely recognized and affect all regions of the world. Despite the immediate and future threats that climate change poses to human well-being and lifestyles, collective and individual awareness remains insufficient to counter this crisis. Identifying and understanding the processes involved in (the absence of) behavioral change is a major challenge. Indeed, how individuals decide to act in a pro-environmental way remains poorly understood. Based on theories from social psychology, our hypothesis is that pro-environmental behaviors have a pro-social dimension, involving similar cognitive processes. A first study conducted in adults has provided initial proof of concept and supported our hypotheses. For this second phase of the project, we are looking for students to conduct a behavioral and EEG (electroencephalography) study exploring decision-making related to environmental or social actions. This study will be conducted with adolescents and children in order to investigate developmental differences. The objectives of the internship will be: 1) to recruit and test participants for this study. Students will receive training in EEG methodology; 2) to carry out initial analyses (at least behavioral) and obtain preliminary results.

As this is a collaborative project between Professor E. Caspar (UGent, Belgium) and Dr. L. Tricoche (INRIA Bordeaux, France), students will need to demonstrate a good level of autonomy and be comfortable with partially remote supervision. In addition, as this is an imaging project involving minors, students must be able to adapt to a young population and demonstrate resilience and commitment throughout the internship.

Internship #6: The neuro-cognitive processes of prosocial disobedience across development

Previous studies tried to understand why and how individuals follow orders given by authority, even if this order is socially immoral; and in which extent some of these individuals are able to disobey (=prosocial disobedience), preventing them from being coerced into causing pain to others. Conducting imaging studies (EEG, fMRI), the neural signature of obedience/disobedience was investigated and involvement of different cognitive processes where identified among which empathy or sense of agency. But how these processes develop across ages still remain unknown. In this project, we will investigate the neuro-cognitive processes associated with prosocial disobedience in children and/or adolescents using behavioral (and EEG) experiments. Participants will be tested in a modified version of the disobedience paradigm, compatible with a minor population. Motivation and patience will be necessary in this project involving children. The objectives of the internship will be: 1) to recruit and test participants for this study. If necessary, students will receive training in EEG methodology; 2) to carry out initial analyses (at least behavioral) and obtain preliminary results.

As this is a collaborative project between Professor E. Caspar (UGent, Belgium) and Dr. L. Tricoche (INRIA Bordeaux, France), students will need to demonstrate a good level of autonomy and be comfortable with partially remote supervision.