Biography
In general terms, I investigate context effects in judgments and decision making from a social cognitive perspective. As a master student at the University of Heidelberg I investigated with Herbert Bless, Michaela Waenke, and Norbert Schwarz assimilation and contrast effects in social judgments (Bless, Igou, Schwarz, & Waenke, 2000; Waenke, Bless, & Igou, 2001). Almost parallel to this research, I developed an interest in the impact of conversational rules on information processing. This interest is especially reflected in my dissertation, in which I investigated the impact of conversational rules on the emergence of order effects in one- and two-sided communications (Igou & Bless, 2003, 2007).
Towards the end of my PhD education at the University of Heidelberg I became interested in affective forecasting. Specifically, I investigated how lay theories about the progression of affect (continuity vs. decrease) and how different perspectives (self vs. other) influence the predictions that people make about affective states (Igou, 2004, 2008).
During my post-doctoral fellowship at New York University (2002-2004) I started working with Yaacov Trope on affective influences on self-regulation. Specifically, we were interested in how positive mood influences self-control dilemmas in self-evaluative situations (Gervey, Igou, & Trope, 2005; Trope, Igou, & Burke, 2006).
After my post-doc I joined Tilburg University (The Netherlands). There I continued to work on most of the topics mentioned above and I developed an interest in the effects of decision frames (gains vs. losses) on decisions (Igou & Bless, 2007), the impact of construal levels (high vs. low) on judgments, and how subjective experiences (easy vs. difficult recall) influence attitudes. At Tilburg University, I became interested in the effects of existential concerns (through mortality and life salience) on worldview defense (e.g., ideological judgments; Van Tilburg & Igou, 2011).
In August of 2008, I joined the Department of Psychology at the University of Limerick (Ireland), which is a newly formed and growing department. It is our goal to make the University of Limerick an exciting and well-known environment for top-quality (social) psychological research. Here, I developed the Social Cognition & Decision Making Lab group, which mainly investigates the effects of specific positive and specific negative emotions on judgments and decisions. For example, my former PhD student Wijnand van Tilburg and I investigated the effects of boredom on people's sense of meaningfulness of life and their activities (Van Tilburg & Igou, 2011) and how these effects of boredom in turn lead to meaning-repair attempts such as social identification with one's in-group (Van Tilburg & Igou, 2011). Together with Constantine Sedikides we also showed that boredom increases nostalgia as one form of meaning-repair strategy (Van Tilburg, Igou, & Sedikides, in press).
Research Interests
In general terms, I investigate context effects in judgements and decision making from a social cognitive perspective. As a master student at the University of Heidelberg I investigated with Herbert Bless, Michaela Waenke, and Norbert Schwarz assimilation and contrast effects in social judgements. Almost parallel to this research, I developed an interest in the impact of conversational rules on information processing. This interest is especially reflected in my dissertation, in which I investigated the impact of conversational rules on the emergence of order effects in one- and two-sided communications. Towards the end of my PhD education at the University of Heidelberg I became interested in affective forecasting. Specifically, I investigated how lay theories about the progression of affect (continuity vs. decrease) and how different perspectives (self vs. other) influence the predictions that people make about affective states. During my post-doctoral fellowship at New York University (2002-2004) I started working with Yaacov Trope on affective influences on self-regulation. Specifically, we were interested in how positive mood influences self-control dilemmas in self-evaluative situations. After my post-doc I joined Tilburg University (The Netherlands). There I continued to work on most of the topics mentioned above and I developed an interest in the effects of decision frames (gains vs. losses) on decisions (Igou & Bless, 2007), the impact of construal levels (high vs. low) on judgments, and how subjective experiences (easy vs. difficult recall) influence attitudes. More recently, I also became interested in the effects of existential concerns (through mortality and life salience) on worldview defense (e.g., ideological judgements). Very recently I joined the Department of Psychology at the University of Limerick (Ireland), which is a newly formed and growing department. It is our goal to make the University of Limerick an exciting and well-known environment for top-quality (social) psychological research. Current members of my (social cognition & decision making) lab at the University of Limerick are two postgraduate students: Frederieke van Dongen (BA degree from Tilburg University; lab member since 2007) & Wijnand van Tilburg (Research Master degree from Tilburg University; lab member since 2006)
Professional Activities
Association
- , American Psychological Society (APS)
- , Deutsche Gesellschaft für Psychologie (DGfP)
- , European Association of Social Psychology (EASP)
- , International Social Cognition Network
- , Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP)