Robert Renes Email & Phone Number

Amsterdam, Nh, Nl

Utrecht Area, Netherlands

I teach psychology and research methodology in a Liberal Arts & Sciences setting, supervise bachelor theses of students, and I tutor a group of students to guide/nurture their personal and academic development.

Utrecht, The Netherlands

In my PhD project I researched the experience of agency, the feeling that we are in control of our own actions and their outcomes. Although this feeling comes very naturally, it is a fundamental aspect of our sense of self. Without experiencing responsibility over outcomes, learning becomes very difficult, we would struggle to distinguish ourselves from others, and we cannot hold each other responsible for actions in a court of law. In my project I examined processes involved in the experience of agency by means of scientic experiments. Not only did I collect behavioral data, but I also measured brain activity related to these behaviors by using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Additionally, I examined how agency experiences function in people afflicted by schizophrenia - a disease commonly associated with disturbances in agency processing (e.g., they often hear voices). By examining the sense of agency in these patients I have tried to gain a better understanding of their fundamental problems, with the eventual goal of reducing the symptoms in patients with schizophrenia.

Master’S Degree, Social And Health Psychology, 8.0

Bachelor’S Degree, Social Psychology

Minor in statistics (Multivariate, Multilevel, Meta-analysis, I-R theory)