In the GOALLAB we are interested in the role that cognition and motivation play in the regulation of social behavior. When the lab was founded in 2004 our research focused on the concept of goals as fundamental basis of human conduct, namely how people set, implement and achieve their goals. Since then, we have broadened our research interests and integrate fundamental and applied topics that relate to challenges that we face in society, such as: how people interact with AI systems, how we can reduce low literacy and encourage children and teenagers to read more, the role of habits and emotions surrounding smartphone use and social media, false beliefs persistence, the essence of smell and well-being, and many more.
We invite you to browse this website to learn more about our lab and the work we do. We describe our research projects in more detail, we share where you can find our published work (e.g., journal articles), our outreach activities and collaborations with stakeholders, in what teaching programs we are involved. And, of course, we introduce our lab members.
The GOALLAB is part of the department of Psychology at Utrecht University in The Netherlands.