Maaike Homan is a postdoctoral researcher in the Organisational Behaviour Group, chaired by Prof Naomi Ellemers. My research focuses on the role of emotions in society and politics. More specifically, I examine the interplay between individuals’ physiological changes in their body and their subjective feelings and attitudes in response to societal challenges, political issues, and politicians. In my current postdoc project, I specifically investigate how challenges in society such as immigration, the climate crisis, and gender equality,  can elicit physiological stress responses in individuals. Furthermore, I examine how these physiological responses affect how we form our opinions about these challenges. I research this by using a variety of physiological measurements both in the lab and in the field. 

During my PhD at the Hot Politics Lab at the University of Amsterdam, I focused on the role of emotional (non-verbal) communication of politicians and how voters respond to this, during survey and lab experiments, using physiological (fEMG, skin conductance, eye-tracking) and neuroscientific (EEG) measurements.