Research

I am an empirical social scientist studying how human motivation shapes political behavior.

I focus on human motivation because I believe that political scientists and social scientists generally do not pay sufficient attention it. While it is nowadays common for political scientists to draw on psychological theories, their concepts are rarely traced back to their origin in human motivation. As I gained knowledge and practical experience in motivational psychology since my Bachelor’s degree, I aim to raise attention for what motivates us humans. 

I am a social scientist  because my interdisciplinary education convinced me that science is stronger and more efficient if we think and collaborate outside disciplinary boxes. My contributions and publications are primarily in political science, but they aspire to inform social science research more broadly.

I am an empirical social scientist as I believe that current methodological innovations allow us social scientists to provide more robust, transparent, deeper, and extensive evidence to our theories. I work on strengthening social sciences evidence by, for example, examining the same theory through different methods, developing open science practices, and scaling in-depth interviews with automated analyses.

My aim to study how human motivation shapes political behavior becomes apparent in three primary lines of research. First, I focus on how social identities and emotions affect political behavior and, crucially, theorizes their underlying motivation. Second, I take a motivational approach to the long-lasting discussion on the stability of citizens’ political attitudes. Third, I study citizens’ motivations to participate in politics and society more broadly.