项目介绍

2025年5月15日

The Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR) is looking for a highly motivated PhD candidate for the project “Nutrition Confusion in a Social Media World: Understanding the determinants and consequences of nutrition confusion to develop tools to empower emerging adults in healthy food choices”. The four-year PhD position is embedded within the Persuasive Communication Program Group, and will be supervised by Prof. Dr. Edith Smit, Dr. Monique Alblas (daily supervisor), and Dr.ir. Alain Starke.

On a daily basis, we are confronted with information that influences our food choices. Most people are also frequently exposed to nutrition information on social media, where brands, ‘foodfluencers’, and other people claim what is right for us and which food decisions we should make. Nutritional information on social media is often inaccurate, may conflict with information from other online and offline sources, and is sometimes misleading – for instance, when fueled by (hidden) commercial goals. This overload of inaccurate, conflicting, and misleading nutritional information from various sources may lead to nutrition confusion as well as ‘nutritional backlash’, i.e., negative beliefs or mistrust of information about nutrition research and recommendations. Even though emerging adults often want to make healthier food choices, such confusion and mistrust may result in lower self-efficacy to make healthy food choices, and potentially no dietary change or even unhealthier food decisions.

This versatile PhD project aims to better understand and reduce nutrition confusion, using a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods. You will first study the determinants and consequences of nutrition confusion by conducting semi-structured interviews with users of social media and nutrition experts. Subsequently, you will perform quantitative research by administering a survey to unveil relations between determinants of nutrition confusion and individuals’ beliefs and behavior. Finally, you will develop tools to empower emerging adults’ healthy dietary decision making in an information-complex environment and test these tools experimentally.

What are you going to do

• Manage the research project, including scheduling meetings with the supervisory team, preparing agendas, and documenting research activities;
• Design and conduct three to four empirical studies as part of the project;
• Write academic articles for publication in high-impact scientific journals, and present study findings at (inter)national conferences;
• Contribute to the ASCoR research community by participating in meetings, workshops, and lectures;
• Support teaching activities at the Bachelor’s level (up to approximately 10% of your time).

What do you have to offer

You are:

• Intellectually curious and eager to learn;
• Able to adapt to challenges with resilience and creativity;
• Passionate about making a societal contribution through your research;
• Familiar with both qualitative and quantitative research methods, including good statistical skills to analyse data;
• A team player with strong interpersonal skills for building contacts with academics and (external) stakeholders;
• Interested in conducting communication scientific research on social media, nutrition, and health;

You have:

• A (Research) Master’s degree in one of the social and behavioral sciences, such as Communication Science, Psychology, Health Sciences or a related discipline, or expect to obtain it soon;
• A track record in setting up surveys and online experimental research, as well as analyzing collected data from such research in software such as SPSS or R;
• Hands-on experience with qualitative (e.g., focus groups, interviews) research methods;
• Scientific creativity and productivity, a proactive attitude, openness to feedback, and attentive to detail;
• The ability to work both independently and as part of a team;
• An excellent command of English, both spoken and written, and have proficiency in Dutch or a willingness to learn;
• The willingness to adhere to the principles of Open Science.

What else do we offer you

The Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR) is the research institute for the Communication Science department at the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences. We offer a dynamic and inspiring work environment with a variety of duties and ample scope for your own initiative and further professional development and education.

To work at the University of Amsterdam is to work in a discerning, independent, creative, innovative, and international climate characterized by an open atmosphere and a genuine engagement with the city of Amsterdam and society. Here you can read more about working at the University of Amsterdam.

Specifically, we offer you:

• a position in which initiative and input are highly valued;
• an enthusiastic, ambitious and warm team that is open to new colleagues;
• an inspiring academic and international working environment in the heart of Amsterdam.
• the opportunity to take Dutch language courses