TESC colloquium – Jonas Everaert

‘Resolving ambiguity in everyday life: A longitudinal investigation of the nature and socio-affective consequences of inflexible negative interpretations linked to depressive symptoms’

Colloquium by Jonas Everaert, Tilburg University, Departement of Medical and Clinical Psychology, and KU Leuven

Everyday life is replete with ambiguity, especially when it comes to social situations. People need to interpret such ambiguity to make sense of what is happening around them and to understand the implications for their own lives. But how do people interpret ambiguity and what happens if this goes awry? In this presentation, I will present the design and results from an EMA study examining inflexibility in how people revise negative interpretations of social situations and whether this engenders depressive symptoms by undermining people’s ability to successfully navigate the social world.

Bio: Jonas is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Medical and Clinical Psychology. He received his PhD from Ghent University. Before joining Tilburg University, he completed postdoctoral fellowships at Ghent and Yale University. He aims to understand how people make sense of ambiguous social situations and what happens if this goes awry. Jonas’ research bridges cognitive, affective, and social science approaches to uncover the nature, causes, and effects of biased interpretations and inflexible belief revision to develop transdiagnostic and transtherapeutic models of psychopathology.