I started my research position in OIST in January 2022. Before, I have been studying psychology and psychotherapy science and worked as a psychotherapist in Vienna. My specialization is systemic therapy. I have chosen this specialization because I am interested in understanding how psychological change can be enabled from the systems perspective, i.e., taking into account how individuals are embedded in networks of social relations. While many other schools of psychology and psychotherapy limit their focus to intrapsychic events, systemic therapy pays greater attention to the systems in which individuals are living, utilizing the ecology of mind.
This interest has led me to my current research project on the
Social dynamics and evolution of incentive cultures utilizing fear, shame, and guilt.
In this project, I am trying to understand how social sentiments such as fear, shame, and guilt regulate selfish behavior and promote cooperation. For this work, I am developing and analyzing agent-based models in the burgeoning field of psychological game theory. More details are described below.
The smooth functioning of societies critically depends on cooperative behaviors protecting multiple common goods. For example, cooperative behaviors are required for civil security and the rule of law, for systems supporting childcare, health, and retirement, for collective enterprises and economic growth, as well as for sustainable development and environmental stewardship. Since all cooperative behaviors are highly vulnerable to free-riding and cheating, societies must evolve and maintain systems of positive and negative incentives through which, respectively, cooperators are rewarded and non-cooperators are punished. Such incentives can be either material or social: while the former impact the material status of agents, including their physical wellbeing, the latter impact their social status, often in the form of altering their reputation, which may affect their mental wellbeing as well as the further development of their material status.
