Two doctoral fellowships for doing interdisciplinary research on cooperation, trust and morality at CEU

Central European University (CEU) invites applications for two new and fully funded interdisciplinary Joint PhD Fellowships starting in the 2019/2020 academic year (programme: SMASH PRO fellowships).

The Joint PhD Fellowship Scheme

The CEU Joint PhD Fellowship Scheme entails co-supervision by faculty members from the Department of Cognitive Science and Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology. One Fellow will pursue a PhD in Cognitive Science and the other one a PhD in Sociology and Social Anthropology. The PhD students will follow a curriculum that includes courses from both departments being geared towards their acquiring cross-disciplinary training and expertise.

Enrollment
and Funding

Selected
applicants will receive a fully funded standard CEU PhD Scholarship,
see: https://www.ceu.edu/node/13714.
In addition to these standard scholarships, the selected PhD students
will be eligible for the additional funding CEU standardly provides
for PhD students, see:
https://www.ceu.edu/funding-fees/grants-enrolled.

Details
about the Thematic Area

Prosociality
and trust have been characterized across the disciplines as essential
elements in the constitution of human society and culture. On its
part, social anthropology has documented extensively the many forms
prosocial practices—practices that are beneficial to others and
costly to the self—take across cultures and the social conditions
in which people trust others to act prosocially. In turn, cognitive
psychology and behavioral economics have developed theories about the
stable preferences, the desires and motivations that lead people to
make prosocial choices and to trust others. While studies about
prosociality and trust are thriving, they remain to a large extent
constrained within the bounds of academic disciplines.

We
seek candidates who are willing to undertake interdisciplinary
research at the crossroads of the anthropology of morality and
psychology of prosociality. Social anthropology has shown that
prosocial practices can take very different forms, from gift exchange
to alms giving, and from ritual to everyday life. These practices are
integrated in a web of cultural beliefs (moral, religious, economic,
political) and shaped by their relation to other social phenomena.
Anthropologists studying the socio-cultural factors that foster or
sanction prosocial behavior and determine people’s moral judgments
would further benefit from understanding the underlying psychological
processes. By contrast, psychologists have studied prosocial
preferences such as ‘inequity aversion’, ‘preference for
fairness’, ‘aversion to disappointing’, ‘sense of
commitment’, ‘norm abidance’ as psychological factors that
motivate prosocial choices. These preferences have been studied in
controlled, experimental settings where choices are supposedly
disconnected from the cultural environments in which they normally
take place. However, understanding prosocial behavior as it
occurs in social context involves specifying how social institutions
and cultural environment influence the formation of the underlying
preferences and trigger or inhibit prosocial choices.

Guiding
research questions:

- How
do moral
beliefs
influence prosocial behavior in specific cultural contexts? To what
extent are moral beliefs culturally shaped and to what extent are
they constrained by psychological factors?

- Trust
strongly depends on the social institutions in which interactions
occur. When and why do people believe that others will act in a fair
way towards them? How does cultural context modulate trust?

- Cooperation
involves both prosocial behavior and trust. How do they combine? Why
does the level of cooperation vary across task domain and cultures?

Application
Process

Interested
candidates are invited to apply to one of the listed PhD programs
(PhD
in Cognitive Science
or PhD
in Sociology and Social Anthropology),
clearly indicating in the application materials that they are
applying for the Joint PhD Fellowship Social Mind Area Scholarships
on Prosociality and Trust (SMASH PRO) funded by the Intellectual
Themes Initiative.

Applicants
should have a Master degree in psychology, social anthropology or
related fields. They should include a research proposal in their
application that addresses the project thematic through empirical
investigation. The research proposal should be 3 pages long (1.5
spaced) excluding the list of references.

Application
Deadline

January
31, 2019

Important
Links and Contacts

- General CEU application page: https://www.ceu.edu/article/2018-10-05/ceu-applications-now-open-2019-2020

- FAQ page for those who want to find out more about the move to Vienna: https://www.ceu.edu/admissions/legislation-faq

- For the respective doctoral programs and application procedures, see departmental webpages: https://cognitivescience.ceu.edu/ and https://sociology.ceu.edu/

- Potential candidates are welcome to contact the faculty members:

Christophe Heintz (Cognitive Science) heintzc@ceu.edu

Vlad Naumescu (Sociology and Social Anthropology) naumescuv@ceu.edu

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