Prosocial behavior Archives

Sophie Sweijen is a postdoctoral researcher in the Erasmus SYNC lab. Using her background in developmental cognitive neuroscience, Sophie wants to make societal impact as a scientific researcher to help young individuals thrive in their social environment. Sophie works on the collaborative project PraatPower with MIND Us – an initiative focused on mental health among young individuals – in which societal dialogues will be held aimed to empower youth and mental health.

Under supervision of prof. dr. Eveline Crone, dr. Suzanne van de Groep, and dr. Lysanne te Brinke, Sophie worked on her PhD from 2021 to 2025 (defense planned on September 12, 2025) on prosocial behavior and societal contributions during adolescence. During her PhD, Sophie coordinated data collection of two longitudinal project. First, she coordinated and supervised the third wave of the behavioral and MRI data collection of the Brainlinks project, in which the aim was to examine the behavioral and neural development of prosocial behavior across adolescence. Second, together with the research team, Sophie set up and coordinated the online behavioral Urban Rotterdam Project, from the first wave in May 2020 to the ninth wave in October 2024. This project was initially set up to monitor young individuals’ wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic, but has subsequently been extended into a project consisting of nine waves across four years to monitor the development, wellbeing, and societal engagement among young people in the Rotterdam area.

During her PhD, Sophie also worked as a researcher on two projects commissioned by the Ministery of OCW, in which she implemented the YoungXperts method. First, she collaborated with Trimbos, ECIO, Pharos, and Utrecht University in a project on performance pressure among mbo-students. In addition, Sophie collaborated with ECBO to examine the needs of mbo-students for equal opportunities in their education. In these projects, Sophie organized focus groups with students and implemented a new participatory research tool, which was developed in co-creation with youth (workers), to come up with ‘take actions’ (solutions) together with young individuals themselves to improve their wellbeing.

Lysanne te Brinke is an Assistant Professor at the Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences of Erasmus University Rotterdam. Her research focuses on understanding how the interplay between inter-personal and inter-societal experiences and expectations may leads to adaptive (i.e., community engagement, contributing to society) and maladaptive outcomes (i.e., displaying antisocial behavior, feeling excluded from society). She is currently working on an individual VENI grant (NWO) to examine how adolescents can become agents of change, by zooming on contributions to close others and contributions to the broader society.

Suzanne van de Groep is an assistant professor at the department of Psychology, Education, and Child Studies at Erasmus University Rotterdam and affiliated with the Erasmus SYNC Lab. Her research mainly focuses on the behavioral and neural development of prosocial behaviors in adolescence.

Prosocial behaviors (i.e., behaviors that benefit others) such as giving, cooperating, and helping are essential for forming and maintaining social relationships, which is an important developmental goal in adolescence. Suzanne’s work specifically focuses on the development of different types of prosocial behaviors, and how this is shaped by social contexts and individual differences. Her most recent endeavors include the investigation of social temporal discounting, online prosocial behaviors, longitudinal brain development within individuals related to giving, as well as adolescents’ wellbeing.

Suzanne has a background in developmental psychology and completed her research masters in Leiden in 2016 (cum laude). During her PhD, Suzanne has played a large role in setting up an ERC consolidator project called ‘Brainlinks’, a longitudinal three-wave fMRI study in which 142 adolescents and their parents were followed over the course of several years. To gain a better understanding of prosocial development, this project includes fMRI tasks, experimental tasks, questionnaires, hormone data, and daily diaries (see Projects for a video on the Brainlinks project). In February 2022, she defended her PhD dissertation called ‘Growing in Generosity? Unraveling the effects of benefactor-, beneficiary-, and situational characteristics on the development of giving and its neural correlates in adolescence’, which was supervised by Prof. Eveline Crone and Dr. Kiki Zanolie. After her PhD, she did a 9-month postdoc at the Erasmus SYNC lab to extend her fundamental developmental neuroscience research with citizen science projects and a broader perspective on how adolescents’ role in society shapes their social behavior and wellbeing.

Apart from gaining a better understanding of prosocial development, Suzanne has a passion for connecting science and society, for example through science communication and citizen science projects, as well as mentoring, talent development, and recognition and rewards in academia.

Suzanne was awarded several grants and prizes, including a grant to visit UCLA during her PhD, two EGSH PhD Excellence Awards (best societal impact and best poster), a DPECS Dragon’s Den seed fund, and a NWA Science Communication Grant (together with her YoungXperts colleagues).