Briefly describe what your research topic is about.
In contrast to patients with depression, most healthy people show two cognitive biases that are important for well-being and mental health: Optimism bias (having overly optimistic expectancies about the future), and positive attention bias (preferably attending to positive compared to neutral information in the environment). However, it is still unclear how these two biases interact and whether they mutually enforce each other. In my research I therefore examine how optimistic future expectancies influence our attention on the one hand, and how biased attention to positive stimuli influences optimistic expectancies on the other hand. To get a better understanding of the neurophysiological basis of these interactions I use different methods, such as behavioural experiments, eye tracking, physiological measures (e.g. heartrate and blood pressure), and neuroimaging (fMRI).
Why did you choose to pursue a PhD? What is your motivation?
My passion for neuroscience was triggered when I did my first internship in a neuroimaging institute at the University of Giessen, where I studied psychology. I really appreciated getting a closer insight to neuroscientific work at a very early stage of my Bachelor and actually ended up working there until the end of my Master studies. Coming from research that focused mainly on fear-related processes, I was really happy to be able to study a very positive and health-related topic such as optimism during my PhD here at the University of Bern. Whereas I simply enjoy scientific work and the international atmosphere at the University in general, my biggest motivation for doing research and pursuing a PhD has always been the hope that someday, we might be able to apply the findings from our basic research to treatments for instance used in psychotherapy, and therefore help people who suffer from psychological disorders.
