The Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science hosts a term-time seminar series, where we invite researchers to present their latest findings.
The series is particularly beneficial for LSE students and early career researchers as it presents the opportunity to discuss and debate new findings in social psychology and behavioural science in a small, open setting.
How to join a seminar
The PBS Departmental Seminar Series is open to all LSE staff and students.
Seminars normally take place on Wednesdays at 12-1pm during term time. This year the series will take place in a hybrid format - both in-person and online - unless specified.
All details, including speaker information, title and abstract, location and Zoom link will be sent via email each week from the PBS Events team pbs.events@lse.ac.uk. Please refer to this email for any changes to schedule and confirmation on the format. If you are a member of LSE staff or a student from outside the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science, please email pbs.events@lse.ac.ukto join the mailing list.
2025/26 speakers
Autumn Term
Wednesday 8 October 2025 Dr Sandra Obradović, LSE Title: 'First-time voter experiences as societal rites of passage: a qualitative study and field intervention'
Wednesday 15 October 2025 Dr Pablo Navarrete-Hernández, University of Chile Title: 'Urban Behavioural Science: How the Built Environment Influences Emotion'
Wednesday 22 October 2025 Dr Christa Sathish, University of Westminster Title: 'Let’s form a positive academia collective transformation: Re-imagining our academic values and interactions'
Tuesday 28 October 2025, 2-3pm (note day and time) Professor Michalis Drouvelis, University of Birmingham Title: 'Emotions and human cooperation'
Past speakers
Autumn Term
Dr Ilka Gleibs, Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science, LSE Title: 'A social identity approach to crisis leadership'
Dr Edoardo Zulato, Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science, LSE Title: 'Re-shaping pasts and futures to make sense of suspended present: The case of vegetative state patients'
Dr Sakshi Ghai, Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science, LSE Title: 'Rethinking sample diversity in research design'
Dr Dana Harari, Israel Institute of Technology Title: 'I didn’t ask for ChatGPT’s help: How AI anticipatory help increases threat and decreases AI utilization'
Dr Ashley Whillans, Harvard Business School Title: 'The Buy-In Effect: When Increasing Initial Effort Motivates Behavioral Follow-Through'
Professor Fabio Tufano, University of Leicester Title: 'How Social Relationships Affect Group Cooperation: Evidence from Randomly Assigned Real Groups'
Professor Dr Rolf van Dick, University of Frankfurt Title: 'The new psychology of leadership: Evidence from the Global Identity Leadership Development (GILD) project and beyond'
Dr David Kaposi, The Open University Title: 'Why did they obey? The presence and absence tension in Stanley Milgram’s “Obedience to authority” experiments'
Dr Joshua Becker, UCL Title: 'Collective Intelligence is Negotiation: Group Decisions Amidst Disagreement'
Winter Term
Dr Sanaz Talaifar, Imperial College London Title: 'Political Identity in Digital Environments'
Dr Seamus Power, University of Copenhagen Title: 'World-Making: Field social psychology and processes of social change'
Dr Cameron Brick, University of Amsterdam Title: 'Climate actions from individual to collective'
Dr Anna Schulze Tilling, Bocconi University Title: 'Tastes better than expected: Post-intervention effects of a vegetarian month in the student canteen'
Professor Dr Michele Bernasconi, University of Bern Title: 'Tax evasion: models of behaviour, evidence, contrasting policies'
Dr Hugo Mercier, Institut Jean Nicod Title: 'Why do people trust science?'
Professor Juliane Degner, Hamburg University Title: "The Instant Judgment: Exploring Spontaneous Trait Inferences and Their Implications"
Spring Term bonus seminar
Professor Jana Gallus, UCLA Anderson School of Management Title: 'Incentives and the Social Fabric of Organizations'
Autumn Term
Dr Bouke Klein Teeselink, King's College London Title: "Discounts Shift the Demand Curve: Evidence from Life-Saving Medications"
Dr George Melios, Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science, LSE Title: '"Sleeping with the enemy": The role of politics in online dating'
Dr Nicole Redvers, Western University Title: "Indigenous Reflections on Land-based Research Methodologies"
Professor Paul O’Keefe, University of Exeter Business School Title: "Why Telling People to Find Their Passion is Bad Advice"
Dr Alina Velias, Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science, PBS Title: "Measuring beliefs, knowledge, and preferences"
Dr Adriana Monago, University of California Santa Cruz Title: "Adolescents as Agents of Cultural Change and Continuity through their use of Social Media"
Dr Adam Harris, UCL Title: "The prevalence & consequences of the severity effect in probability communication"
Winter Term
Dr Lee de Wit, University of Cambridge Title: "The political psychology of false polarization and real polarization around the cultural axis"
Dr Andreas Kotsadam, University of Oslo Title: "The Social Transmission of Support for Authoritarian Rule: Evidence from Field and Survey Experiments"
Dr Charles Ogunbode, University of Nottingham Title: "Climate justice perceptions around the world"
Dr Lauren Howe, University of Zurich Title: "Does playing up one's humanity pay off for leaders?"
Dr Will M Gervais, Brunel University Title: "Atheism as a Testing Ground For Theories of Religion"
Dr Catherine Thomas, University of Michigan Title: "Culturally Wise Interventions and Their Influence on Meaning Making and Behavior Across Diverse Cultural Contexts"
Dr Anne Templeton, University of Edinburgh Title: "Trying to understand how and why the public respond to safety guidance in emergencies – emphasis on the trying"
Dr Ekaterina Oparina, LSE Title: "Talking Therapy: Impacts of a Nationwide Mental Health Service in England"
Professor Constantine Sedikides, University of Southampton Title: "To Be Truthful or to Be Wonderful? The Rocky Road to Self-Knowledge"
Spring Term Bonus Seminars
Professor Michelle Ryan, Australian National University Title: "To Advance Gender Equality, Use the Evidence"
Dr Mai Albzour, Birzeit University Title: "Portraying Palestine in the Social Psychology of Prejudice and Reconciliation - On Imposing Moral Guidelines on Oppressed Groups with Technical Concepts"
Vanessa Bohns, Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior, Cornell University
Patrick Humphreys, Emeritus Professor, Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science, LSE
Margaret Samahita, Assistant Professor at the School of Economics, University College Dublin and a Research Fellow at the Geary Institute for Public Policy
Laura M. Giurge, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science, LSE
June Gruber, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado, Boulder
Ullrich Ecker, University of Western Australia
Moshe Hoffman, Research Scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology and Lecturer at Harvard's Department of Economics.
Renata Bongiorno, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter
Kristian Nielsen, Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab in the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge
Umberto Castiello, University of Padova, Principle Investigator, NEMO Laboratory