Why is it so hard for some people to limit their alcohol consumption? Why do some people lose their temper easily? Do you like finding answers to questions such as these? And can you see yourself helping people change their habits? Then you should consider specialising in Health and Social Psychology. The main focus of this specialisation is on understanding how people’s personalities, cognitions and social environment influence their health and social functioning. You'll analyse the underlying mechanisms of unhealthy or antisocial behaviour using recent theories and models from various psychological disciplines. And you'll use this knowledge to set up behaviour-change programmes. After completing your master’s, you can become a researcher in an academic or applied health setting, or work in communication planning, health promotion or policy-making.

In the specialisation in Health and Social Psychology, you'll study behaviour and behavioural change using methods from clinical and social psychology. The main focus is on understanding how people’s personalities, cognitions and social environment influence their health and social functioning.

Programme outline

The specialisation in Health and Social Psychology offers the following core courses:

Bad habits: will familiarise you with various recent views from both social and clinical psychology which explain how healthy and desirable behaviours and their negative counterparts develop and endure. Bad habits will be considered from a cognitive perspective, with a focus on automatic associative processes and perceptual processes. The role of the social environment in the occurrence of bad habits is also included in this course.

Manipulation: deals with strategies of social influence, persuasion and attitude change. You’ll learn which techniques, tactics and procedures people use to manipulate or change the beliefs and behaviour of other people. You'll participate in discussions on how social influence techniques work and about the psychological principles underlying the effects of those techniques.

Self-control regulation: focuses on the regulation of behaviour. You’ll look at issues such as why people find it so hard to resist their impulses and will study various self-control processes, including emotional self-regulation, automatic self-regulation and the role of thinking (beliefs) and acceptance. You’ll also focus on possible ways of improving the ability to practise self-control.

Planning behaviour-change programmes: focuses on applying psychological theories to the development of behavioural-change interventions. You’ll look at topics such as risk communication, attitude change, social influences, self-regulation, and prejudice and discrimination.

Your Future

Job opportunities for health and social psychologists are broad. You could, for example, become a researcher in an academic or applied health setting, or work in communication planning, health promotion, and policy-making