About us – Institute of Experimental Psychology

Our mission

The Institute of Experimental Psychology is an organization specializing in science and research. Its main focus lies with basic research of cognitive and emotional processes in social context and its main aim is to contribute to the understanding of these processes in everyday human life. The main mission of the Institute is to conduct research; to obtain, process and distribute scientific findings.

History

The Institute began to form in 1952, first as the Department of Psychology of the Philosophical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences and Arts, the forerunner of today's Slovak Academy of Sciences. The establishment of the Department of Psychology meant the establishment of the very first workplace in Slovakia, which focused on psychological research. In April 1955, the department became independent and rebuilt into the Psychological Laboratory of SAS, which from 1963 to 2015 was known under the name the Institute of Experimental Psychology of SAS. Since 2015, the Institute has been part of the Center of Social and Psychological Sciences of the Slovak Academy of Sciences.

Research

The institute has a strong quantitative and qualitative orientation, underpinned by robust international collaboration. Its most prominent, internationally visible research agenda lies at the intersection of conspiracy thinking, epistemic rationality, and social and political attitudes.

A second major pillar is health and clinical psychology (healthcare decision-making, coping with illness, trauma).

The topics of climate psychology and gender norms represent a strategic expansion towards pressing societal challenges.

Three current core research themes:

Psychology of unfounded and extreme beliefs
Psychological adaptation, coping, and mental regulation
Neurocognitive communication and autism

Research cooperation

In its research and development activities, the Institute cooperates with several important foreign institutions such as:
- Max Planck Institute for Psychology, Nijmegen, Netherlands
- University of Essex, United Kingdom
- Applied Psychology and Human Development, University of Toronto, Canada
- Institute of Psychology, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Brno, Czech Republic
- University of California, Riverside, USA
- Paris Descartes University, Paris, France
- Department of Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
- and other

Accreditation

In the international evaluation of SAS organizations by the panel of international experts in 2022, the Institute of Experimental Psychology, as a part of the Center for Social and Psychological Research, was ranked in the evaluation at level B/C (Part of the research is visible at European level. Overall the research is solid and has contributed to understanding to the field at the European level).