The Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) invites applications for a 1.5-year, full-time Postdoc position within the project Adapted to War (AWAR), funded by the European Research Council (ERC Starting Grant).
The position provides an opportunity to work in a leading international research institute, located in Norway’s capital city, as part of an interdisciplinary project on human aggression.
Summary of AWAR
Have humans evolved psychological adaptations to coalitional aggression or small-scale war? This question has generated major scientific debate involving anthropologists, archaeologists, economists, primatologists, psychologists, and political scientists. If humans are adapted to war, then human psychology must be equipped with adaptations designed for the effective navigation of war: efficient, complex, and specialized (sensory, perceptual, cognitive, affective, and behavioral) mechanisms promoting planning, execution, and defense against coalitional attacks. AWAR focuses, specifically, on coalitional formidability assessment mechanisms, which likely helped ancestral humans to avoid costly fights. The project also explores contemporary implications of coalitional formidability assessment mechanisms: if they indeed exist, do they shape our attitudes and behavior today, particularly in the context of modern political violence (e.g., violent protests or civil conflicts)?
The Postdoc’s role in the team
The project’s core team will consist of Postdoc 1, Stefan Goetz (psychologist; expertise: evolutionary psychology), Postdoc 2 (psychologist/cognitive scientist; expected expertise: cognitive psychology experiments), and Principal Investigator (PI), Henrikas Bartusevičius (political scientist; expertise: the psychology of political violence).
This vacancy concerns Postdoc 2, whose key responsibilities will be as follows:
- Collaborating with the research team in designing cognitive psychology experiments (online and/or lab) to probe the existence and design features of the theorized coalitional formidability assessment mechanism;
- Contributing to conducting and analyzing the experiments;
- Writing journal articles in collaboration with Postdoc 2 and PI.
Opportunities
The project provides an opportunity to contribute to a novel research program that combines psychology, political science, and evolutionary theory to understand basic psychological processes underpinning coalitional aggression and contemporary political violence. The project also provides an opportunity to contribute to the establishment and development of a pioneering political psychology lab/research group in Norway.
The project and the institute are committed to supporting the Postdoc’s career development. Therefore, the project includes funding (e.g., for conference travel and research stays at other research institutions) to help the successful candidate build new competences. The project also has an ambitious publication plan, targeting general science or multidisciplinary journals. The project includes a large budget for well-powered cross-cultural research, spanning lab and online experiments across 40 countries. The project also includes a budget for research assistance to support the research team.
The project will collaborate with other psychology and political psychology labs in Norway and Denmark, including the Politics and Evolution Lab (directed by Michael B. Petersen) at Aarhus University. The project thus offers opportunities to network and present research in interdisciplinary environments.
The project will also strive to create conditions for the Postdoc to complete ongoing research, initiate new research agendas, and apply for new research funding.
Work environment and conditions
PRIO has an international research staff of approximately 85 members in full and part-time positions, and in addition 15 in administrative and support functions. The working language at the institute is English. PRIO is an equal opportunity employer and values staff diversity.
The institute is located in spacious and attractive premises in central Oslo, Europe’s fastest-growing capital city. Employee benefits include access to the PRIO cabin in the mountains, a subsidized canteen, weekly physiotherapy exercise, weekly running group, discounted gym membership and various social events.
Postdoctoral scholars at PRIO formally hold the position of a Senior Researcher. The starting salary for a Senior Researcher at PRIO is NOK 689,600 (equivalent to 73 in the Norwegian State salary system). Employees are offered membership in the Norwegian Public Service Pension Fund.
The candidate should have an interest in PRIO’s broader mission of conducting high-quality academic research on questions relevant to the promotion of a more peaceful world. For more information about PRIO’s research, see https://www.prio.org/
The position is for one and a half year. This is a full-time research position with no teaching requirements.
Qualifications
Required:
- PhD in psychology, cognitive science, or another relevant field;
- Expertise in experimental methods within cognitive psychology/cognitive science;
- Expertise in/experience with administering experiments online and/or lab;
- Proficiency in programing/designing experiments with Inquisit, jsPsych, PsychoPy or other similar software (ability to program—with, e.g., Python or JavaScript—is desirable, but not required);
- Fluency in English.
Desirable:
- Experience with administering experiments via crowdsourcing platforms (e.g., MTurk);
- Familiarity with attention and perception experiments involving rapid visual stimuli presentation;
- Familiarity with research on attention, perception, computation, and information-processing;
- Familiarity with evolutionary psychological research;
- Interest in research on human aggression and political violence;
In the evaluation of which candidate is best qualified, emphasis will be placed on (i) the (required and desired) qualifications specified above and (ii) the quality of the submitted work.
The PhD dissertation must have been submitted before the application deadline and the degree must have been awarded before the position is taken up. The candidate must be present at PRIO and is therefore expected to live in or near Oslo after taking up the position. However, a period of distance-work can be negotiated.
Application procedure
Before applying, the candidates should read the project proposal of AWAR, focusing, particularly, on Work Package 2 (WP2). To access the project proposal, please email one of the contacts listed at the end of this advertisement.
The application must be submitted in English via online application system no later than 17 January 2022. The application must include:
- An application letter (1–2 pages) addressing the required and desired qualifications as listed above. Please briefly describe your relevant experience and qualifications for each of the 10 qualifications listed above (if you do not have experience/qualifications pertaining to one or more of qualification listed above, just say so).
- A statement (1–2 pages) on how your qualifications will contribute to implementing WP2 of the project.
- One or two papers that you consider as your best work. This work, preferably but not mandatorily, should demonstrate the qualifications as listed above. Single- or first-authored work carries greater weight. You are welcome to submit unpublished manuscripts, as long as you consider them as demonstrating the highest quality of your research and the qualifications listed above.
- A CV in English, which must include a list of publications.
- Scanned copies of original transcripts/certificates from higher education, in one PDF file.
The project offers a degree of flexibility with respect to candidates’ research during the project. Therefore, the applicants are welcome, but are not required, to suggest (in Attachment 2) research ideas that could be integrated into WP2 of AWAR.
Assessment procedure
The interviews with selected candidates will take place in January 2022. The starting date for the position is 1 March 2022 or subject mutual agreement.
Questions, as well as requests for the AWAR project description, should be send to Henrikas Bartusevičius henrikas@prio.org.
