SOCION

Nowadays, you often hear people say: ‘’Science is just another opinion.’’ I completely disagree with that.

The research

The core research question is:

How can connections between individuals, groups, and institutions be strengthened without unintentionally unravelling them elsewhere in society?

The program currently consists of 6 thematic clusters encompassing 17 research projects:

1. Migration
2. Dynamics of Social Cohesion in the Face of Climate Change
3. Care and Families
4. Policies and Social Cohesion
5. Understanding Social Cohesion in the Face of Inequalities: Concepts, Methods, Evaluations
6. Normative Assessment of Social Cohesion

Cluster 1 – Migration

1. Rethinking Social Cohesion in Ethnically Diverse Schools: Linking Horizontal and Vertical Ties

This PhD project investigates how social cohesion develops among youth in ethnically diverse schools. It traces how different cohesion dimensions – such as interethnic friendships, school attachment, trust in institutions and national identity – co-evolve. Do cohesion dimensions reinforce or hinder each other? Which dimensions correlate and which are unrelated? What role does ethnic diversity play in these associations? The PhD candidate will analyse large-scale survey data from Europe to study friendship networks, identity formation and school climates. These insights will inform a school-based intervention. The project offers theoretical innovation, novel empirical insights and practical tools for strengthening ethnic cohesion among youth.

2. Mapping Older Migrants’ Family Networks

What do the family networks of older migrants in the Netherlands look like, and how do they relate to strengthening or weakening social cohesion? This project uses microdata from Statistics Netherlands (CBS) to analyse differences in the size, structure and spatial distribution of kinship networks among older migrants and non-migrants. This PhD project will compare patterns across diverse migrant groups and explore how these relate to key outcomes such as health, well-being, and loneliness in later life. This position offers the opportunity to work with rich population-level data and contribute to timely debates on ageing, migration and social inequalities.

3.The Effects of Polarization Panic and Migration on Social Cohesion in Local Communities

Public debates on migration often exaggerate divisions between ‘pro’ and ‘anti’ positions, fostering a polarization panic: the belief that society is deeply divided, despite limited empirical evidence. These misperceptions of others’ attitudes can undermine social cohesion. While such misperceptions are well documented, their consequences at the local level and effective ways to correct them remain unclear. This PhD project examines how perceived polarization around migration affects trust, belonging and cooperation in neighbourhoods. By comparing perceived and actual attitudes and developing interventions with local stakeholders, the project identifies how these attitudes affect social cohesion and how misperceptions can be reduced.

Cluster 2 – Dynamics of Social Cohesion in the Face of Climate Change

1. Social Cohesion and Climate Polarization: How to Communicate Effectively About Climate Change

We need to urgently find ways to communicate about climate change which are effective in conveying accurate information, building the social cohesion that forms the basis for mitigation action, and resisting the polarizing influence of disinformation campaigns. The project will develop strategies for effective messaging about climate change whilst taking into account that the epistemic environment is heavily infused with disinformation. It will synthesize insights from philosophy, climate science, psychology and sociology in service of designing well-supported communication strategies, and it will test the proposed strategies using computational models and experimental studies.

2. Climate Change and Cooperation in Rural India, 1947 to the Present

This project studies cooperation as a climate adaptation tool through a comparative, long-run study of rural Asia. Using archival data, it investigates interactions between climate, institutions, and cooperative behaviour. The project explores how new agricultural technologies and practices created new forms of climate risk that in turn led to distinctive forms of local institutional adaptation across regions and socio-economic groups. By clarifying why cooperation succeeds or fails in historically climate-vulnerable agricultural contexts, this research offers lessons for global climate adaptation, informing conditions that could facilitate cooperation in other affected parts of the world, including the Netherlands.

3. The (Mis)Perception of Social Norms in Dynamic Social Networks

This PhD project aims to study how social norms regarding climate change mitigation develop within contexts in which norms are not easily observed by others. We want to better understand under which conditions potential misperceptions can lead to the separation of groups in society. The project analyses how social networks and norms on these topics jointly develop, depending on how people can obtain information about the norms and behaviour of others. A combination of agent-based modelling and experiments will be used to examine how people perceive social norms on climate change topics and how these norms (and related behaviours) change with people’s networks over time.

Cluster 3 – Care and Families

1. Institutional Change in the Organization of Care in the Netherlands

This PhD project explores how and why various forms of care arrangements have interacted and changed over time in the Netherlands during the long 20th century. Care institutions—whether informal or (semi-)formal—do not evolve in isolation; they continuously influence one another. Yet little knowledge exists about how these institutions have co-evolved. Have they changed in complementary or divergent ways over time, and if so, why? These dynamic interactions will be analysed within the broader historical trajectories of changing norms, political ideologies, economic conditions and demographic trends as potential explanations for this change, integrating insights from history and sociology.

2. Providing Informal Care to Loved Ones at the Expense of One’s Social Relations?

Population ageing results in a growing need for care, which increasingly falls on informal caregivers: those people in the personal network of the person who needs help. This PhD project explores the consequences of providing informal care for the quality of caregivers’ social relations. If informal care provision harms the quality or quantity of caregivers’ relations with their partner, family or friends, informal carers lack the network they need once they require care themselves. Combining sociological and social-psychological theoretical mechanisms, this project answers the question of whether, why and under which conditions providing informal care has consequences for informal carers’ social relations. As such, it provides key insights into how, and how benefiting from these insights may optimize care arrangements.

3. The Rise in Singlehood and the Social Embeddedness of Singles

The rise in singlehood is one of the major demographic trends of the last few decades. The question is how to maintain social cohesion in this context of increasing individualization. This PhD project examines whether and under which circumstances singlehood has integrative or isolating effects for singles aged 20 to 50. It explores what it means to be single, as well as singles’ social relations and well-being. It does so by collecting and examining new qualitative and quantitative data among singles and by using large-scale register data on networks. The focus of the project is on diversity within the singles’ population.

The very fabric of society is under pressure. Traditional forms of social cohesion are becoming less and less effective. Thanks to the grant, we, together with societal stakeholders, can shed a new light on how social cohesion can be achieved in these challenging times.

Cluster 4 – Policies and Social Cohesion

1. The Impact of Migrant-Specific Policies on Social Cohesion

Governments adopt policies for specific migrant groups. Such policies can help migrant groups thrive. However, they can result in negative responses from other groups who might perceive such measures as preferential treatment at their expense, thereby threatening social cohesion at large. In this PhD project, we aim to analyse how and under which circumstances migrant-specific policies facilitate the integration of migrant groups while simultaneously upholding social cohesion in and between all societal groups. The project will, amongst others, study the effects of tax benefits for knowledge workers on housing dynamics and social cohesion in the Netherlands throughout time.

2. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Policies as Sources of Social Cohesion at Work?

This PhD project investigates how organizations can foster cohesion within and between employee groups and across the organization as a whole. We examine under what conditions, and through which mechanisms, organizational segregating forces—arising from formal policies and structures (top-down) or voluntary individual and group initiatives (bottom-up)—either strengthen or undermine cohesion. Focusing specifically on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies, the project explores their role in promoting the integration of minoritized employee groups while maintaining trust, collaboration and inclusion across the organization. The research combines sociological and psychological perspectives to inform evidence-based organizational strategies.

Cluster 5 – Understanding Social Cohesion in the Face of Inequalities: Concepts, Methods, Evaluations

1. Repairing Injustice Without Breaking Bonds: Structural Injustice and Social Cohesion

This PhD project examines how societies should address structural injustice without damaging the social relations required for collective action. Building on theories of structural injustice and moral responsibility, it investigates who ought to bear forward-looking responsibilities for unjust social structures and how accountability for meeting such responsibilities can be exercised without generating backlash or fragmentation. Empirical work plays a supporting role, using experimental studies to test how different responsibility assignments affect cooperation under conditions of inequality. The project develops a justice-centred framework that contributes to SOCION’s research on social cohesion.

2. Collective Action, Cohesion and Inequality

How does inequality relate to social cohesion and potentially undermine the conditions for societies to come together and address collective challenges such as climate change? We are looking for a PhD researcher to investigate this question and related questions by probing the relationship between inequality and social cohesion in the emergence of collective action. The research methodology will combine behavioural social experiments with theoretical sociology and philosophical analysis.

3. Educational Segregation and Polarization: How Network Diversity and Avoidance Affect Debates on the Public Good

Education is an important social divide, shaping political attitudes, identities and who interacts with whom. This PhD project investigates why networks are (increasingly) segregated by education and how this fuels polarization around issues like climate change and migration. Moving beyond traditional explanations, the project introduces avoidance as a new mechanism: do people actively avoid educational out-groups, and does this relate to political polarization? Using a combination of register data, ego network surveys, European Social Survey data and behavioural experiments, it offers an exciting opportunity to develop new theory and cutting-edge empirical research on social cohesion in the context of inequality.

Cluster 6 – Normative Assessment of Social Cohesion

1. Asymmetric Compliance: An Ethical-Empirical Study of Climate Responsibility Across Actor Scales

A lack of trust in other parties can lead to a breakdown in shared climate effort. The core question is: does the large-scale climate inaction of powerful actors – governments and corporations – excuse individual citizens from their own responsibilities? This PhD project studies the issue of climate responsibility from an interdisciplinary perspective. We seek a PhD candidate who is trained as a philosopher (preferably in ethics) but has an interest in (social) psychology. You will analyse normative arguments regarding fairness and autonomy between actors with unequal power. Furthermore, you will compare these arguments against empirical data on how Dutch citizens perceive the shifting responsibilities between themselves, the state and corporations.

2. Overcoming the Fragility of the Social Contract

This PhD project examines the fragility of the social contract in the context of identity politics that undermines the stability and cohesion of many societies. It does so by combining theory and insights from the disciplines of philosophy and psychology. The aim of the project is to determine whether and how the social contract, and the institutions it supports, should be strengthened and what role social cohesion can and should play in the process. The project is based on a philosophical, normative assessment that is supported by empirical findings from psychology.

3. Laughing Across Differences: The Role of Humour in Pluralistic Social Cohesion.

This interdisciplinary PhD project investigates whether humour can bridge divides between opposing social or ideological groups. It does so by combining social psychology with philosophy. The research theorizes humour as an interaction ritual that can foster pluralistic cohesion, valuing both solidarity and differences. The methods consist of a literature review, standardized experiments and philosophical analysis to develop and test a conceptual framework. The ideal candidate is a (near) master’s or research master’s graduate in social psychology or a related field, with strong quantitative skills and an affinity for philosophy. The project will produce both theoretical insights and practical guidelines for using humour in diverse societal settings.

Consortium partners

SOCION is a collaboration between scientists from the Social Sciences and Humanities. Currently, the consortium has 25 members.

Disciplines represented in the consortium currently comprise Social Psychology, Sociology, Social and Economic History, Philosophy and Demography.

Participating Universities include the University of Groningen (commissioner), Utrecht University, VU University Amsterdam, and Radboud University Nijmegen. Also the Interdisciplinary Netherlands Institute of Demography (NIDI), an institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), is represented.