Carsten de Dreu


Carsten Karel Willem de Dreu is a Professor of Psychology at Leiden University and Behavioral Economics at the University of Amsterdam and member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received his PhD in social and organizational psychology from the University of Groningen and was president of the European Association of Social Psychology and the International Association for Conflict Management. In 2016 he was named Distinguished Research Fellow at the University of Oxford.

Research

De Dreu works at the intersection of social psychology, biology, and behavioral economics. He studies the neurobiological origins, contextual plasticity, and cognitive and strategic consequences of cooperative versus competitive motivation in negotiation and conflict resolution, group decision making, and conflict and competition within and between groups. In addition, he examines the various functions of social conflict within and between groups for individual health and well-being, creativity and innovation, and team performance in work organizations. His research uses a mixture of laboratory experiments, organizational field studies, and meta-analyses. With Laurie Weingart and Evert van de Vliert, he conducted pioneering work on the influence of different types of conflict—whether task or relationship focused—on team performance, innovation, and job satisfaction Furthermore, he uncovered a key role for social preferences in predicting successful negotiation and dispute resolution. With Matthijs Baas and Bernard Nijstad he developed the Dual Pathway to Creativity Model, which predicts creative cognition and performance as the result of loose, flexible thinking on the one hand, and persistent, effortful processing on the other. His most recent work focuses on attack-defense dynamics during intergroup conflict and the neurohormonal bases of self-sacrifice. Using behavioral game theory and neuroscience methods, he showed how the hypothalamic neuropeptide oxytocin modelates self-sacrifice and defensive aggression in human decision-making during intergroup conflict.

Awards and honors