In order to secure a sustainable future, it is crucial that consumers adopt more resource-efficient foods, such as soy butter, cultured beef and seaweed. One obvious marketing strategy is to position sustainable alternatives as the morally-superior choice. The main selling point of cultured beef, for instance, is its contribution to the collective good. But while such moral appeals could indeed boost demand, this proposal examines the notion that there are some important, previously unconsidered, social risks associated with moral appeals. Specifically, while compliance with moral appeals could satisfy consumers? internal need to be moral, it also calls the morality of fellow consumers into question. In response, fellow consumers may attempt to restore their threatened sense of morality by discrediting or rejecting moral outliers ? a phenomenon known as ?moral do-gooder derogation?. This social-psychological perspective on morality may have some important implications for the marketing of sustainable products, which I will examine in a series of lab and field studies. Project 1 takes the perspective of the observer. It documents defensive responses by consumers who witness others buying ?morally-superior? sustainable products. Importantly, I additionally propose that prospective buyers also anticipate such defensive responses. Project 2 therefore takes the perspective of the actor. It investigates the notion that consumers may avoid purchasing ?morally-superior? sustainable products in an attempt to avoid being perceived as a moral outlier. In doing so, this proposal introduces a new angle on the adoption of sustainable products: consumers want to be moral, but not be perceived as a moral outlier.

Ambition. Mental health is a substantial global challenge. The scale of mental illnesses is overwhelming: worldwide, one in four adults and one in ten children suffer from a mental disorder on any given moment. Mental disorders not only cause considerable suffering, they also cause huge economic waste. Alarming is the modest success rates of current interventions for mental disorders: only about 40% of patients achieve sustained recovery. To achieve better treatments, we need to know more about the key processes that are crucial to long-term clinical improvement. Excellent researchers from diverse disciplines join forces and propose to study an exciting new and challenging view on mental disorders. Our vision is that mental illnesses are not caused by a common pathogenic pathway. Instead, mental illnesses are dynamic and complex networks of symptoms that interact with one another over time, driven by an elaborate group of behavioural, cognitive, neurocognitive and interpersonal processes that are transdiagnostic in nature. So far, these dynamic symptom interactions and transdiagnostic processes have not been integrated within one comprehensive framework of mental illness. This research programme aims to do exactly that: it offers a novel paradigm to understand mental illnesses alongside genuinely new possibilities for more effective treatments and is, therefore, a roadmap to healthier societies. Consortium. The current consortium is unique in the world: it connects 19 influential scientists (47% female) who have demonstrated an ability to lead and inspire research teams and to innovate their scientific fields. The 14 senior members of the current consortium are internationally leading and have excellent track records. They rank among the global top in their fields. They are joined by twelve gifted young scientists (five in the consortium) in various stages of their careers, and all with the potential to act at the forefront of science and to become international leaders. The continuity of this innovative research program is further promised by the creation of a Young Talent Program for optimal development of the next generation leaders. Research Program. The ultimate goal of our research is to advance psychological treatments, so that more effective interventions will serve as an essential part of our set of approaches that are needed to make an impact upon the burden of mental disorders worldwide. Our research program is organised into a matrix of six research teams and three coherent layers of research: mapping, zooming and targeting. The research teams are organised along specific transdiagnostic processes and not along single disorders. We propose a new and challenging view on the origin, maintenance and change of all mental disorders. Our vision is that mental illnesses are not caused by a common pathogenic pathway. Instead, mental illnesses are dynamic and complex networks of symptoms that interact with one another over time. We will focus on (1) the estimation of complex and dynamic networks of individual patients, which can change over time, (2) disorder-transcending network-based interventions tailored for the individual, and (3) in-depth fundamental studies into transdiagnostic behavioural, cognitive, neurocognitive and interpersonal processes that can drive connectivity between symptoms. Organization and management. We will set up a lean and effective organisational structure with good administration and management, to facilitate pleasant, effective and inspiring cooperation and to pave the way for real scientific breakthroughs. It is not only our ambition but also our duty to bring the acquired knowledge on better treatments for mental illnesses truly into the practice of mental health care. We will frequently interact with stakeholders; clinicians, patients, carers, funders, commissioners, managers, policy planners, change experts, and the general public all have a part to play in innovating psychological therapies, and a focus on any one of the ideas presented by our research team has the potential to bring about substantial and much-needed improvements. The ‘translation and communication’ team is led by a professional communication officer to achieve optimal use of acquired knowledge. We are also strongly focused on the development and training of a next generation of scientists to ensure the continuity of our research at top level and in the international forefront. To achieve this ambition, we start a talent development program that focuses on the training, mentoring and monitoring of young researchers, from promising young talents to young international leaders. We also enable Talent Tenure Tracks for midcareer scientists. In addition, and this is certainly not unimportant, we will offer a safe environment to stimulate our young talents’ growth and development into the next generation of leading researchers in our field. Main applicant Jansen is the intended scientific director, she has extensive experience in management.

A breakthrough discovery in 2000 that fear memories may change upon retrieval - known as memory reconsolidation - opened avenues to develop a revolutionary new treatment for emotional memory disorders. Over the past years we have repeatedly demonstrated in humans that disrupting memory reconsolidation erases the expression of fear memory, without changing the actual recollection. Although these findings suggest the possibility of a paradigm shift in clinical practice, a reconsolidation intervention for excessive fear memories has not left the hypothetical arena. This project aims to further understand how we can reset fear memories in patients with anxiety disorders and PTSD.

Emotional memories form a critical part of our identities. Consequently, when memory processes become distorted such as in depression, these can have significant impact on the way we remember the past, feel in the present, or behave in the future. However, the underlying mechanisms of how complex emotional memories transform over time are unknown. The objective of the present proposal is to foster a deeper understanding of those mechanisms that enable the rise and fall of emotional memory distortions. To this end, we have developed a mechanistic framework to critically test novel hypotheses on the malleability of emotional episodic memories.

I have recently introduced network theory into the field of clinical psychology (Cramer, Waldorp, Van der Maas, & Borsboom, 2010). This is a novel theoretical and psychometric perspective in which psychological constructs, such as major depression, are conceptualized as networks of interacting components (e.g., insomnia → fatigue → concentration problems). In network theory, each individual may have a unique network structure (e.g., of depressive symptoms). These individual networks may differ in architecture (i.e., whether and how strongly symptoms are connected) and in the resulting dynamics: some networks will easily end up in a pathological state (e.g., depressed) while others will never leave the healthy state. In previous work, I have successfully used this approach to explain important empirical phenomena of psychopathology, such as comorbidity and spontaneous recovery, and have shown that empirical evidence from various sources is consistent with network theory. Although the theory is highly promising, its accompanying psychometric toolbox is still underdeveloped. Specifically, currently available methods have not been vigorously tested in terms of how well they perform under different circumstances (e.g., small sample sizes), and much needed methods and models have simply not been developed at all yet (e.g., methods to compare weighted networks). Therefore, the primary aim of this proposal is to develop network psychometrics, a toolbox that contains an array of validated methods designed to track the architecture and dynamics of individual networks. In addition, the resulting techniques will be applied to mood disorders. With these methods, I will be able to dig deeper than in earlier work into the mysteries of mood disorders with the potential to, for example, predict when people might be on the brink of collapsing into a depressed state.