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PhD position Psychophysiological underpinnings of Exercise Motivation

  • MF Gebouw
  • Amsterdam
  • 0.8 / 1
  • Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences
  • PhD
  • MSc
  • Closes on
    09-05-2025
  • Publishing date
    14-04-2025
Apply
Most of us enjoy seeing athletes perform at the limits of human performance: Sifan Hassan winning the Olympic marathon or Femke Bol becoming world champion. Also at recreational level, endurance sports are booming.

Your function

Sports enthusiasts of varying skills and expertise batter city streets or explore nature on their regular exercise rounds. Recreational social exercise initiatives such as Park Run are slowly conquering the world, with more than 10 million registered participants across the globe. However, at the same time we see that the number of active people, defined as those who are member of a sports club, is dropping with age. Research from RIVM has shown that where 42% of the Dutch population of 10-25 year olds participate in club sports, this number declines to 16-22% of those at ages above 25 yrs old, in The Netherlands. Continued engagement in sport throughout the lifespan is thus not a given, also not for those who previously engaged actively in sport.

Knowing that a physically active lifestyle has been linked to health and longevity, the Netherlands has set the ambition to become the sportiest nation by 2030. To obtain this goal, we will need to better understand the challenges and motivations of recreational exercisers: What drives people to become active and remain active, and what feeds their exercise motivation? In this project, we will take a psychophysiological approach exploring the underpinnings of exercise motivation in sport and exercise. In previous work, we have studied the interplay between fatigue, affective load, social factors and situational factors in competitive situations, which gained us a better understanding of competition. How do these interacting internal and external mechanisms now play a role in exercise motivation, for example what is the role of social factors or affective load? We aim to further use virtual reality settings to impose elegant experimental manipulations developing our understanding of the underpinnings of exercise motivation. In this project, you will thus contribute to developing an underpinning framework to understand exercise motivation as a multidimensional construct. You will explore potential applications to promote sport and exercise motivation and thereby exercise participation in the general population, to contribute to a healthy society for all and work towards real life impact.

Your profile

You will work in the department of human movement sciences and will collaborate with several PhD students, postdocs and staff members within the department as well as amongst our international collaborators. You will be based in our research group ‘Physiology’ and/or ‘Prevention and Rehabilitation’ and will be a member of the Amsterdam Movement Science Research Institute with a focus on ‘Ageing and Vitality’ and ‘Sports’. During your PhD you will combine an experimental approach – measuring both physiological and psychological constructs in response to elegant experimental manipulations, with translating your results into real world settings, contributing to a healthy society for all. Your studies should result in scientific publications, and will be presented at international conferences. In addition, there will be the opportunity to gain educational experience to prepare you for a future academic career, and take courses for professional and personal development. At the end of this four-year program you will have produced a PhD thesis that you will defend in a public viva to obtain the degree of Dr. The project will be supervised by Professor Dr Florentina Hettinga and a network of inter-disciplinary internal and external collaborators.

Your duties

  • map out existing literature, generate new ideas and conduct research
  • collect, analyze, and curate data
  • report on the findings in local meetings and inter(national) conferences
  • write several scientific articles and a PhD thesis
  • bring findings to the real world and work on initiatives to have impact
  • assist in teaching activities within the department 
  • contribute to the team spirit and help others achieve their goals

Requirements

  • Bachelor in Human Movement Sciences, Psychology, (Bio)medical Science, Health Science, Sport Science, Public Health, or a related area.
  • Research Master or Master of Science in Human Movement Sciences, Psychology, (Bio)medical Science, Health Science, Sport Science, Public Health, or a related area.
  • You want to understand mechanisms underpinning exercise motivation, and contribute to making our society healthier for all.
  • You have affinity with psychobiology and an inquisitive mind.
  • You have good communication skills and are fluent in English, both verbally and in writing

As a university, we strive for equal opportunities for all, recognising that diversity takes many forms. We believe that diversity in all its complexity is invaluable for the quality of our teaching, research and service. We are always looking for talent with diverse backgrounds and experiences. This also means that we are committed to creating an inclusive community so that we can use diversity as an asset.

We realise that each individual brings a unique set of skills, expertise and mindset. Therefore we are happy to invite anyone who recognises themselves in the profile to apply, even if you do not meet all the requirements.

What do we offer?

A challenging position in a socially involved organisation. At VU Amsterdam, you contribute to education, research and service for a better world. And that is valuable. So in return for your efforts, we offer you:

  • a salary of minimum € 2.901,00 (PhD) and maximum € 3.707,00 (PhD) gross per month, on a full-time basis. This is based on UFO profile PhD candidate. The exact salary depends on your education and experience.
  • a position for at least 0.8 FTE. Your employment contract will initially last 1 year. After a satisfactory evaluation of the initial appointment, the contract will be extended to a duration of 4 years on a full-time basis (longer period based on 0,8 FTE). 

We also offer you attractive fringe benefits and regulations. Some examples:

  • A full-time 38-hour working week comes with a holiday leave entitlement of 232 hours per year. If you choose to work 40 hours, you have 96 extra holiday leave hours on an annual basis. For part-timers, this is calculated pro rata.
  • 8% holiday allowance and 8.3% end-of-year bonus
  • Solid pension schema (ABP)
  • space for personal development (e.g., by taking additional courses, participating in workshops, seminars and conferences)
  • a wide range of sports facilities which staff may use at a modest charge
  • working in a friendly and exciting environment

About us

About Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
The ambition of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam is clear: to contribute to a better world through outstanding education and ground-breaking research. We strive to be a university where personal development and commitment to society play a leading role. A university where people from different disciplines and backgrounds collaborate to achieve innovations and to generate new knowledge. Our teaching and research encompass the entire spectrum of academic endeavor – from the humanities, the social sciences and the natural sciences through to the life sciences and the medical sciences.

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam is home to more than 30,000 students. We employ over 5,500 individuals. The VU campus is easily accessible and located in the heart of Amsterdam’s Zuidas district, a truly inspiring environment for teaching and research.

Diversity
We are an inclusive university community. Diversity is one of our most important values. We believe that engaging in international activities and welcoming students and staff from a wide variety of backgrounds enhances the quality of our education and research. We are always looking for people who can enrich our world with their own unique perspectives and experiences.

Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences
The Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences (https://vu.nl/en/about-vu/faculties/faculty-of-behavioural-and-movement-sciences) focuses on the broad domain of behaviour and health. Our teaching and research programmes are devoted to current developments in society, from healthy aging to e-health, from juvenile crime to dealing with depression, from training for top athletes to social media as a teaching tool. We are unique in that we combine three academic disciplines: psychology, movement sciences and education.

Working at Behavioural and Movement Sciences means working in an ambitious organization that is characterized by an informal atmosphere and short lines of communication. Our faculty offers tremendous scope for personal development. We employ more than 600 staff members, and we are home to around 3,400 students.

Department of Human Movement Sciences
The department of Human Movement Sciences conducts research on sport and exercise, the human musculoskeletal system, on the way people move, and on how human movement can be influenced in the context of sports, health, physical education and rehabilitation. Our research is multi-disciplinary: we combine anatomy, physiology, psychology and biomechanics to understand and enhance human movement and physical activity. We provide educational programs at BSc and MSc level (including a Research Master), with a strong emphasis on understanding underpinning mechanisms, research skills and impact. In addition, we have a strong research-oriented PhD program. The department has a strong commitment to theory development, and innovative research, but we also prioritize the societal value of our research and devote ample time and attention to translation of our research findings to promote their application in practice.

The department provides a vibrant climate with high quality teaching and research staff and PhD-students who are supported by excellent facilities (e.g., multiple labs for experimental research, equipment for movement analysis and physiological measurements, as well as high-quality engineering support to develop custom-made equipment and set-ups). We have a world-class reputation for our research and teaching, as indicated by for example a 5th place in the Shanghai ranking for sports science, high quality publications, and frequent international collaboration and exchange. Our research and teaching have a strong interdisciplinary nature. The research program of the department is integrated in the research institutes Amsterdam Movement Sciences (https://www.amsterdamumc.org/en/research/institutes/amsterdam-movement-sciences.htm) and Institute for Brain and Behavior Amsterdam (https://vu.nl/nl/over-de-vu/onderzoeksinstituten/institute-for-brain-and-behavior-amsterdam-ibba). We are a strong partner in the Amsterdam Institute of Sport Science (AISS) and Rehabnet.

Interested

Are you interested in this position? Please apply via the application button and upload a single PDF that includes (1) a short (motivation) letter (not longer than 1 page), (2) your curriculum vitae (which lists two references that we can contact). Submitting a diploma is part of the application process.

The interviews will take place in the end of May/beginning of June. 

The intented start date is September 1st 2025, but is flexible. 

Applications received by e-mail will not be considered.

Acquisition in response to this advertisement is not appreciated.

Your function

Sports enthusiasts of varying skills and expertise batter city streets or explore nature on their regular exercise rounds. Recreational social exercise initiatives such as Park Run are slowly conquering the world, with more than 10 million registered participants across the globe. However, at the same time we see that the number of active people, defined as those who are member of a sports club, is dropping with age. Research from RIVM has shown that where 42% of the Dutch population of 10-25 year olds participate in club sports, this number declines to 16-22% of those at ages above 25 yrs old, in The Netherlands. Continued engagement in sport throughout the lifespan is thus not a given, also not for those who previously engaged actively in sport.

Knowing that a physically active lifestyle has been linked to health and longevity, the Netherlands has set the ambition to become the sportiest nation by 2030. To obtain this goal, we will need to better understand the challenges and motivations of recreational exercisers: What drives people to become active and remain active, and what feeds their exercise motivation? In this project, we will take a psychophysiological approach exploring the underpinnings of exercise motivation in sport and exercise. In previous work, we have studied the interplay between fatigue, affective load, social factors and situational factors in competitive situations, which gained us a better understanding of competition. How do these interacting internal and external mechanisms now play a role in exercise motivation, for example what is the role of social factors or affective load? We aim to further use virtual reality settings to impose elegant experimental manipulations developing our understanding of the underpinnings of exercise motivation. In this project, you will thus contribute to developing an underpinning framework to understand exercise motivation as a multidimensional construct. You will explore potential applications to promote sport and exercise motivation and thereby exercise participation in the general population, to contribute to a healthy society for all and work towards real life impact.

Your profile

You will work in the department of human movement sciences and will collaborate with several PhD students, postdocs and staff members within the department as well as amongst our international collaborators. You will be based in our research group ‘Physiology’ and/or ‘Prevention and Rehabilitation’ and will be a member of the Amsterdam Movement Science Research Institute with a focus on ‘Ageing and Vitality’ and ‘Sports’. During your PhD you will combine an experimental approach – measuring both physiological and psychological constructs in response to elegant experimental manipulations, with translating your results into real world settings, contributing to a healthy society for all. Your studies should result in scientific publications, and will be presented at international conferences. In addition, there will be the opportunity to gain educational experience to prepare you for a future academic career, and take courses for professional and personal development. At the end of this four-year program you will have produced a PhD thesis that you will defend in a public viva to obtain the degree of Dr. The project will be supervised by Professor Dr Florentina Hettinga and a network of inter-disciplinary internal and external collaborators.

Your duties

  • map out existing literature, generate new ideas and conduct research
  • collect, analyze, and curate data
  • report on the findings in local meetings and inter(national) conferences
  • write several scientific articles and a PhD thesis
  • bring findings to the real world and work on initiatives to have impact
  • assist in teaching activities within the department 
  • contribute to the team spirit and help others achieve their goals

Requirements

  • Bachelor in Human Movement Sciences, Psychology, (Bio)medical Science, Health Science, Sport Science, Public Health, or a related area.
  • Research Master or Master of Science in Human Movement Sciences, Psychology, (Bio)medical Science, Health Science, Sport Science, Public Health, or a related area.
  • You want to understand mechanisms underpinning exercise motivation, and contribute to making our society healthier for all.
  • You have affinity with psychobiology and an inquisitive mind.
  • You have good communication skills and are fluent in English, both verbally and in writing

As a university, we strive for equal opportunities for all, recognising that diversity takes many forms. We believe that diversity in all its complexity is invaluable for the quality of our teaching, research and service. We are always looking for talent with diverse backgrounds and experiences. This also means that we are committed to creating an inclusive community so that we can use diversity as an asset.

We realise that each individual brings a unique set of skills, expertise and mindset. Therefore we are happy to invite anyone who recognises themselves in the profile to apply, even if you do not meet all the requirements.

What do we offer?

A challenging position in a socially involved organisation. At VU Amsterdam, you contribute to education, research and service for a better world. And that is valuable. So in return for your efforts, we offer you:

  • a salary of minimum € 2.901,00 (PhD) and maximum € 3.707,00 (PhD) gross per month, on a full-time basis. This is based on UFO profile PhD candidate. The exact salary depends on your education and experience.
  • a position for at least 0.8 FTE. Your employment contract will initially last 1 year. After a satisfactory evaluation of the initial appointment, the contract will be extended to a duration of 4 years on a full-time basis (longer period based on 0,8 FTE). 

We also offer you attractive fringe benefits and regulations. Some examples:

  • A full-time 38-hour working week comes with a holiday leave entitlement of 232 hours per year. If you choose to work 40 hours, you have 96 extra holiday leave hours on an annual basis. For part-timers, this is calculated pro rata.
  • 8% holiday allowance and 8.3% end-of-year bonus
  • Solid pension schema (ABP)
  • space for personal development (e.g., by taking additional courses, participating in workshops, seminars and conferences)
  • a wide range of sports facilities which staff may use at a modest charge
  • working in a friendly and exciting environment

About us

About Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
The ambition of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam is clear: to contribute to a better world through outstanding education and ground-breaking research. We strive to be a university where personal development and commitment to society play a leading role. A university where people from different disciplines and backgrounds collaborate to achieve innovations and to generate new knowledge. Our teaching and research encompass the entire spectrum of academic endeavor – from the humanities, the social sciences and the natural sciences through to the life sciences and the medical sciences.

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam is home to more than 30,000 students. We employ over 5,500 individuals. The VU campus is easily accessible and located in the heart of Amsterdam’s Zuidas district, a truly inspiring environment for teaching and research.

Diversity
We are an inclusive university community. Diversity is one of our most important values. We believe that engaging in international activities and welcoming students and staff from a wide variety of backgrounds enhances the quality of our education and research. We are always looking for people who can enrich our world with their own unique perspectives and experiences.

Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences
The Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences (https://vu.nl/en/about-vu/faculties/faculty-of-behavioural-and-movement-sciences) focuses on the broad domain of behaviour and health. Our teaching and research programmes are devoted to current developments in society, from healthy aging to e-health, from juvenile crime to dealing with depression, from training for top athletes to social media as a teaching tool. We are unique in that we combine three academic disciplines: psychology, movement sciences and education.

Working at Behavioural and Movement Sciences means working in an ambitious organization that is characterized by an informal atmosphere and short lines of communication. Our faculty offers tremendous scope for personal development. We employ more than 600 staff members, and we are home to around 3,400 students.

Department of Human Movement Sciences
The department of Human Movement Sciences conducts research on sport and exercise, the human musculoskeletal system, on the way people move, and on how human movement can be influenced in the context of sports, health, physical education and rehabilitation. Our research is multi-disciplinary: we combine anatomy, physiology, psychology and biomechanics to understand and enhance human movement and physical activity. We provide educational programs at BSc and MSc level (including a Research Master), with a strong emphasis on understanding underpinning mechanisms, research skills and impact. In addition, we have a strong research-oriented PhD program. The department has a strong commitment to theory development, and innovative research, but we also prioritize the societal value of our research and devote ample time and attention to translation of our research findings to promote their application in practice.

The department provides a vibrant climate with high quality teaching and research staff and PhD-students who are supported by excellent facilities (e.g., multiple labs for experimental research, equipment for movement analysis and physiological measurements, as well as high-quality engineering support to develop custom-made equipment and set-ups). We have a world-class reputation for our research and teaching, as indicated by for example a 5th place in the Shanghai ranking for sports science, high quality publications, and frequent international collaboration and exchange. Our research and teaching have a strong interdisciplinary nature. The research program of the department is integrated in the research institutes Amsterdam Movement Sciences (https://www.amsterdamumc.org/en/research/institutes/amsterdam-movement-sciences.htm) and Institute for Brain and Behavior Amsterdam (https://vu.nl/nl/over-de-vu/onderzoeksinstituten/institute-for-brain-and-behavior-amsterdam-ibba). We are a strong partner in the Amsterdam Institute of Sport Science (AISS) and Rehabnet.

Questions about the vacancy?

Please contact

Prof Dr Florentina Hettinga

Head of Department Human Movement Sciences

Interested

Are you interested in this position? Please apply via the application button and upload a single PDF that includes (1) a short (motivation) letter (not longer than 1 page), (2) your curriculum vitae (which lists two references that we can contact). Submitting a diploma is part of the application process.

The interviews will take place in the end of May/beginning of June. 

The intented start date is September 1st 2025, but is flexible. 

Applications received by e-mail will not be considered.

Acquisition in response to this advertisement is not appreciated.

Questions about the vacancy?

Please contact

Prof Dr Florentina Hettinga

Head of Department Human Movement Sciences

Application procedure

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