Meet the R4H team:

The project team consists of 14 psychologists in different phases of their research career, out of which four are doctoral students. The team specializes in different psychological fields of research: personality psychology, social psychology, cognitive psychology, health psychology, and clinical psychology. The researchers were selected into the project team so that their theoretical and methodological skills are complementary and meet the needs of the planned studies, as well as based on their previous work on the topic of irrational beliefs and health behaviors.

The project team is a member of LIRA – Laboratory for research of individual differences, a scientific unit within the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade.

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Researchers

Our background in relevant research:

REASON4HEALTH researchers have published more than 50 cited scientific articles in prestigious academic journals, including Science, Nature Human Behavior, and Proceedings of National Academy of Science; all four PhD students have already published first-authored articles in high-ranked SSCI journals.

Knežević, G., Lazarević, Lj., Bošnjak, M., & Keller, J. (2022). Proneness to psychotic-like experiences as a basic personality trait complementing the HEXACO model – A preregistered cross-national study. Personality and Mental Health, 10.1002/pmh.1537. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1002/pmh.1537 (pdf)

Purić, D. & Jokić, B. (2022). The Serbian validation of three versions of the Rational-Experiential Inventory: REI-40, REIm, and REIm-13. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/re2mt Preprint available at: (pdf)

Teovanović, P., Lukić, P., Zupan, Z., Lazić, A., Ninković, M., & Žeželj, I. (2021). Irrational beliefs differentially predict adherence to guidelines and pseudoscientific practices during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 35(2), 486-496. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3770 (pdf)

Lazić, A., Kalinova, K. N., Packer, J., Pae, R., Petrović, M. B., Popović, D., Sievert, D. E.C., & Stafford‐Johnson, N. (2021). Social nudges for vaccination: How communicating herd behaviour influences vaccination intentions. British Journal of Health Psychology, 26(4), 1219-1237. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjhp.12556 (pdf)

Lazarević, L. B., Purić, D., Teovanović, P., Lukić, P., Zupan, Z., & Knežević, G. (2021). What drives us to be (ir) responsible for our health during the COVID-19 pandemic? The role of personality, thinking styles, and conspiracy mentality. Personality and individual differences, 176, 110771. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2021.110771 (pdf)

Petrović, M. B., & Žeželj, I. (2021). Thinking inconsistently: Development and validation of an instrument for assessing proneness to doublethink. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 1015-5759/a000645. https://doi.org/10.1027/1015-5759/a000645
Open access postprint (accepted version): (pdf)

Lazić, A., & Žeželj, I. (2021). A systematic review of narrative interventions: Lessons for countering anti-vaccination conspiracy theories and misinformation. Public Understanding of Science, 30(6), 644-670. https://doi.org/10.1177/09636625211011881 Open Access Postprint (accepted version): (pdf)

Lazarević, L. B., Bjekić, J., Živanović, M., & Knežević, G. (2020). Ambulatory assessment of language use: evidence on the temporal stability of electronically activated recorder and stream of consciousness data. Behavior research methods, 52(5), 1817-1835. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-020-01361-z (pdf)

Žeželj, I., & Lazarević, L. B. (2019). Irrational beliefs. Europe’s Journal of Psychology, 15(1), 1. https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1903 (pdf)

Branković, M. (2019). Who believes in ESP: Cognitive and motivational determinants of the belief in extra-sensory perception. Europe’s Journal of Psychology, 15(1), 120-139. https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1689 (pdf)

Lukić, P., Žeželj, I., & Stanković, B. (2019). How (ir) rational is it to believe in contradictory conspiracy theories?. Europe’s journal of psychology, 15(1), 94. https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1690

Knežević, G., Savić, D., Kutlešić, V., & Opačić, G. (2017). Disintegration: A Reconceptualization of Psychosis Proneness as a Personality Trait Separate from the Big Five. Journal of Research in Personality, 70, 187-201. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2017.06.001 (pdf)

Teovanović, P., Knežević, G., & Stankov, L. (2015). Individual differences in cognitive biases: Evidence against one-factor theory of rationality. Intelligence, 50, 75-86. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2015.02.008 (pdf)

AllPhase leaders

Iris Žeželj, PhD

full professor

Goran Knežević, PhD

full professor

Goran Opačić, PhD

associate professor

Ljiljana Lazarević, PhD

principal research fellow

Danka Purić, PhD

associate professor

Marija Branković, PhD

associate professor

Zorana Zupan, PhD

research associate

Predrag Teovanović, PhD

associate professor

Marko Živanović, PhD

research associate

Sanda Stanković, PhD

research associate

Aleksandra Lazić, MA

research assistant

Petar Lukić, MA

research assistant

Milica Ninković, MA

research assistant

Marija Petrović, MA

research assistant

Iris Žeželj, PhD

full professor

Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade

Research Interests: irrational beliefs (focus on conspiracy theorizing), questionable health practices (focus on vaccine-hesitancy and proneness to TM/CAM), as well as public health communication

Role in the project: As a principal investigator, I take part in all research phases of the project. I coordinate research activities in content analysis of digital media, creating instruments for measuring TM/CAM, tracking these behaviors via daily diary, mapping the psychological profile of the health consumers “vulnerable” to questionable health practices. I also help in experimental testing of interventions and in engaging the stakeholders in the domain of public health.

Goran Knežević, PhD

full professor

Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade

Research Interests: individual differences in basic personality traits, socio-political attitudes, perception of illusory structures, irrational beliefs and cognitive abilities

Role in the project: I am leading studies aimed at exploring the relationships between personality traits and cognitive styles on the one hand and health behaviors on the other, assumed to be mediated via variables capturing the illusory pattern perception and irrational beliefs. I also participate in research activities related to the creation of scales for TM / CAM assessment, and those where personality, cognitive variables and irrational beliefs are measured.

Goran Opačić, PhD

associate professor

Associate professor, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade

Research Interests: individual differences in area of personality, intelligence, executive function; the development of psychological measuring instruments, development of new psychometric methods, application of knowledge in the field of individual differences in human resource management, sport and medicine.

Role in the project: I am involved in the development of TM/CAM instruments and the instruments for assessing health behavior, design of pilot studies, epidemiological and ambulatory studies

Ljiljana Lazarević, PhD

principal research fellow

Institute of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade

Research Interests: Basic personality traits, measurement of personality traits, ambulatory assessment in assessment of personality traits, relations of personality traits and schizotypy/disintegration

Role in the project: I am leading the research package aimed at exploring the relationships between personality traits, irrational beliefs and health behavior that people practice daily. To explore daily behaviors, we will use experience sampling methodology. I also participate in research activities related to the creation of scales for TM / CAM assessment, and those where personality, cognitive variables and irrational beliefs are measured.

Danka Purić, PhD

associate professor

Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade

Research Interests: measurement and assessment, instrument development, personality traits, thinking styles, cognitive abilities

Role in the project: I am leading studies dedicated to creating instruments assessing TM/CAM use and non-adherence to official medical recommendations, which will be used in subsequent project studies. I am engaged in all research activities that include instrument development, measurement of thinking styles and/or basic personality traits.

Marija Branković, PhD

associate professor

Faculty of Media and Communications, Singidunum University, Belgrade

Research Interests: human-animal relations, social identities, inter-group relations in post-conflict settings, irrational beliefs

Role in the project: I am leading experimental studies with the aim to test procedures focusing on irrational beliefs and their potential to influence health behaviors. I am also taking part in studies focussing on content analysis of media reporting on TM/CAM practices, as well as studies examining the prevalence and psychological correlates of TM/CAM practices in Serbia.

Zorana Zupan, PhD

research associate

Institute of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade

Research interests: health behaviors, cognitive psychology, cognitive development, experimental psychology

Role in the project: My role is to lead and coordinate impact and dissemination activities for the R4H project, and engage stakeholders in the domain of public health. I am also working on the development and preparation of instruments assessing the prevalence of pseudoscientific health behaviors in Serbia, as well as on the design of experimental procedures to examine the influence of interventions aimed at promoting health behaviors consistent with evidence-based recommendations.

Predrag Teovanović, PhD

associate professor

Faculty of Special Education and Rehabilitation, University of Belgrade

Research Interests: cognitive biases, judgement and decision making, rationality, intelligence, measurement procedures

Role in the project: My role in the project is to develop the instrument for the assessment of type I error cognitive biases (i.e., tendency to falsely conclude that unrelated phenomena are related) and study their relations with health behaviours, other irrational beliefs and measures of cognitive functioning.

Marko Živanović, PhD

research associate

Institute of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade

Research Interests: personality traits, higher cognitive functions, measurement and assessment, development and evaluation of psychological instruments, experimental design

Role in the project: I am involved in the development of a new instrument measuring the frequency of traditional/alternative medicine-based health practices as well as the instrument assessing propensity for questionable health practices; researching the relationship of such practices with irrational beliefs and personality, and in the validation of various experimental procedures for inducing/reducing irrational beliefs and assessing their effects on health behavior.

Sanda Stanković, PhD

research associate

Institute of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade

Research Interests: mental health, cognitive-behavior therapy, clinically relevant irrational beliefs, personality, intimate relationships

Role in the project: I am engaged in impact and dissemination activities for the R4H project. I am also involved in development and preparation of instruments assessing propensity for TM/CAM use and non-adherence to official medical recommendations, and researching the relationship of such practices with irrational beliefs and personality.

Aleksandra Lazić, MA

research assistant

Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade

Research Interests: public health communication, vaccination decision-making, social norms, cooperation, open science

Role in the project: My main role is to lead and coordinate a content analysis study of online media coverage of traditional, complementary, and alternative medicine in Serbia. I also contribute to a large study of psychological factors of questionable health practices, experiments testing ways to promote responsible health behaviors as well as to the dissemination of project results.

Petar Lukić, MA

research assistant

Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade

Research Interests: trust in science, irrational beliefs, belief in conspiracy theories.

Role in the project: I am working on the development of instruments for measuring the frequency of TM/CAM practices, on studying the relationships between irrational beliefs and TM/CAM practices via both ambulatory assessment and correlational study on representative sample, as well as on designing and conducting experimental procedures for testing the causal relationship between irrational beliefs and health behavior.

Milica Ninković, MA

research assistant

Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade

Research Interests: intergroup relations, social identities, women’s health behaviour

Role in the project: I am involved in the development of an instrument measuring the frequency of TM/CAM practices, in the research of the relations between such practices and irrational beliefs, as well as in the design and conduction of experimental procedures focused on the causal relationship between irrational beliefs and health behaviour.

Marija Petrović, MA

research assistant

Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade

Research Interests: doublethink, conspiracy beliefs, belief inconsistency, irrational beliefs, health behaviors

Role in the project: I am involved in all research activities in this project, such as the content analysis of TM/CAM representation in online media, development and preparation of the instruments for assessment of TM/CAM use and non-adherence to official medical recommendations and of irrational beliefs for different work packages, as well as the design and testing of experimental interventions aimed at reducing and inducing irrational beliefs.