RiddleLab UBB

Our RIDDLE Lab members, Lect. Lavinia Cheie and Asist. Narcisa Prodan, published an article on psychosocial well-being and influencing factors in children with migrant parents, in 𝐽𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑜𝑓 𝐹𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑦 𝑅𝑒𝑠𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑐ℎ. See the article here:

Last month our lab was busy with 2 colleagues presenting in international conferences, Dr Narcisa Prodan and PhD student Alexandra Bulbuc, & a 𝑅𝑒𝑠𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑐ℎ 𝑊𝑒𝑒𝑘 𝑖𝑛 𝐶𝑙𝑖𝑚𝑏𝑖𝑛𝑔 & 𝐸𝑥𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑚𝑒 𝑆𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡𝑠 organised by Dr Maria Stefania Ionel 👏👏👏

Our latest Psychology Today Mind Riddles post explores individual, interpersonal and collective reasons which explain the fascination for personalities on the Dark Side of the personality spectrum - It might be more than the cookies...🍪🍪

We had a great applied LabTalk last week facilitated by PhD student Daria Mihaela Solescu 👏

She shared tips and tricks for a 1st Stage Registered Report and some hands-on experience with Zotero for adding references to papers🧐

Our latest Mind Riddles blog post on Psychology Today on the emotional wellbeing impact of using AI Chatbots as more than just tools for information search is available here:

They will work alongside PhD Candidate Dai Meng from the National University of Singapore on a research project exploring the cross-cultural dimensions of parental lying 2/2

See more here:

Huge congratulations to our colleagues Dr. Narcisa Prodan, grant recipient & Prof. Laura Visu-Petra, project mentor, who won the highly competitive 2×2 Grant for Early Career Scholars 2025 awarded by the International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development (@issbd) 1/2

Our new Mind Riddles blogpost got featured on the Psychology Today Homepage

We discuss the complex interplay between social anxiety and the ability to understand other minds, via egocentric thinking and intolerance of uncertainty

We wish you all a wonderful New Year and invite you to check our second blog post on the very topic of welcoming the New Year by reflecting on the past, catalyzing regrets into action and engaging in mental travel:
Stay tuned for more inquiries this year📷

Exciting news: we’re launching the Mind Riddles Blog featured in Psychology Today! ✨

Check out our first post:
"Encourage Kids to Tell the Truth, Even With Santa Watching" 🎅Insights from Prof. Victoria Talwar on child development and deception!

The second day of 𝐉𝐔𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐋𝐘 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟒—𝐉𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐞 & 𝐀𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐏𝐬𝐲𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲 𝐒𝐲𝐦𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐮𝐦 has started 🥳Today, we will have presentations from our guests, our master students, and lab colleagues!

For more information see here:

JUSTAPPLY (Justice & Applied Psychology) Symposium

We are preparing a series of engaging workshops & presentations which will explore the intersection of psychology & the legal system, including open science & methodological considerations with @StefanaJuncu & @mzloteanu
👏

Our lab members, Prof Laura Visu-Petra & PhD Candidate Andreea Turi are presenting during a Science Festival: SciFest2024- Science of Crime Investigation 2024 & bringing some of our research to a wider audience.
If you are in Cluj, check out this event:

LabTALK Series continues with another fantastic collaborative event featuring our new RiddleLab guest Laura Varutti, psychologist & researcher, University of Bergamo.
𝐎𝐮𝐫 𝐑𝐢𝐝𝐝𝐥𝐞𝐋𝐚𝐛 𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐬 & 𝐯𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐣𝐨𝐢𝐧 𝐢𝐧 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧/𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞.

Our latest research on personality and criminal behaviour got featured in PsyPost - Psychology Research News 🥳
Check the original paper here, open access

The Riddle Lab Team @ ESC #eurocrim2024 Bucharest participated with an interesting Symposium on individual differences in personality & deceptive conduct predisposing to criminal behavior & recidivism
Thanks to our colleagues @ Law Faculty, Bucharest University for organizing it

Dr Maria Stefania Ionel delivered a great oral presentation on the "Climbing Anxiety Scale (CAS-20): Preliminary Development and Validation" at the FEPSAC (European Federation of Sport Psychology) Congress (Innsbruck, Austria), the largest Sport Psychology Conference in Europe😊

Dr. Narcisa Prodan presented the lab's projects on children's deception, parenting by lying & advanced theory of mind during 2 symposia & 1 poster presentation at the 27th Biennial Meeting of the International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development-ISSBD in July @Lisbon

Exciting news for those interested in moral development during early childhood years!

Members of our team published a new article in Social Development: Preschoolers’ moral judgment and punishment attribution.

See here:

New research from our Lab
Dr Oana Marcus, Rebeca Rusu & Prof. Laura Visu-Petra in a long-term collaboration with Dr Sven Mueller:
"To be or not to be flexible: A hierarchical model of affective flexibility in typical development and internalizing problems"

This achievement speaks volumes about the collaborative spirit and culture of excellence that defines our lab. Because of this, we wish to extend a big thank you for the support and unwavering commitment of our entire team!

We proudly announce that lab members Prof. Laura Visu-Petra & PhD student Alexandra Bulbuc have been honoured with the prestigious Excellentia Award from Babeș-Bolyai University, given to outstanding, inspiring and innovative faculty members!
Congratulations! 🥳

Also see here for a follow-up interview on Dark Authenticity, Narcissism, Psychopathy, Machiavellianism

From Authenticity to Dark Authenticity We tend to associate authenticity with goodness and morality. But dark personality traits can be truly authentic, turning conventional notions of authenticity inside-out.

Prof. Laura Visu-Petra and PhD student Andreea-Alexandra Bulbuc were invited this past month to discuss for Psychology Today Magazine their work on Dark Authenticity 😎🥳🤓

Read their interview here:

Prof. Laura Visu-Petra and Ph.D. candidate Mara Moldoveanu, along with several other RiddleLab members, were delighted to take part in yesterday's Zoom Psychology and Law Symposium event where Prof. Laura shared an important overview on practice and research in Romania! #ZPLS

Are you interested in forensic & legal psychology and the challenges & opportunities in different countries around Europe (including Romania) and the world, both in practice and research?
Then check this page and register (limited spots):

In November, we had as our RiddleLab guest, Dr Joanna Płotnikowska, a researcher at Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland with a talk on "Prosocial lies as social tools".

If you want to check out the talk, it is available here 🥳

Here is the link to the talk if you couldn't join, but would love to check it

Yesterday we had our LabMeet - the winter edition!
We enjoyed some treats, discussed ongoing projects and future missions. We wish a warm welcome to our new volunteer and we are looking forward to many fruitful collaborations during the next year!