Researcher, interdisciplinary work and collaboration, wants to understand the how's and why's, loves her high heels and coffee in the morning, walks and talks too fast.
"Nothing any good, isn’t hard"
I was born in the Netherlands and obtained my Bachelor Pedagogy and Educational Sciences and Research Master Behavioural Science at the Radboud University Nijmegen. In my second Research Master year I tested the effectiveness of an immersive 3D video game, Dojo, in preventing adolescents’ anxiety problems. Running the project and talking to the adolescents in the study, I became enthusiastic about the impact and possible reach of video games for mental health. With my PhD project in the Games for Emotional and Mental Health lab, I designed and tested a game to help youth quit smoking, since there is no intervention available for this age group. I was not only interested in the effectiveness of the intervention, but also wanted to understand why youth smoke and whether they want to quit, and how and why this game could achieve smoking cessation in young people. To do this, I took a multidisciplinary approach: I collaborated with game designers and programmers and used a variety of methods, such as a design thinking, participatory design, experimental cognitive tasks, text-based analyses, and electroencephalography (EEG). In my current position as postdoctoral researcher in the GEMH lab, I am focusing on the emotional and mental health of youth. I am driven to have an impact on as many youth as possible by taking away projects from the ‘scientific ivory tower' and bringing them into the lives of young people. To reach that goal I believe that we need to shift our perspective and update the methods that we use: it is essential to focus on participatory design, real time individual data, inter- and transdisciplinary collaborations, and implementation science. Based on these values, I have been (and still are) a vocal proponent of the potential impact of interactive media on behavior change and social and emotional health. To this end, I have published my work in a diverse set of international journals and delivered over 50 presentations, workshops, and lectures on this topic to audiences of diverse backgrounds, including the scientific community, parents, youth, teachers, designers, and psychologists.
Smoking is one of the leading public health problems in the world. In the Netherlands today, still 1 in 4 youth between the ages of 16 and 25 smoke. Even more worrisome is that there are almost no evidence-based interventions available to help them quit smoking. That’s why we, in collaboration with scientists, game designers and smoking youth, developed and tested a game to help youth quit smoking. HitnRun is a mobile game in which you can train your impulse control, and in which you collaborate in teams, support each other’s quit attempts, and compete against other teams.
Digital media are designed to serve many different functions: socialising, working, building relationships, as well as playing and being entertained. In this project, we seek to understand the impact of different features of digital media, and help youth align what they value and love with what they do on digital platforms, in order to increase wellbeing and coherent identity development.
Social media are immensely popular, and - as it happens - a dense source of social information. In this project, we investigate what sort of information and experiences young people encounter on these social media, and how these things relate to their mental wellbeing, as well as how young people's momentary wellbeing relates to their social media behaviours.
Akili Interactive’s game EndeavorRx is the first game approved by the FDA to be prescribed as treatment for children with ADHD in the US. What does this mean for other games developed to improve emotional and mental health and change behavior?
A new paper by Hanneke Scholten and Isabela Granic is out, published by the Journal of Medical Internet Research! Find 'Use of the Principles of Design Thinking to Address Limitations of Digital Mental Health Interventions for Youth: Viewpoint' here or read about it here.
Last Friday GEMH Lab was featured in Het Jeugdjournaal to explain why games can help children to overcome their problems, such as anxiety. Het Jeugdjournaal is a Dutch news show that aims to educate children about worldwide and national news.
We are all so afraid of failing that we do almost everything to avoid it. We work as hard as we can, we live the most interesting and exiting social lives according to our personal Facebook and Instagram pages, and train in the gym to achieve a ‘killer body’. At the same time depression, anxiety, burnout, and even suicide rates are raising to unimaginable lengths, especially in youth and young adults. What is going on here and what factors are responsible for this contradictory phenomenon?
This month's theme is smoking cessation and behavior change. We are looking forward to share our activities and thoughts and to start a discussion with the community.
This month's theme is smoking cessation and behavior change. We are looking forward to share our activities and thoughts and to start a discussion with the community.
Annual conference of our research institute. GEMH Lab member Hanneke Scholten will give a talk about co-designing interventions with target populations.
Symposium: “Video Games for Promoting Emotional and Mental Health in Young People" at ICPS 2019
Multidisciplinary conference on technological innovations for wellbeing Symposium: Video games for promoting emotional and mental health in young people
ICPS is a one-of-a-kind event designed to showcase integrative science that crosses disciplinary and geographical boundaries. Held biennially, ICPS is the culmination of efforts by the Association for Psychological Science and an international network of organizations and individual scientists to stimulate global collaboration and scientific exploration. It features some of the world’s most distinguished investigators from not only psychological science, but from a range of disciplines including computer science, neurobiology, anthropology, and sociology.
The conference Supporting Health by Technology (9th Edition) will be organised in the MartiniPlaza in Groningen (the Netherlands). The conference is organised by the Dept. of Health Psychology of the University Medical Center Groningen & the Dept. of Psychology, Health and Technology of the University of Twente (Centre for eHealth and Wellbeing Research), under the auspices of The Dutch eHealth Foundation (www.NeHS.nl)
Cinekid for Professionals is an international industry event during the Cinekid Festival in October, this year streaming online.
Technology; mental health; smoking behavior; intervention science; transdisciplinary science
Author: Hanneke Scholten
Upload date: 06-02-2020
Granic, I., Morita, H., & Scholten, H. (2020). Psychological Inquiry, 31(3), 195-223. https://doi.org/10.1080/1047840X.2020.1820214
Author: Isabela Granic
Upload date: 11-05-2021
Granic, I., Morita, H., & Scholten, H. (2020). Psychological Inquiry, 31(3), 258-270. https://doi.org/10.1080/1047840X.2020.1820225
Author: Isabela Granic
Upload date: 11-05-2021
Francis, K., Scholten, H., Granic, I., Lougheed, J., & Hollenstein, T. (2021). International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(9), 4686. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18094686
Author: Kathleen Francis
Upload date: 04-28-2022
Scholten, H., & Granic, I. (2019). Journal of Medial Internet Research, 21(1), e11528. doi: 10.2196/11528
Author: Hanneke Scholten
Upload date: 06-16-2020
Scholten, H., Granic, I., Chen, Z., Veling, H., & Luijten, M. (2019). Psychology & Health, 34(5), 609-625. doi: 10.1080/08870446.2018.1554184
Author: Hanneke Scholten
Upload date: 01-29-2019
Poppelaars, A., Scholten, H., Granic, I., Veling, H., Johnson-Glenberg, M. C., & Luijten, M. (2018). Appetite, 129, 143-154. doi: 10.1016/j.appet.2018.06.039
Author: Anouk Poppelaars
Upload date: 10-01-2018
Scholten, H., Scheres, A., De Water, E., Graf, U., Granic, I., & Luijten, M. (2019). Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 26, 1803-1849. doi: 10.3758/s13423-019-01629-2
Author: Hanneke Scholten
Upload date: 07-03-2019
Scholten, H., Luijten, M., & Granic, I. (2019). Development and Psychopathology, 31, 1923-1943. doi: 10.1017/S0954579419001378
Author: Hanneke Scholten
Upload date: 06-17-2020
Griffioen, N., Van Rooij, M., Lichtwarck-Aschoff, A., & Granic, I. (2020). J Med Internet Res 2020;22(1):e15529.
Author: Nastasia Griffioen
Upload date: 01-28-2020
Griffioen, N., Scholten, H., Lichtwarck-Aschoff, A. et al. (2021). Humanit Soc Sci Commun 8, 177. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00863-1
Author: Nastasia Griffioen
Upload date: 07-20-2021