Thanks to the generosity of the European Association of Social Psychology (EASP), I was able to visit Professor Alexandra Freund at the University of Zurich in Switzerland for two months this spring. From April until June 2022, I joined Alexandra Freund’s lab whose work focuses on goals, motivation, and regulation across the lifespan.

The eight weeks that I spent at the University of Zurich were beneficial in many ways. For once, I had the opportunity to expand my professional network and to discuss recent trends and developments in the field. These discussions challenged my thinking and highlighted different views on motivation, goals, and emotions. In addition to a refinement of my theoretical perspective, my research stay resulted in a collaborative study with Alexandra Freund. Together, we seek to better understand the factors leading to goal disengagement in feedback situations. In the experiment which we developed during the eight weeks, we focus on feedback recipients’ emotions, emotion-regulation strategy use, and feedback-related cognitions. During the last week of my stay, we started data collection which we plan to continue this autumn. At an early stage of my stay, I presented some of my prior work as well as a rough outline of the planned study to a group consisting of lab members and graduate students. Finally, I contributed to the rubric ‘Experience Science’ on the lab group’s website where lab members summarize recent research findings in an accessible way (in German).

All in all, I look back at a productive, stimulating, and insightful time at the University of Zurich. Joining Alexandra Freund’s lab allowed me to expand my scientific toolbox and to experience University life at a different institution firsthand.

I am very grateful to Alexandra Freund for hosting me, making me feel so welcome, and for giving me the chance to learn as much as I did. I am also grateful for the EASP funding my travel.

Felix Grundmann

University of Groningen, The Netherlands