Dr D. Becker (Daniela)

Daniela Becker studies the role positive affective experiences (e.g., pleasure, enjoyment) in self-regulation, motivation and behaviour change.

In one line of research she, together with Katharina Bernecker (University of Teacher Education Bern), discovered that people differ in their capacity to experience pleasure and enjoyment, and that this trait hedonic capacity is related to higher levels of well-being (Bernecker & Becker, 2021) and lower levels of (mal)adaptive coping (i.e., alcohol use; Becker & Bernecker, 2024).

In another line of research, she developed, together with Harm Veling (Wageningen University and Research) the new ‘value and experience-based model of behaviour change (VEM-BC)” (Becker & Veling, 2026). The model combines insights from different research areas such as decision making, reinforcement learning, self-control, affective processing and behaviour change. According to the VEM-BC, people will engage in a behaviour more often if their experience while executing the behaviour is more positive (e.g., enjoyable, meaningful). That means that if we want people to eat more healthily, exercise more often or eat more plant-based foods, those behaviours need to become more enjoyable!

She also still pursues her more fundamental research interests in how people deal with motivational conflicts (Becker et al., 2024).

Daniela Becker studied psychology at Cardiff University (BSc, 2009) and at the University of Amsterdam (MSc Research, 2011). She completed her PhD (also at the University of Amsterdam; 2017) on the nature and consequences of self-control conflicts in the eating domain. Before she joined the BSI in spring 2020 she was a postdoc at the Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien in Tübingen (Germany). In her work she strives towards open science.