Dr L. Vandeberg (Lisa)

Lisa Vandeberg’s professional interests have always been driven by the curiosity to understand how communication affects people’s thinking and decisions. With this drive, she obtained her PhD in Cognitive Psychology, with fundamental research on people’s mental representations during language processing. She then took the leap to Communication Science, where she explores whether and how different forms of prosocial communication (e.g., personal stories on vaccinations) elicit psychological processes (both implicit and explicit, such as heuristics, biases and resistance) that may help or hinder comprehension and behavior change.

Her research encompasses three main themes; 1) vaccination communication, 2) prosocial (health) communication, 3) communication and cognition. In her vaccination research, she asks: How do people decide about vaccination, and what makes them hesitant? Which role does bias play in decision-making and in the processing of vaccination information? How can evidence-based communication better inform and support people’s vaccination decisions?