D. Ganama (Daniel) MSc

I am a PhD candidate working alongside Daniela Becker, Johan Karremans, and Katharina Bernecker. I am a social-cognitive psychologist studying the effects of pleasurable experiences, with a particular focus on shared enjoyment. Using longitudinal survey and experimental designs, our research investigates the short- and long-term consequences of shared enjoyment for individual and relational well-being.

Examples of questions we address include:
- Does making an activity such as exercising or volunteering more social or more fun increase commitment – and does enjoyment explain this relationship?
- Is the quality of shared time more important than the quantity for couples’ relational well-being?
- Do the hedonic components of shared activities (experience, enjoyment, fun, pleasure) and the eudaimonic components (cognitive representation, purpose, meaning) predict different outcomes?
The findings of our work contribute to research on hedonic and positive affective experiences and have implications for applied contexts involving leisure and well-being, entertainment, teams and workplace functioning, and relationship counseling.

Outside my PhD work, I am also a part-time (40%) teacher in the Social & Cultural Psychology Department. Within the Bachelor of Psychology and the Master Behaviour Change programmes, I have taught multiple workgroups (e.g., DRIVE 1 & 2, Research Project 1, General Introduction to Psychology, Behaviour & Environment 1, Interpersonal Relationships) and have provided lectures for courses such as Behaviour & Environment 2 & 3 and Eating Behaviour. In addition, I typically supervise one group of 4-5 bachelor students for Research Project 3 and two master’s students for their thesis / academic internships.