Frenk van Harreveld is professor of social psychology. His research concerns the experience of uncertainty and how this impacts on perceptions and behaviour. He holds the chair “Social cognition and behavioural change in relation to sustainability and safety”, sponsored by the National Institute for Public Health and the environment (RIVM).
He obtained his PhD at the University of Amsterdam. Subsequently he worked for the world’s largest consulting firm Accenture, after which he returned to the UvA. He has worked as a visiting researcher at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
Frenk’s research on attitudes and decision-making examines various forms of evaluative conflict such as attitudinal ambivalence, decision reversibility and regret. Other forms of uncertainty that he investigates are risk perception, lack of control and mortality salience.