Psychology 2026

From a touch of the gaze to a meeting of minds

Professor Jari Hietanen, University of Tampere

Gaze is a powerful social stimulus. It is used to regulate interaction and to express closeness. The perception of another person’s direct or averted gaze, and the effects of gaze on face perception, attention, and affective responses, have been widely studied over the past two decades. One key finding has been that eye contact appears to elicit a positively valenced emotional response. An interesting question has been the extent to which the various effects of gaze are purely stimulus-driven, reactions to the eyes as visual stimuli, and to what extent these effects reflect the deeper psychological meanings associated with seeing another person’s eyes as the “mirror of the soul,” indicating that the self is the object of another mind’s attention. In my lecture, I will present experimental studies conducted by our research group on the perception of gaze and its effects. Our research has mainly focused on the perception of other people’s gaze and its consequences. However, over the past few years we have expanded our work to examine the effects of gaze in interactions between humans and humanoid robots.

30 years of Intimate Partner Violence Interventions and Research in Jyväskylä 

Professor Juha Holma, University of Jyväskylä, Department of Psychology

Healthcare costs for individuals identified as victims of intimate partner violence are more than double those of a comparison group, and the additional annual costs to public healthcare have been estimated at €861 million. The healthcare costs of these patients exceeded the population average already one and a half years before they were identified within the

healthcare system. Intimate partner violence also has severe consequences for mental health, highlighting the need for effective support services and treatments for victims. Collaboration between the Psychotherapy Training and Research Clinic at the Department of Psychology of the University of Jyväskylä and Kriisikeskus Mobile in developing a program for perpetrators of intimate partner violence began as early as 1995. Over the years, extensive research data have been collected from the group-based interventions. The research has drawn on the qualitative process research tradition in psychotherapy, focusing on conversational processes and therapeutic strategies used within treatment groups. The possibilities of couple therapy and multi-family group treatment methods in addressing intimate partner violence have been examined in several research projects. In addition to intervention research, studies on intimate partner violence have been conducted in collaboration with the Central Finland Health Care District. In these projects, we have developed new service models and tools for identifying adult victims of intimate partner violence, raising the issue of violence in clinical conversations, and intervening in cases of violence within specialized healthcare. Useful therapeutic approaches include the continuous assessment of different forms of violence, ensuring safety, and maintaining attention to the perspectives of children and the victims of violence in therapeutic discussions.

Towards More Impactful Research on Burnout and Practical Solutions

Professor Anne Mäkikangas, Tampere University

Professor and Docent of Work Psychology Anne Mäkikangas serves as the Director of the Work Research Centre at Tampere University. She specializes in research on occupational well-being and has led several research projects in recent years related to job burnout, including At the Roots of Job Burnout and Practices Related to Job Burnout and Their Effects in Different Countries, which was conducted in collaboration with the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health. Her keynote-lecture “Towards More Impactful Research on Burnout and Practical Solutions” focuses on current issues related to burnout in light of recent research, including its underlying causes in present working life, the recurrence of burnout and its associated factors, as well as the need to develop effective prevention and intervention strategies. In addition, the lecture presents development needs and future directions for job burnout research.

What has been learned about bullying over the past half-century?

Christina Salmivallli, INVEST Research Flagship Centre and the department of psychology and logopedics / University of Turku

What causes bullying and how can it be prevented – or is it a phenomenon rooted in human nature that we cannot eliminate? Research on bullying began in the 1970's in Nordic countries, and over the past half century it has become an essential topic in developmental psychology worldwide. This speech presents the main lines of this research, with a particular focus on studies conducted at the University of Turku on the dynamics and consequences of bullying, as well as on its prevention and evidence-based interventions. The research methods range from short- and long-term longitudinal studies to experimental designs and randomized controlled trials, as well as combinations of these with genetic data and administrative register data.