I am Prof. Dr. Thomas Pollet. You can find out more about me on this site and on twitter Follow @tvpollet or on bluesky Follow me on Bluesky
My work.
My research focuses on understanding the wealth of social relationships people have (e.g., romantic relationships, friendships, family relationships) and understanding the role of individual differences (e.g., personality, height, hormones,…) for these social relationships from an interdisciplinary framework. To this end, I conduct survey, observational, and experimental studies, next to analysing secondary datasets. Furthermore, I am interested in (improving) methodology and statistics and frequently collaborate with others on diverse topics (see below).
Short (academic) bio.
Dr. Thomas Pollet obtained his Ph.D. at Newcastle University (UK). He has since worked as Assistant professor at the University of Groningen (the Netherlands) in the department of Evolutionary Social Psychology where he taught several courses on evolution and human behavior. He was also employed as Assistant Professor at the VU University Amsterdam (Social and Organizational Psychology) where he carried out teaching and research using an evolutionary framework. From November 2016 to July 2017 he worked for Universiteit Leiden. In July 2017, he took up a post as Associate Professor (Reader) with Northumbria University, where he was promoted to Professor in September 2020.
Collaborators.
No man is an island. Honestly, I would not have made it this far were it not for my great colleagues.
Here are some people I have collaborated / am collaborating with.
Northumbria: Merim Bilalic, Jeanne Bovet , Genavee Brown, Clare Cook, Katri Cornelissen, Piers Cornelissen, Matthew Haigh, Philip Hodgson, Johannes Hönekopp, Kris McCarty, Karen McKenzie, Dale Metcalfe, Nick Neave, Amy Newman, Gillian Pepper, Daniel Rippon, Tamsin Saxton, Lee Shepherd, Elizabeth Sillence, Michael Smith, Martin Tovée, Gemma Wilson.
Other institutions: Louise Barrett (Lethbridge), Lynda Boothroyd (Durham), Bram Buunk (Groningen), Kelly Cobey (Ottawa), Simon Dalley (Groningen), Niels van Doesum (Leiden), Robin Dunbar (Oxford), Tim Fawcett (Exeter), Willem Frankenhuis (Nijmegen), Ton Groothuis (Groningen), Peter Henzi (Lethbridge), Hans Ijzerman (Grenoble Alpes), Toko Kiyonari (Aoyama), Toon Kuppens (Groningen), Paul van Lange (VU Amsterdam), Nale Lehmann-Willenbrock (Hamburg), Anthony Little (Bath), Leander van der Meij (Eindhoven), Nexhmedin Morina (Münster), Mark Nelissen (Antwerp), Daniel Nettle (Newcastle), Janneke Oostrom (VU Amsterdam), Jan-Willem van Prooijen (VU Amsterdam), S. Craig Roberts (Stirling), Sam Roberts (Liverpool John Moores), Richard Ronay (Amsterdam), Mirre Simons (Sheffield), John Skelhorn (Newcastle), Michael Stirrat (York, St. Johns), Gert Stulp (Groningen), Joshua Tybur (VU Amsterdam), Reinout de Vries (VU Amsterdam / UTwente), Simon Verhulst (Groningen), Mark van Vugt (VU Amsterdam), Roger Whitaker (Cardiff).
Personal
Occasionally, I’ll include my middle initial V. to differentiate from other Thomas Pollet’s (e.g., this one)
I rock a great beard. What else do you really need to know? I play squash (albeit poorly), enjoy hiking holidays, like nature documentaries. I live and work in Newcastle (UK).
Apart from beard related stuff, I like gibbons and cats as you can see on twitter Follow @tvpollet or on bluesky Follow me on Bluesky