Minet de WiedView profile
Assistant Professor
Dr. Minet de Wied is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Youth and Family within the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences at Utrecht University. Her research focuses on the development of empathy in healthy children and empathy problems in children and adolescents with conduct problems. She collaborates extensively with professionals and researchers at Accare Forensic Youth Psychiatry (FJP), Netherlands Institute Forensic Psychiatry & Psychology (NIFP), and Tilburg University, bridging academic research with clinical practice. Dr. de Wied completed her psychology studies and earned her PhD at the University of Amsterdam (Psychonomics). Her academic career includes positions at the Department of Communication Science (University of Amsterdam) and Experimental Psychology (Utrecht University). She has also gained international research experience as a visiting fellow at the University of Alabama (USA) and completed a postdoc at Utrecht University's Department of Child and Adolescent Studies. Her research program employs a multimethod approach to studying empathy and mimicry, examining both physiological responses and self-reported measures across various populations. She investigates empathy in typically developing children, those with disruptive behavior disorders, and youth in forensic settings, with particular attention to how callous-unemotional traits relate to empathy deficits. Her work explores gender differences in empathic responses and the neural mechanisms underlying empathy disruptions in adolescents with behavioral problems. Through her interdisciplinary approach, she connects developmental psychology with forensic applications. Dr. de Wied's publication record demonstrates consistent focus on empathy across developmental, clinical, and forensic contexts. Her recent work examines facial mimicry, oxytocin administration in forensic populations, gender differences in empathy, and the role of empathy in treatment outcomes for adolescents in forensic psychiatric services. This research shows strong connections between basic empathy processes and their disruptions in youth with behavioral problems. As an educator, Dr. de Wied teaches across multiple disciplines in the Master's program Clinical Child, Family and Education Studies (CCFES). She also provides specialized training in empathy for professionals through the 'pro Justitia Rapporteur' program at NIFP and has developed an innovative interdisciplinary course 'Empathy for biologists, law students and social scientists.' She serves on the Medical Research Ethics Committee Utrecht and is a member of the Descartes Centre at Utrecht University, reflecting her commitment to research ethics and interdisciplinary scholarship.






