Babett Voigt

Dr. Babett Voigt is a Researcher at the Department of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology within the Faculty of Psychology at Ruhr University Bochum, where she has been employed since 2015. She also serves at the Research and Treatment Center for Mental Health (FBZ) in Bochum, specializing in child and adolescent psychotherapy. Previously, she held research positions at Heidelberg University Hospital, TU Dresden, and the University of Geneva.

Her research focuses on future-oriented thinking and behavior, including episodic foresight, affective forecasting, and temporal distancing; innovative problem solving and creativity, such as innovative tool production and divergent thinking; and social understanding and behavior, including social referencing, perspective-taking, bullying, and ostracism. Her work bridges developmental psychology with clinical applications for children and adolescents.

Analysis of her recent publications reveals a consistent research trajectory examining how young children develop the ability to think about and prepare for future events. Her work particularly investigates how executive functions, motivation, and emotional states influence children's episodic foresight and prospective memory. Her research often employs innovative experimental paradigms to assess complex cognitive abilities in preschool and early school-aged children.

• DFG Grant (2019-2022): Principal Investigator for 'How Episodic Foresight Develops: The Role of Executive Functions and Motivation'
• Mercator Research Center (2018-2019): Co-Principal Investigator for 'Napping and mental time travel. The influence of midday naps on episodic foresight in 3- and 4-year-old children'
• Heidelberg University (2014-2016): Co-Principal Investigator for 'The Contribution of Self-Regulation Processes to Innovation in Human Children and Non-Human Primates'

Dr. Voigt has been an associated member of Graduate College 2185 'Situated Cognition' (2017-2020) and received a Physician Scientist Fellowship from Heidelberg University Medical Faculty in 2015 for her project 'The Impact of Surgery and Anaesthetics on Self-Regulation Development in Early Childhood.' Her research has been supported by multiple competitive funding sources, reflecting the significance of her work in developmental science.