The Psychology Research Institute (INPSY) is a specialized research institute at the Faculty of Social Studies at Masaryk University. Our research focus stems from a long-lasting interest in the topics of developmental, social and educational psychology, psychology of personality and psychology in the media. Strong methodological and statistical background allows us to perform quality basic and applied research and develop new psychodiagnostic methods.

We cooperate with the Department of Psychology at the FSS, Masaryk University. We participate in the teaching of students and at the same time, create conditions and opportunities for their involvement in existing research projects.

History of the Institute Open Science Collaborate with us

Research Teams

Health, Media, and Sexuality

Measurement in Psychology

Gifted Children

Citizenship and Democracy

Early Development, Parenthood, and Attachment

Adolescents, Young Adults, and Identity

Center for Psychotherapy Research

News

Help that sometimes doesn't help: How people build trust in the social system

Public trust in institutions grows when people believe that the state acts fairly - for example, that support is given to those who really need it. However, we still know little about the role played by the complexity of the processes within institutions themselves. Social assistance systems are sometimes composed of contradictory rules and inconsistent procedures, which can cause confusion and uncertainty among users. The authors of a new study, which included INPSY members Lenka Štěpánková and Honza Šerek, focused on how people perceive fairness and trust in such a confusing and inconsistent system, which they call an "institutional enigma".

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Andrea Stašek v debatě o queer lidech ve sportu

Fast, playful and accurate: A new cognitive development test for preschoolers

Cognitive development in preschool is an important indicator of school readiness. It is in this period that possible developmental difficulties can be reliably detected and the necessary support can be given to the child in time. In the Czech environment, there is still no consensus on what tools to use for assessing school readiness, and the available methods are not very reliable and tend to be used rather unsystematically. Modern approaches such as adaptive testing and tablet-based administration are common abroad - and it is this gap that a team of Czech researchers, including Hynek Cígler from INPSY, decided to fill with a new tool called Brief Adaptive Nonverbal Test (BANT).

When the rules aren't enough: Why trust in social service workers often matters more than the system itself

Trust is crucial for the effective functioning of social services. The relationship between the social services worker and the client is not just technical - it is personal. Although research has long focused on the quality of relationships between service users and frontline workers, it often neglects how users perceive the very formal procedures in which these relationships take place and how this context influences the formation of those relationships. The new study, co-authored by our member Lenka Štěpánková, therefore focuses on how trust in social service workers is formed in the context of bureaucratic processes that determine access to support.

Health, Media and Sexuality team at the Behavioural Addictions Conference

Anna Ševčíková, Lukas Blinka and Andrea Stašek visited the 10th International Conference on Behavioral Addictions, which took place in Nantes, France. They have been attending this prestigious conference since its inception and have been able to contribute to the international debate on measuring, problematizing and addressing (excessive) use of the Internet, gaming and pornography.