F. (Francesca) Giardini, PhD
Universitair Hoofddocent SociologieHer/Hers
E-mail:
f.giardini rug.nl
Vakgebied
Expertise
My research investigates how beliefs are formed through social influence, and how those beliefs go on to shape collective outcomes. People rarely assess the world directly: they assess it through what others tell them, and through what they infer about who is worth believing. Reputations and risk perceptions are both products of this process, and both, once established, govern what people do — whom they cooperate with, what precautions they take, which institutions they trust. This question organises two research lines. The first concerns reputation and gossip as mechanisms of social control. Although reputations are inexpensive and often loosely tied to underlying reality, they govern behaviour remarkably effectively, and I work on the cognitive and structural conditions under which reputational information stays honest and cooperation is sustained. The second line concerns how societies anticipate, withstand, and recover from disasters. Disasters are social as well as physical events, and recovery depends on how citizens, organisations, and institutions form beliefs about risk and about one another. I work computationally and across methods, i.e., agent-based modelling, behavioural experiments, and social network analysis, with a commitment to behaviourally realistic models that can inform the different stakeholders who have to act on them. I direct the Risk, Crises and Resilience theme at the Rudolf Agricola School for Sustainable Development, and I chair BRICSS, the European Social Simulation Association's special interest group on social simulation for crises. I am currently a work package leader in the Horizon Europe project PrepShield, which focuses on preparedness for health crises. Within this project, I develop cognitively and behaviorally grounded models of artificial populations to study the emergence of compliance and polarization, and to explore how such models can support evidence-based policy design.
Overige functies
Director of the research theme “Risk, crises and resilience” of the Rudolf Agricola School for Sustainable Development at the University of Groningen. Coordinator of the Special Interest Group of the European Social Simulation Association SIG-BRICSS: Building Resilience with Social Simulations .
Laatst gewijzigd:27 juli 2026 12:42