Terence D. Dores Cruz is a PhD Candidate in the department of Organizational Sciences (Faculty of Social Sciences) at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Terence studies gossip in Bianca Beersma’s ERC-Consolidator Grant Project FORCE-OF-GOSSIP. Terence is also the student-representative for the Kurt Lewin Institute.

Broadly, Terence is interested in the role of gossip in human cooperative or uncooperative interactions, such as in social or organizational groups. Terence’s current work focuses on the selfish or prosocial motives individual gossipers have, and how receivers of gossip react to gossip and attribute these motives to senders.

In 2016, I completed a bachelor's in psychology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (cum laude, honors), where I wrote a thesis on the social psychology of corruption supervised by Dr. Nils Köbis. Following this, in 2018, I completed a research master's degree at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (cum laude), where I wrote a thesis in the role of everyday gossip and reputation in cooperation supervised by Prof. Daniel Balliet. Upon completion of the master's degree, I started working on my current Ph.D. project on the reasons for and reactions to gossip supervised by Prof. Bianca Beersma and Dr. Romy van der Lee.

Once a year, I supervise individual master's students (3-4 students) and give a guest lecture in the master's level course Conflict and Cooperation (60 students).

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