He makes two people face each other, lets them talk, and observes how their bodies, faces, voices, and gestures gradually fall into sync. Or how they do not.
Associate Professor Michal Hajdúk serves as professor and Head of the Department of Psychology at the Faculty of Arts of Comenius University Bratislava. He also conducts research and teaches at the university’s Department of Psychiatry of the Faculty of Medicine. His research focuses on the so-called social brain – the mechanisms that enable us to navigate interpersonal relationships, interpret facial expressions and other people’s intentions, and cooperate with others. He is particularly interested in what happens when these mechanisms fail in people with mental disorders, especially schizophrenia. He has also been researching paranoia – the tendency to inaccurately attribute hostile intentions to others. In recent years, he has increasingly turned his attention to loneliness and social isolation and their effects on health and society.
He conducts his research at the Centre for Research on Psychiatric Disorders at Comenius University, which he founded. His team has extensive experience with large-scale epidemiological studies. The centre also has a state-of-the-art laboratory where Hajdúk and his colleagues measure brain activity, physiological responses, and social behaviour while using computer-based methods to analyse facial expressions. Most recently, he has been observing pairs of people engaged in real conversations and analysing how their facial expressions and emotions synchronise during the interaction. His research is based on the hypothesis that this ability to attune to another person is impaired in people with serious mental illnesses.
He discovered his research subject while at university when his then girlfriend, now his wife, lent him a book by Robin Dunbar, The Human Story. In it, he read a brief note that people with schizophrenia experience difficulties in perceiving and interpreting social signals. He decided to explore the subject in his master’s thesis, and it has fascinated him ever since.
He considers receiving a Fulbright scholarship to be the turning point in his career. It enabled him to spend several months as a postdoctoral researcher in Texas with Professor Amy Pinkham. He was also influenced by a research fellowship in collaboration with Professor Michael Green of UCLA, one of the world’s leading schizophrenia researchers. Green introduced him to the study of social motivation and loneliness. Another month in Belgium brought him closer to the use of mobile technologies in mental healthcare and opened the door to the large international IMMERSE consortium, funded through the prestigious Horizon Europe programme. The project explored how data from mobile phones could improve treatment decisions made jointly by doctors and patients and, in turn, improve healthcare for people with mental disorders.
He considers his book Schizofrénia: malá kniha o veľkej poruche (Schizophrenia: a small book about a big disorder), in which he summed up a decade of his research and which received several awards, one of his greatest achievements. He also appreciates the impact of his DISCONNECT project, which examined the effects of loneliness and social isolation and significantly helped with opening up the public debate and driving change in this topic in Slovakia.
When he is not doing research, Hajdúk enjoys travelling with his family. He is also passionate about food and specialises in making Texas-style BBQ and Mexican tacos.
