{"id":141730,"date":"2022-06-22T14:29:37","date_gmt":"2022-06-22T12:29:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=141730"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:26:20","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:26:20","slug":"a-family-tree-teaches-me-about-the-everyday-life-of-yesterday-and-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2022\/06\/22\/a-family-tree-teaches-me-about-the-everyday-life-of-yesterday-and-today\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018A family tree teaches me about the everyday life of yesterday and today\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last year, Ilse van de Groep read 102 books. She made reading a habit, \u2018so that it doesn\u2019t depend on motivation\u2019. The book that made an impression on her is East of Eden<\/em> by John Steinbeck, because of her fascination with people and their developments over time.<\/p>\n

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Ilse van de Groep read 102 books last year. Not all of them are on the shelves.<\/span><\/p><\/figcaption><\/figure>

Last year, Ilse van de Groep read around two books a week. \u201cIt was obviously a Covid year,\u201d she says, and they also included audio books, but she is a reader. When she started her PhD in 2018, she set herself the goal of reading at least one book a week. Since then, it\u2019s become a habit. \u201cIf you teach yourself to grab a book \u2013 at the station, in the train, whilst waiting for something \u2013 reading doesn\u2019t depend on motivation anymore. Of course, I like to read in a flow, but that doesn\u2019t happen every day. For those moments, it\u2019s useful to build a system around you, so that you get a step further every day.\u201d<\/p>\n\t

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Ilse van de Groep is doing her PhD at Erasmus Sync Lab (Rotterdam), Brain and Development Research Center (Leiden University) and Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry & Psychosocial Care (Amsterdam UMC). After her research master in Social and health psychology at the University of Utrecht, she worked as a research assistant at the Experimental Psychopathology lab in Utrecht. She will submit her thesis in December.<\/p>\n\n\t<\/div>\n

Free will<\/h2>

As a PhD student, she studies the development of antisocial behaviour in a person\u2019s life. She seeks psychological and neurobiological explanations for why some people with antisocial behaviour get back on the right path, while others don\u2019t. In one of the books that made an impression on her, Great American Novel East of Eden <\/em>by John Steinbeck (translated in Dutch as Ten oosten van Eden<\/em>), a similar question is asked: how much influence do you have on your own life?<\/p>\n

In East of Eden<\/em>, two brothers compete for their father\u2019s love. One son is the father\u2019s favourite, leaving the other feeling rejected, and he subsequently sleeps with his brother\u2019s wife. Did he have another choice? \u201cSometimes people interpret neuroscience in a deterministic way by assuming that someone with a deviant brain will display deviant behaviour only as a result thereof. The message of the book is more comforting \u2013 just like in real life, the brothers\u2019 fate is not set in stone. They may have a biological vulnerability, but they can influence their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n\t

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Reading behaviour<\/strong><\/p>\n

Number of books a year: 102 (the previous year 70)<\/p>\n

Main motivation: Entertainment, curiosity and evoking emotions<\/p>\n

Favourite genre: Modern literature<\/p>\n

Last book read: Young Mungo<\/em> by Douglas Stuart<\/p>\n\n\t<\/div>\n

The passage of time<\/h2>

However, it is not in fact this message which made an impression on Van de Groep. The small moments in between evoked various emotions in her: sympathy, amazement, empathy, aversion. \u201cI like to really delve into a character\u2019s psychology and follow how they and their social relationships develop over time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The story of the brothers from East of Eden<\/em> doesn\u2019t stop at their generation. The twin sons of one of the brothers experience the same struggle. If you really want to understand a character in the book, you in any event also need to know the life of parents and ancestors. That\u2019s another thing that Van de Groep enjoys. Like a detective, she unravels the family structures.<\/p>\n\n\t

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Read more<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t