2026 Ruud Custers: Psychology Researcher – H-Index, Publications & Awards

Discipline name	D-Index	World Ranking	Current World Ranking	National Ranking	Current National Ranking	Publications	Citations
Psychology	35	9728	9102	429	415	88	7355

Overview

Ruud Custers is a researcher affiliated with Utrecht University in the Netherlands, specializing primarily in the fields of psychology and neuroscience. Their work spans several subfields including cognitive neuroscience, social psychology, developmental and educational psychology, experimental and cognitive psychology, as well as psychiatry and mental health.

Their research addresses a variety of topics, notably action observation and synchronization, psychology of moral and emotional judgment, neural and behavioral psychology studies, free will and agency, behavioral and psychological studies, child and animal learning development, and the intersection of language, metaphor, and cognition.

Ruud Custers has contributed to numerous publications across respected journals. Some recent papers include:

Intentional action and limitation of personal autonomy. Do restrictions of action selection decrease the sense of agency? (2021, Consciousness and Cognition)
The Differential Impact of a Response's Effectiveness and its Monetary Value on Response-Selection (2020, Scientific Reports)
Biased preferences through exploitation: How initial biases are consolidated in reward-rich environments. (2020, Journal of Experimental Psychology General)
Studying the sense of agency in the absence of motor movement: an investigation into temporal binding of tactile sensations and auditory effects (2021, Experimental Brain Research)
Ideomotor Action: Evidence for Automaticity in Learning, but Not Execution (2020, Frontiers in Psychology)

Frequent collaborators in their work include Hans Marien, Henk Aarts, Kaiyang Qin, Chris Harris, and Samantha Antusch.

Ruud Custers has been published repeatedly in several journals, with multiple papers featured in Motivation Science, as well as contributions to Consciousness and Cognition, Scientific Reports, and the Journal of Experimental Psychology General and Human Perception & Performance.

Best Publications

The Unconscious Will: How the Pursuit of Goals Operates Outside of Conscious Awareness

Ruud Custers;Henk Aarts

836
Citations
Positive affect as implicit motivator: on the nonconscious operation of behavioral goals.

Ruud Custers;Henk Aarts

757
Citations
Mechanisms of motivation-cognition interaction: Challenges and opportunities

Todd S. Braver;Marie K. Krug;Kimberly S. Chiew;Wouter Kool

495
Citations
The Nonconscious Cessation of Goal Pursuit: When Goals and Negative Affect Are Coactivated

Henk Aarts;Ruud Custers;Rob W. Holland

367
Citations
On the inference of personal authorship: enhancing experienced agency by priming effect information.

Henk Aarts;Ruud Custers;Daniel M. Wegner

366
Citations
Preparing and Motivating Behavior Outside of Awareness

Henk Aarts;Ruud Custers;Hans Marien

344
Citations
Mindful Attention Prevents Mindless Impulses

Esther K. Papies;Lawrence W. Barsalou;Ruud Custers

337
Citations
The Unconscious Eye Opener: Pupil Dilation Reveals Strategic Recruitment of Resources Upon Presentation of Subliminal Reward Cues

Erik Bijleveld;Ruud Custers;Henk Aarts

282
Citations
Unconscious Goal Activation and the Hijacking of the Executive Function

Hans Marien;Ruud Custers;Ran R. Hassin;Henk Aarts

225
Citations
In search of the nonconscious sources of goal pursuit: Accessibility and positive affective valence of the goal state

Ruud Custers;Henk Aarts

211
Citations
PerCePtion in the serviCe of goAl Pursuit: motivAtion to AttAin goAls enhAnCes the PerCeived size of goAl-instrumentAl oBjeCts

Martijn Veltkamp;Henk Aarts;Ruud Custers

210
Citations
The goal‐dependent automaticity of drinking habits

Paschal Sheeran;Henk Aarts;Ruud Custers;Amanda Rivis

204
Citations
Goal Priming and the Affective-Motivational Route to Nonconscious Goal Pursuit

Henk Aarts;Ruud Custers;Martijn Veltkamp

190
Citations
Unconscious reward cues increase invested effort, but do not change speed-accuracy tradeoffs

Erik Bijleveld;Ruud Custers;Henk Aarts

179
Citations
SOCIAL STEREOTYPES AND AUTOMATIC GOAL PURSUIT

Henk Aarts;Tanya L. Chartrand;Ruud Custers;Unna Danner

170
Citations
Beyond priming effects: The role of positive affect and discrepancies in implicit processes of motivation and goal pursuit

Ruud Custers;Henk Aarts

135
Citations
Priming and authorship ascription: when nonconscious goals turn into conscious experiences of self-agency.

Henk Aarts;Ruud Custers;Hans Marien

126
Citations
Positive priming and intentional binding: Eye-blink rate predicts reward information effects on the sense of agency

Henk Aarts;Erik Bijleveld;Ruud Custers;Myrthel Dogge

107
Citations
Goal-Discrepant Situations Prime Goal-Directed Actions if Goals Are Temporarily or Chronically Accessible

Ruud Custers;Henk Aarts

105
Citations
When moving without volition: implied self-causation enhances binding strength between involuntary actions and effects.

Myrthel Dogge;Marloes Schaap;Ruud Custers;Daniel M. Wegner

95
Citations

Frequent Co-Authors

Henk Aarts Utrecht University

Matthijs Vink Utrecht University

Daniel M. Wegner Harvard University

John A. Bargh Yale University

Anne Giersch University of Strasbourg

Ran R. Hassin Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Andrew J. Elliot University of Rochester

Thomas L. Webb University of Sheffield

Deanna M. Barch Washington University in St. Louis

Carol S. Dweck Stanford University

External Links

Personal website of Ruud Custers

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