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GrouPsy-Lab

A Sabanci University based social psychology lab.

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About Us

The GrouPsy Lab, led by Prof. Dr. ÇiÄŸdem BaÄŸcı, is a social psychology research lab at Sabancı University. Our research interests include but are not limited to phenomena within intergroup relationships such as stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination, intergroup contact, collective action; environmental behaviors, and human-robot interactions.

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Through cutting-edge research, our lab aims to deepen understanding of these critical social issues and contribute to the development of interventions that promote healthy cross-group communication and foster intergroup harmony.

Ongoing Projects

Moral Minorities Project

This is a three-year project with mixed methodology and aims to examine the attitudes towards different moral minorities such as veg*ns and environmentalists.

Humor Project

This research experimentally test the effect of being exposed to traditional vs. counter-traditional gender role jokes on perceived identity threat related to gender. 

Latest Publications

Ipek Guvensoy, Sabahat Cigdem Bagci, Rhiannon N. Turner, Sofia Stathi

February 2025, https://doi.org/10.1177/13684302251315063 

Intergroup meta-attitude inaccuracy—the extent to which perceptions of outgroup views towards the ingroup diverge from what outgroup members actually think—fuels intergroup hostility, yet research on its precursors is scarce. Through four correlational studies, we examined whether and how intergroup contact predicts meta-attitude (in)accuracy in three conflict contexts: Black–White British in the United Kingdom (UK), Turks–Kurds in Turkey, and Catholics–Protestants in Northern Ireland. Regardless of context or status, all groups perceived themselves to be evaluated more negatively by the outgroup than they really were. Positive contact predicted increased meta-attitude accuracy (through increased shared reality) which was, in turn, associated with more positive outgroup attitudes. The role of negative contact and affective mediators (such as intergroup anxiety and fear) was not consistent and depended on group and context. The use of positive intergroup contact as a potential rectifier of overestimated negative meta-attitudes in conflict contexts is discussed.

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