OUR FOCUS
The Moral Intuitions Lab (MINT Lab), directed by Prof. Onurcan Yılmaz at Kadir Has University, investigates one of the central questions of the human sciences:
How do humans transcend local loyalties, immediate intuitions, and self-interest to build cooperation with strangers, sustain moral communities, and create large-scale societies?
Humans are an unusual species. We are capable of extraordinary cooperation, extending concern far beyond kinship groups to nations, institutions, and even humanity as a whole. Yet we are also vulnerable to tribalism, ideological conflict, conspiracy thinking, and moral exclusion. Understanding how these opposing tendencies emerge, and how they can be shaped, is the central mission of our lab.
LATEST NEWS
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Prof. Onurcan Yılmaz will be giving lectures at the 2026 Religion Studies Summer Camp at Nesin Villages, taking place on 10 –16 August 2026. For details and applications, click here.
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Prof. Onurcan Yılmaz delivered a CeDEx Seminar at the University of Nottingham on March 4, 2026, titled "Is Cooperation Intuitive? A Systematic Preregistered Test of the Social Heuristics Hypothesis." Click here to access the seminar page.
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Prof. Onurcan Yılmaz presented "A Moral Compass? Behavioral Consistency in Religious and Secular Belief Systems" at the Social Consequences of Religion (SCORE) Conference, held at the University of Oxford, Rhodes House. Click here to access the preprint related to the talk.
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Prof. Onurcan Yılmaz presented "What Does Moral Conduct Actually Show? CRISP as a Proximate Motivational Architecture" at the Workshop on Interdisciplinary Advances in Cooperation Research, held at the University of Nottingham on May 13, 2026. Click here to access the workshop program.
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We held a worksop on "Understanding Cooperation" on January 21, 2026. Click here to access the workshop program. You can also click here to access the recording of the workshop.