Principal Investigator
I'm an associate professor of psychology at Kadir Has University, Istanbul, and I lead the MINT lab — a collaborative interdisciplinary laboratory bringing together my diverse, but integrated, research foci covering the psychology of morality, political psychology, cognitive science of religion, and decision-making areas. My research mainly focuses on dual-process accounts of moral judgment and behavior. More specifically, I try to understand how different cognitive styles (reflection vs. intuition) lead people to adopt certain belief systems such as religious and supernatural beliefs, ideological beliefs, conspiracy theories, free will and determinism beliefs, beliefs about climate change, and several other normative and meta-ethical beliefs. I also try to understand (1) why people believe or disbelieve some supernatural deities, (2) how believing (vs. disbelieving) leads to different moral leanings, and (3) cognitive underpinnings and (4) contextual determinants of diverse moral behaviors such as generosity, cooperation, and group bias.
Lab Alumni
Members
Affiliated Researchers
Undergraduate Research Assistants
Graduate Research Assistants
Dilara Çavdar
Research Interests: political psychology, prosociality and morality, cross-cultural psychology
About: She graduated from Middle East Technical University (BA) and Social Psychology (MA) at Kadir Has University under the supervision of Dr. Onurcan Yılmaz. She is currently a PhD student at Sabancı University.
S. Bengisu Akkurt
Research Interests: social identity, prosociality and morality, cross-cultural psychology, intergroup relations, stigmatized groups
About: She graduated from Istanbul Sehir University (BA) in 2019 and is currently studying Social Psychology (MA) at Kadir Has University under the supervision of Dr. Onurcan Yılmaz.
DoÄŸukan DemircioÄŸlu
Research Interests: economic cognition, the psychology of poverty, judgment and decision making, prosociality and morality, behavioral economics
About: He graduated from Istanbul University (BA) and is currently studying Cognitive Science (MS) at Middle East Technical University under the supervision of Dr. Barbaros Yet and Dr. Onurcan Yılmaz.
Ensar Acem
Research Interests: evolutionary underpinnings of social behavior and cognition, morality, political psychology
About: He graduated from Ankara University (BA) in 2019 and is currently studying Social Psychology (MA) at Kadir Has University under the supervision of Dr. Onurcan Yılmaz.
Ä°layda VelioÄŸlu
Research Interests: moral psychology, neurophilosophy, affective neuroscience, statistics
About: She graduated from Dogus University (BA) in 2017 and is currently studying Social Psychology (MA) at Kadir Has University under the supervision of Dr. Onurcan Yılmaz.
Melike HocaoÄŸlu
Research Interests: moral psychology, theistic metaethics, psychology of religion
About: She graduated from Medipol University (2020) and is currently studying Social Psychology (MA) at Kadir Has University under the supervision of Dr. Onurcan Yılmaz.
Vahdet Sümer
Research Interests: moral psychology, evolutionary psychology, science of religion, moral judgment
About: He graduated from Middle East Technical University and is currently studying Social Psychology (MA) at Kadir Has University under the supervision of Dr. Onurcan Yılmaz.
Yiğit Aşık (Lab tech)
Research Interests: science of religion, morality, cooperation, stress, resistance to change
About: He is currently doing his major at Dogus University (Istanbul). Majority of his interests include evolutionary psychology and behavioral biology.
Fırat Şeker
Research Interests: evolutionary psychology, music psychology, moral judgment, social cognition.
About: He graduated from Dogus University (Istanbul) and is currently studying Social Psychology (MA) at Kadir Has University under the supervision of Dr. Onurcan Yılmaz.
Ebrar Ceylan
Research Interests: cognitive science, religion, morality, non-WEIRD societies
About: He is currently doing his psychology major at Bogazici University (Istanbul).
Stavroula Koskina
Research Interests: religious terrorism and radicalisation, political psychology, social psychology, social identity and constructions, religion and morality
About: She is an undergraduate student at the psychology faculty of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTh) and was an intern (via the Erasmus+ Placement program) at the Moral Intuitions Lab under the supervision of Dr. Onurcan Yılmaz.
Research Interests: cognitive science of religion, evolutionary psychology, moral cognition, evolution of cooperation
About: He holds a Ph.D. (1998) from Yale University. He is an assistant professor of psychology at Medipol University (Istanbul). His research has appeared in leading academic journals such as Evolution and Human Behavior and Cognition.
Research Interests: political psychology, person perception, interpersonal cognition, intergroup relations
About: He holds a Ph.D. (2008) in Social-Personality Psychology from New York University. He is a full professor of psychology at Kadir Has University (Istanbul) and a musician (see www.adilsaribay.com). His research has appeared in leading academic journals such as Cognition, and Personality and Social Psychological Bulletin.
Research Interests: moral emotions, relational models of morality, naturalistic conceptions of morality, values, moral circle, values and identity
About: She holds a Ph.D. (2008) in Social Psychology from Istanbul University. She is currently a full professor of psychology at Istanbul University. Her research has appeared in leading academic journals such as Personality and Individual Differences and Psychological Reports.
Research Interests: cooperation, social heuristics hypothesis, moral decision making, social norms
About: He holds a Ph.D. (2009) in Economics from University of California, Riverside. He is an experimental and behavioral economist at Queensland University of Technology's Centre for Behavioural Economics, Society and Technology (BEST), and an external fellow of University of Nottingham's Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics (CeDEx).
Research Interests: self-regulation, morality, motivation goal pursuits, close relationships
About: He holds a Ph.D. (2014) in Social Psychology from Middle East Technical University. He is an assistant professor of psychology at Altınbaş University (Istanbul). His research has appeared in leading academic journals such as Journal of Research in Personality, and Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour.
Diane Sunar
Research Interests: moral emotions, relationship regulation theory, evolutionary origins of morality, moral circles, moral development
About: She holds a Ph.D. (1973) in Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley. She is currently emeritus professor of psychology at Istanbul Bilgi University. Her work on morality has appeared in Personality and Social Psychology Compass, Current Psychology, and Turkish Journal of Psychology.
Research Interests: emotional synchrony, interpersonal emotion regulation, modeling interpersonal emotional processes, adult attachment, and moral judgment
About: He holds a Ph.D. (2014) in Social Psychology from Middle East Technical University. He is an associate professor of psychology at Kadir Has University (Istanbul). His research has appeared in leading academic journals such as Journal of Research in Personality, and Infant and Child Development.
Research Interests: political psychology, moral psychology, free will, construal level theory
About: He holds a Ph.D. (2016) in Social Psychology from Middle East Technical University. He is an assistant professor of psychology at Yasar University (Izmir). His research has appeared in leading academic journals such as Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, and Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Beyza Tepe
Research Interests: moral decision making, relational motivations, moral emotions, moral cognitions, perceived injustice, victim perception
About: She holds a Ph.D. (2019) in Social Psychology from Istanbul University in collaboration with the Trinity College, Dublin. She is an assistant professor of psychology at Bahçesehir University (Istanbul). Her research has appeared in leading academic journals such as Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Research Interests: behavioral immune system, online dating, age differences
About: He is a Ph.D. student in Social Psychology at University of Connecticut. His research has appeared in leading academic journals such as Personality and Individual Differences and Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.
Fatih Bayrak (Lab manager)
Research Interests: political psychology, morality, intergroup relations, identity
About: He is a Ph.D. candidate in Social Psychology at Dokuz Eylul University (Izmir) under the supervision of Dr. İnci Boyacıoğlu and Dr. Onurcan Yılmaz. His research has appeared in leading academic journals such as European Journal of Social Psychology and Personality and Individual Differences.
Yunus BayramoÄŸlu
Research Interests: morality, religion, dietary/ethical lifestyles, veganism, close relationships
About: He graduated from from Kadir Has University, Social Psychology MA program in 2019. He is currently a PhD student at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Metin Ege Salter
Research Interests: negativity bias, political ideology, attachment, morality
About: He received his MA at Kadir Has University, and currently a PhD student at BaÅŸkent University (Ankara).
Umut Can Özbek
Research Interests: intuitive altruism, social heuristics hypothesis, moral decision making, prosociality
About: He graduated from Dogus University (2018) and currently working in the private sector.
Berke AydaÅŸ
Research Interests: free will, moral psychology, evolutionary psychology, social cognition
About: He graduated from Dogus University (BA) and Social Psychology (MA) programme at Kadir Has University under the supervision of Dr. Onurcan Yılmaz.
Bengi Aktar
Research Interests: political psychology, conservatism, peace and conflict, veganism
About: She graduated from Istanbul University (BA) and is currently studying Social Psychology (MA) at Kadir Has University under the supervision of Dr. Onurcan Yılmaz.
Gülce Günaydın
Research Interests: evolutionary and cultural foundations of morality, cultural evolution, social status and hierarchies.
About: She graduated from Işık University (Istanbul) in 2020 and is currently studying Social Psychology (MA) at Kadir Has University under the supervision of Dr. Onurcan Yılmaz.
Melih Varol
Research Interests: intergroup relations, morality, attitudes and attitude change, discrimination and cross cultural studies.
About: He graduated from Istanbul University in 2020 and is currently studying Social Psychology (MA) at Kadir Has University under the supervision of Dr. Onurcan Yılmaz.
The MINT Lab
mintlab (at) khas.edu.tr