Assistant Professor at Georgia State University
About
Rengin B. Firat is an assistant professor at the Global Studies Institute, sociology department, and the Neuroscience Institute at Georgia State University. A sociologist by training, her research focuses on the social psychological mechanisms underlying inter-group conflict and civic behavior, with a particular emphasis on group identities, ethnic cognition and moral values. She combines social scientific survey methodologies with neurological experimental techniques in her studies. Dr. Firat’s research has been published in avenues such as Social Indicators Research, Social Science Research, Perspectives on Psychological Science, and Advances in Group Processes. She has received funding from the Social Science Research Council and the U.S. Department of Defense Minerva Initiative. Dr. Firat has previously held a postdoctoral researcher position at the Evolution, Cognition, and Culture Laboratory at University of Lyon in France. She obtained her PhD in sociology from the University of Iowa in 2013. She holds an MA in sociology from University of Iowa and a BA in sociology from Koç University in Istanbul, Turkey.
Current Work:
Dr. Firat's research, using a multidisciplinary quantitative approach, concentrates on how the human mind organizes and motivates individual behavior. Her dissertation focused on the ways evolved capacities for moral-emotions modulate racial bias. As a graduate student, she also worked on several scholarly projects, including her MA thesis cross-culturally assessing the relationship between values, political behavior, and social capital. Her postdoctoral research examines how other social psychological mechanisms, such as mental capacity track alliances or moral values core to the self are involved in key aspects of social life.
Dr. Firat is currently working on a project collecting experimental data linking coalitional psychological processes that detect group alliances with health and stress in the laboratory of Evolution, Culture, and Cognition at University of Lyon directed by Dr. Pascal Boyer. Additionally, she is the co-investigator of an ongoing cross-cultural project funded by the US Department of Defense in collaboration with sociologists and neuroscientists from the US and Turkey. In this project, her team is investigating how internalized moral codes and sacred values anchored in social identities trigger socio-political evaluations and action, comparing Turkey and the US.
Research Area(s):
