WHAT WE DO?

We investigate prejudice reduction strategies and collective action, mental health, and political behaviour mainly among severely disadvantaged communities in the least accessed regions, e.g., Southeast Asia, Latin America, and in the Middle East. Our three main strands of work are strongly motivated by community and health psychological principle of co-creation i.e., involvement of the individuals and communities in the research process from conceptualization to the consumption of research findings, in the community context.

OUR RESEARCH

1. How do prejudice reduction strategies influence social change?

We investigate how prejudice reduction strategies (i.e., intergroup contact) and psychological determinants of collective action (identity, perceptions of disadvantage, and empowerment) influence social change motivations. This research extended the intergroup contact theory and collective action literature and introduced the term “sedative effect of contact” (Cakal et al. 2011) to the literature.



2. What are the social psychological determinants of mental health and well-being among severely disadvantaged communities?

Our second line of inquiry focuses on how dimensions of contact (positive vs negative vis-à-vis intergroup contact vs ingroup contact) influence mental health among the severely disadvantaged groups (refugees and indigenous communities) in community settings (Eller et al, 2016, Eller et al, 2021) and among refugees in Turkey (Alfadhli, Cakal, et al, 2019; Ozkan et al 2021); among communities involved in conflict (Voci et al, 2017).


3. What are the antecedents and consequence of political behaviour & decision making?

Our third line of inquiry looks at how intergroup processes shape political behaviour. At the regional level, our work on how refugee status shapes political decision making (Psaltis & Cakal, 2016; Psaltis et al, 2020) has attracted both international (Foreign and Commonwealth Office, UK) and local (UNFCYP) attention. At the global level, we have collaborated with an international network of researchers to investigate how stress and risk perceptions influence compliance to protective measures against Covid (Lieberoth et al., 2021; Yamada et al 2021) and support for authoritarian leadership (Pizarro et al 2021; Carillo et al in 2021; Cakal et al. 2022).

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