Staff profile

Background

Merve is a PhD student in the Department of Psychology, sponsored by the Turkish Ministry of National Education. She is also PGR Student Representative. 

Her research explores the relationship between intergroup contact and prosociality. Her current PhD project examines how imagined contact, an indirect form of intergroup contact, can promote prosociality, intergroup and intra-group helping in particular. She is supervised by Dr Julie van de Vyver, Dr Ana Leite, Dr Patrick Kotzur, and Prof Richard Crisp.

Merve holds an MSc in Social and Cultural Psychology from the LSE where her dissertation titled "The Role of Ingroup Identification and Emotion Regulation in Behavioural Intentions towards Syrian Refugees" was awarded with a Distinction. She also has a BSc in Psychology from Istanbul University in Turkey where she graduated with First Class Honours. 

Prior to her PhD, she worked on various projects as a research assistant in the Behavioural Research Lab at the LSE and in the Equalab at Goldsmiths, University of London.

• Intergroup contact
• Prejudice
• Prosocial behaviour