Sami Coksan

Dr. Sami Coksan received his Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey. Sami mainly focuses on intergroup relations, conflict, and conflict resolution, and seeks answers to the question of how we can live in a more harmonious society. His research interests include social identities, intergroup contact, irony of harmony, and support for pro-refugee social policies. As a postdoctoral researcher, Sami currently studies the effect of collective punishment on ingroup consolidation among non-perpetrators in the cross-cultural context.

Sami’s teaching style is interactive, evidence-based, and strongly connected to real-world applications. He encourages students to question assumptions, engage critically with research, and apply psychological theories to everyday social issues. Utilizing discussion, case examples, collaborative activities, and applied exercises, Sami works to create an inclusive learning environment in which students can actively participate. His goal is to make complex ideas accessible without oversimplifying and help students develop the analytical, methodological, and communication skills they need beyond the classroom.

Courses taught

Applied Social Psychology, Social Identity

Areas of academic interest

Social psychology, intergroup relations, social identity, political psychology, prejudice and discrimination, migration and acculturation, social influence, applied social psychology.

Areas of specialization

Intergroup contact, collective punishment, legitimacy and justice perceptions, dehumanization, social identity processes, acculturation, experimental and longitudinal research methods.

Publications

• Çoksan, S., Tercan, M., Bağcı, S. Ç., & Yıldız-Çoksan, S. (2026). Small gifts, big shifts? Testing the role of contact through reciprocal gifting as a prejudice reduction strategy. British Journal of Social Psychology. Doi: 10.1111/bjso.70052
• Uysal, M. S., Çoksan, S., & Kessler, T. (2026). How collective punishment harm intergroup relations through ingroup homogeneity, perceived fairness, and counter-collective action: A registered report. Political Psychology, 47(1), e13028. Doi: 10.1111/pops.13028
• Çoksan, S., & Sağlamöz, A. F. (2025). Egalitarian norms can deflate identity-bias link in real-life groups. PLOS One, 20(8), e0330484. Doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0330484
• Çoksan, S., Yasin Tekizoğlu, F., Uysal, M. S., Hartwich, L., Alcañiz-Colomer, J., & Loughnan, S. (2025). When those fleeing the war are blue-eyed and blond: The effects of message content and social identity on blatant dehumanization in four nations. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 106, 102177. Doi: 10.1016/j.ijintrel.2025.102177
• Çoksan, S., & Çakmak, H. (2025). The effects of intergroup helping on supporting social policies among non-WEIRD advantaged group members: An experimental study of Turks’ responses towards Kurds in Türkiye. Current Psychology, 44, 12649–12660. Doi: 10.1007/s12144-025-07993-8
• Çoksan, S. (2025). Are collective punishment policies doomed to backfire? A social identity approach analysis. Lectio Socialis, 9(1), 93-110. Doi: 10.47478/lectio.1810439
• Çoksan, S., & Yilmaz, A. D. (2024). Focusing on fake news’ contents: The association between ingroup identification, perceived outgroup threat, analytical-intuitive thinking and detecting fake news. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 24(1), 102-132. Doi: 10.1111/asap.12371
• Çoksan, S., Kekeli, B., Turgut, B., & Sağdış, E. (2024). Personality traits and common ingroup identity: Support for refugee policies among host members. Changing Societies & Personalities, 8(3), 713-735. Doi: 10.15826/csp.2024.8.3.296
• Sayılan, G., Çoksan, S., & Can, M. (2024). Differences in acculturation orientations of advantaged and disadvantaged members of the host community in Türkiye toward newcomers: The roles of ethnic and national identification and perceived outgroup threat. Community Psychology in Global Perspective. Doi: 10.1285/i24212113v10i2-2p46
• Erden, G., Çoksan, S., Özdoğru, A. A., Ergül-Topçu, A., Azak, Y., Uçar, G. K., ... & Yasak, Y. (2023). Turkish University Students' Social Support, Daily Activities, Self-Supportive and Health Risk Behaviors During COVID-19 Pandemic. Polish Psychological Bulletin, 54(1), 37-47. Doi: 10.24425/ppb.2023.143371
• Çoksan, S., Şahin, S. M., & Yıldız-Çoksan, S. (2023). The protective role of perceived parental guidance on the association between playing violent video games, identification with the game character and aggression among Turkish boys. Youth Voice Journal, 13(1), 3-24.
• Küçük, S. S., & Çoksan, S. (2023). The mediating role of the perception of traditionalist gender roles in career choice on the association between egalitarian gender perception and STEM-related career preference among third (junior-level) and fourth (senior-level) grade high school students. Universal Journal of History and Culture, 5(1), 1-15. Doi: 10.52613/ujhc.1167573
• Şahin, A., Bekir, S. A. R. I., Güler, B., & Çoksan, S. (2022). Investigating the moderating role of positive intergroup contact on the association between authoritarianism and homophobia among heterosexual young adults. Current Research in Social Sciences, 8(2), 60-72. Doi: 10.30613/curesosc.1162897
• Çoksan, S., & Cingöz-Ulu, B. (2022). Group norms moderate the effect of identification on ingroup bias. Current Psychology, 41(1), 64-75. Doi: 10.1007/s12144-021-02091-x
• Erden, G., Özdoğru, A. A., Çoksan, S., Ögel-Balaban, H., Azak, Y., Altınoğlu-Dikmeer, İ., ... & Baytemir, G. (2022). Social contact, academic satisfaction, COVID-19 knowledge, and subjective well-being among students at Turkish Universities: a nine-university sample. Applied Research in Quality of Life, 17(4), 2017-2039. Doi: 10.1007/s11482-021-10019-7
• Abou-Ismail, R., Phillips, J. B., Cichocka, A., Çakmak, H., Çoksan, S., & Sengupta, N. K. (2026). Conceptualizing and measuring support for collective violence. Aggressive Behavior, 52(2), e70063. Doi: 10.1002/ab.70063
• Bagci, S. C., Çoksan, S., Turnuklu, A., & Tercan, M. (2024). Do positive and negative intergroup contact create shifts in ingroup and outgroup attitudes over time: A three‐wave longitudinal study testing alternative mediation models. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 34(6), e70011. Doi: 10.1002/casp.70011
• Uygur, M. R., Eser, H. B., Çoksan, S., & Sarıdağ, S. (2024). Multiculturalism, social distance, and xenophobia among non-weird individuals toward Syrian refugees: Positive and negative emotions as moderators. Current Psychology, 43, 22859–22871. Doi: 10.1007/s12144-024-06001-9
• Yaşın-Tekizoğlu, F., Çoksan, S., & Göncü-Köse, A. (2023). Is quantity getting over quality? Graduate study in psychology in Türkiye. Turkish Psychological Articles, 26(52), 43-48. Doi: 10.31828/tpy1301996120231219m000059
• Van de Velde, S., Buffel, V., Van Der Heijde, C., Çoksan, S., Bracke, P., Abel, T., & Wouters, E. (2021). Depressive symptoms in higher education students during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. An examination of the association with various social risk factors across multiple high-and middle-income countries. SSM-Population Health, 16, 100936. Doi: 10.1016/j.ssmph.2021.100936
• Yıldız-Çoksan, S., Aslan, A., Çoksan, S., & Okuyaz, Ç. (2019). Cognitive profile and academic achievement of children with absence epilepsy. Epilepsy & Behavior, 95, 95-99. Doi: 10.1016/j.yebeh.2019.04.001
• Chen, S.-C., Buchanan, E. M., Kekecs, Z., Miller, J. K., Szabelska, A., Aczel, B., Bernabeu, P., Forscher, P., Szuts, A., Vally, Z., Al-Hoorie, A. H., Helmy, M., Alves da Silva, C. S., Oliveira da Silva, L., Luksevicius de Moraes, Y., Santos Hsu, R. M. C., Looman Mafra, A., Valentova, J. V., ... Çoksan, S., ... Chartier, C. R. (2025). Investigating object orientation effects across 18 languages. Current Psychology, 44, 19148–19174. Doi: 10.1007/s12144-025-08304-x
• Cologna, V., Mede, N. G., Berger, S., Besley, J., Brick, C., Joubert, M., Maibach, E. W., Mihelj, S., Oreskes, N., Schäfer, M. S., van der Linden, S., Abdul Aziz, N. I., Abdulsalam, S., Abu Shamsi, N., Aczel, B., Adinugroho, I., Alabrese, E., Aldoh, A., ... Çoksan, S., ... Zwaan, R. A. (2025). Trust in scientists and their role in society across 68 countries. Nature Human Behaviour, 9(4), 713–730. Doi: 10.1038/s41562-024-02090-5
• Mede, N. G., Cologna, V., Berger, S., Besley, J., Brick, C., Joubert, M., Maibach, E. W., Mihelj, S., Oreskes, N., Schäfer, M. S., van der Linden, S., Abdul Aziz, N. I., Abdulsalam, S., Abu Shamsi, N., Aczel, B., Adinugroho, I., Alabrese, E., Aldoh, A., ... Çoksan, S., ... Zwaan, R. A. (2025). Perceptions of science, science communication, and climate change attitudes in 68 countries: The TISP dataset. Scientific Data. Doi: 10.1038/s41597-024-04100-7
• Buchanan, E. M., Cuccolo, K., Heyman, T., van Berkel, N., Coles, N. A., Iyer, A., Peters, K., van ‘t Veer, A. E., Montefinese, M., Maxwell, N. P., Taylor, J. E., Valentine, K. D., Arriaga, P., Barzykowski, K., Boucher, L., Collins, W. M., Vaidis, D. C., Aczel, B., ... Çoksan, S., ... Lewis, S. C. (2025). Measuring the semantic priming effect across many languages. Nature Human Behaviour. Doi: 10.1038/s41562-025-02254-x
• Phills, C. E., Miller, J. K., Buchanan, E. M., Williams, A., Meyers, C., Brown, E. R., Zickfeld, J., Volsa, S., Stieger, S., Oberzaucher, E., Mlakic, V., Vasilev, M., Dalgar, İ., Çoksan, S., Söylemez, S., Solak, Ç., Özdoğru, A. A., Çoktok, B., Kung, C.-C., ... Kekecs, Z. (2025). Multi-region investigation of ‘man’ as default in attitudes. PLOS One, 20(6), e0323938. Doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0323938
• Buchanan, E. M., Lewis, S. C., Paris, B., Forscher, P. S., Pavlacic, J. M., Beshears, J. E., ... Çoksan, S., … & Vega, D. (2023). The Psychological Science Accelerator’s COVID-19 rapid-response dataset. Scientific Data, 10(1), 87. Doi: 10.1038/s41597-022-01811-7
• Dorison, C. A., Lerner, J. S., Heller, B. H., Rothman, A. J., Kawachi, I. I., Wang, K., ... Çoksan S., … & Pantazi, M. (2022). In COVID-19 health messaging, loss framing increases anxiety with little-to-no concomitant benefits: Experimental evidence from 84 countries. Affective Science, 3(3), 577-602. Doi: 10.1007/s42761-022-00128-3
• Legate, N., Ngyuen, T. V., Weinstein, N., Moller, A., Legault, L., Vally, Z., ... Çoksan, S., … & Ogbonnaya, C. E. (2022). A global experiment on motivating social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(22), e2111091119. Doi: 10.1073/pnas.2111091119
• Wang, K., Goldenberg, A., Dorison, C. A., Miller, J. K., Uusberg, A., Lerner, J. S., ... Çoksan, S., … & Štrukelj, E. (2021). A multi-country test of brief reappraisal interventions on emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nature Human Behaviour, 5(8), 1089-1110. Doi: 10.1038/s41562-021-01173