Research & Publications

The United States houses the largest immigrant population in the world, with immigrants constituting 14% of its population. My work is guided by three broad questions:

How does immigration shape the conceptualization of race?
How do these processes, together with immigration policy, shape stereotypes and prejudice?
How do these social and policy contexts shape immigrants’ experiences?

To address these questions, I study stereotypes and prejudice toward nationality groups, immigrants’ sense of belonging, and national identity.

More ways to check out my research:

Stereotypes and Prejudice

My research highlights the heterogeneity of how people stereotype others on the basis of nationality and demonstrates the importance of disaggregating nationality from race/ethnicity when assessing stereotypes and attitudes.

Toprakkıran, S. & Lai. C. K (under review). The relationship between stereotypes about nationality and stereotypes about race/ethnicity.

How and when do stereotypes of U.S. nationality groups differ from stereotypes of associated racial/ethnic groups? We created a novel measure of "stereotype distance" to examine these patterns and conducted follow-up studies to establish its predictors. Racial prototypicality and perceived racial identification (over nationality) emerged as predictors of stereotype distance.

Toprakkıran, S., & Lai, C. K. (2024, May 15). Stereotypes and Attitudes Toward Nationality Groups in the United States. PsyArXiv.

What are stereotypes of nationality groups in the U.S.? We examined 15 stereotypes toward 28 nationality groups and 6 racial/ethnic groups in 7,000+ participants.

Immigrants' Belonging

I aim to understand the effects of cultural stressors on immigrants' felt inclusion and belonging in the U.S. My work ranges from experimental studies, manipulating policy instability, to real-life app development.

Toprakkıran, S., Schachter, A., & Lai. C. K (under review). Does Perceiving Immigration Policy as Unstable Reduce Immigrants’ Felt Inclusion in the United States?

Immigration policies in the U.S. are unstable, with frequent changes to paperwork requirements, work authorization, and deportation enforcement. In two experiments, we use vignettes to manipulate perceived policy instability and punitiveness and examine their implications for immigrants' felt inclusion.

Toprakkıran, S., Arigbabu, R., & Schachter, A. (in prep). Toward an Accessible Storytelling Intervention to Improve U.S. Immigrants’ Belonging.

As part of Moving Stories - A Programmatic Grant, we are developing a public story-sharing app as an intervention with two goals: 1) improving immigrants' belonging to the U.S. and 2) improving U.S.-born Americans' attitudes toward immigrants.

Other related works:

Hill, P., Toprakkıran, S., Strecher, V.J., Wolk, M.W. (2025) Purpose, life satisfaction, and self-rated health in immigrant and non-immigrant adults. Psychology, Health & Medicine.

Hill, P., Beatty, J.F., Toprakkıran, S., Wolk, M.W. (2024) Cultural stress and immigrant well-being: The role of sense of purpose. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology.

National Identity

A common identity, such as a shared national identity, can bring people together and foster more positive intergroup attitudes. However, it can also increase polarization when individuals define the boundaries of that identity differently. Restrictive conceptions of national identity may promote more negative attitudes toward people who are seen as falling outside its boundaries.

My work aims to explore how national identities are conceptualized and defined, and how national identification is linked to stereotypes and prejudice toward others.

Toprakkıran, S., Gordils, J., Jamieson, J.P. (2024) Can Democrats and Republicans Like Each Other? Depends on How You Define "American". Frontiers in Social Psychology.

Erisen, C., Guidi, M., Martini, S., Toprakkıran, S., Isernia, P. & Littvay, L. (2021) Psychological correlates of populist attitudes. Political Psychology.

Toprakkıran, S., & Gordils, J. (2021) The onset of COVID-19, common identity, and intergroup prejudice. The Journal of Social Psychology.

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