Selin Toprakkıran

There are over 300 million immigrants in the world, with the United States housing the largest immigrant population of any country.

My work is guided by two broad questions:

How does immigration shape stereotypes and prejudice?
How do social and policy contexts shape immigrants’ experiences?

To address these questions, I examine stereotypes of immigrant groups, the psychological impacts of immigration policy, and ways to improve immigrants’ belonging and intergroup relations.

More ways to check out my research and full list of publications:

Stereotypes of nationality groups

In the U.S., stereotypes of race (e.g., Asian American) and nationality (e.g., Japanese American) sometimes overlap and sometimes diverge in consequential ways. For example, During World War II, Chinese Americans were seen as wartime allies, while Japanese Americans were cast as enemy threats and forcibly incarcerated in concentration camps. Such nationality-based stereotypes contributed to very different treatment of two groups even though they were both categorized as Asian.

What explains these patterns of stereotype similarity and divergence between race and nationality?

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 (in prep). Racial Prototypicality and Stereotypes of Nationality and Race.

How does the prototypicality of nationality groups influence stereotypes of nationality relative to associated race? For my dissertation, we conducted multiple experiments where we manipulated the racial prototypicality of nationality groups. We found that racial prototypicality increased the similarity between nationality and race based stereotypes.

The psychological impacts of immigration policy

Immigration policy does more than regulate who can enter and remain in the U.S.; it also signals how groups are valued and treated. I examine these psychological consequences from two perspectives:

How does immigration policy shape public perception, and how is it experienced by immigrants themselves?

Section 203 of the Immigration and Nationality Act. GovInfo.

Psychological dimensions of policy and stereotypes in natural language. In my ongoing postdoctoral research, I examine whether the meanings embedded in immigration policy become reflected in broader cultural perceptions of nationality groups. I examine how U.S. immigration policy has evolved alongside stereotypes of nationality groups in natural language over the past 200 years. To pursue this question, I wrote a Russell Sage Foundation Core Research Grant sponsored by my postdoctoral advisor, Dr. Xuechunzi Bai, which was subsequently funded (award: $75,000).

Toprakkıran, S., Schachter, A., & Lai. C. K (in press). Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology. 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 used vignettes to manipulate perceived policy instability and punitiveness and examine their implications for immigrants' felt inclusion.

Across studies, learning about policy instability did not affect belonging, negative affect, or meta-perceptions, with no notable moderations across more than thirty moderators. Immigrants may feel insulated from policy threats or be desensitized to a volatile policy environment.

Improving immigrants’ belonging and intergroup relations

In addition to institutional signals, immigrants’ interactions with other immigrants and non-immigrants may influence their sense of belonging.

Common ingroup identity. A shared identity can bring people together and improve intergroup attitudes. However, when people disagree about who belongs within that identity, it can increase polarization and negative attitudes toward those who are excluded from this identity.

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

I found that international and domestic college students who identify strongly with their university are likelier to have more positive intergroup attitudes toward each other.

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.

Shared identities are not always unifying; they can also sharpen divisions when people draw group boundaries differently. In another line of work, I found that endorsing a restrictive definition of national identity may reinforce ingroup boundaries.

Intergroup contact. Immigrants’ interactions with other immigrants and non-immigrants may influence their sense of belonging, as well as intergroup relations.

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 through exposure to immigrants' stories.

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.

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

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