Welcome
Every year millions of humans are displaced by war, repressive governments, and catastrophes of various kinds: I am just one of these countless displaced people. I was born in Iran, a country whose people have suffered political turmoil, dictatorship, war, and severe injustices. I have lived most of my life in different countries outside Iran, but was there during crucial periods of recent history, such as the hostage taking crisis and the early years of the Iran-Iraq war. My personal experiences with war, repression, and injustices have shaped my concerns as an academic researcher: How can we organize inter-group relations so that we can avoid violent conflicts and live in peace? How can we achieve more open societies and avoid dictatorships? Can scientific research provide a basis for universal justice? These are very broad questions, and my approach to research tends to be ‘big picture’.
For almost all of our history, we humans have lived in dictatorships and experienced violent intergroup conflicts. Athens 2,500 years ago and some parts of the contemporary world achieved more openness, but there is no guarantee that democracy will survive in the longer term. How can we as researchers help to ensure that democracy wins out over dictatorship, that the world in the future will be more open and free? I am convinced that genuinely more open societies are also more peaceful ones.
In order to try to do my part in tackling these enormous challenges, I continue to use ‘mixed’ research methods. Experimental laboratory, survey research, theoretical analysis, qualitative methods – I have used all of these in the past and expect to continue to do so in the future. The traditional fight between ‘quantitative’ and ‘qualitative’ researchers is utterly misguided; obviously both quantitative and qualitative methods can be valid and useful – but only on the condition that the research results are interpreted appropriately. Too often, behavior that is normatively regulated is mistakenly interpreted as being causally determined. This mistaken interpretation characterizes traditional research on human behavior.
This website presents examples of my research, organized in six main interrelated themes. I hope it proves to be useful to you.
Intergroup Relations and Conflict
My research on intergroup relations and conflict has adopted ‘mixed’ methods. In this section you will find different examples of laboratory experiments and field studies, using quantitative and qualitative methods. Also, you will find theoretical discussions as well as critical assessments of policies. In my recent work, I have proposed that we need to set aside the two traditional policies for managing intergroup relations, ‘multiculturalism’ and ‘assimilation’, and instead adopt an exciting and far more promising new policy, ‘omniculturalism’. Find research...
Human rights and duties
“We want justice! They have trampled on our rights!”
This is a typical complaint from people embroiled in conflict. Fairness and the violation of rights and duties are major reasons given for violence. In this section you will find examples of my research on this theme of subjective justice. Find research...
Psychology in the three worlds
The global dominance of American psychology, as well as other social sciences, has more to do with the superpower and military status of the United States than it has with American research superiority. The exportation of traditional American psychology to the rest of the world, with little real regard for cultural ‘appropriateness’, and its impact is a theme in this section. Find research...
Positioning theory
One of the most exciting research developments in the last few decades has been the multidisciplinary ‘narrative’ turn in social research, involving linguists, psychologists, micro-sociologists, philosophers, anthropologists, political scientists, communications studies, and others. The works in this section reflect my involvement in developing ‘positioning theory’, which is integral to the narrative turn. Find research...
The psychological citizen
How does a child become a citizen, capable of social, economic, and political participation in a society? This question has historically been addressed by social philosophers and political scientists, but I believe psychological science has important contributions to make in answering this question. In this section, you find the start of my efforts to address this question, using the concepts of ‘psychological citizen’, ‘psychological social contract’ and ‘cultural carriers’. Find research...
Theory and psychology
In this section you will find a selection of theoretical discussions concerning social behavior, and the relationship between psychological science and other fields of human scholarship, such as literature. At the highest level of abstraction, science and art are both concerned with developing narratives about ourselves and our universes. The more powerful the narrative, the better it will be able to bridge the ‘art-science’ gap. Find research...