Biography

NOTE: Dr. Gunsoy will not be accepting new graduate students for the 2024-2025 academic year.

Dr. Gunsoy’s research program focuses on the role of cultural background and values in social psychological processes. Specifically, she examines the interpersonal and intrapersonal processes in cultural groups that emphasize the importance of moral reputation and collectivistic values. She has studied people from Turkish, Latinx American, and Southern U.S. background (e.g., South Carolina, Texas) as examples of honor cultures, in which social respect and moral reputation are central concepts. She has compared them to people from so-called dignity cultures, such as European Americans from Northern U.S. states (e.g., Rhode Island, Iowa), in which honor is defined more as a personal and inherent matter. Her findings have shown that in honor cultures, reputation management can become the superordinate goal in conflict situations and derail people from the pursuit of other goals. Moreover, she examines culture’s influence on self-presentation and impression formation, specifically, the role of individualism and
collectivism in these processes. Her research with Asian American (collectivistic), Turkish (collectivistic), and European American participants (individualistic) has shown that the way people present themselves on social media and the spontaneous inferences they make about
other people’s goals and traits depend on their individualistic and collectivistic tendencies. Currently, she is conducting studies that examine culture’s influence on well-being, with a specific focus on self-compassion and help-seeking stigma.