Cigdem V Sirin
Biographic Data
| ID | 388460 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Cigdem V Sirin |
| GIVEN NAMES | Cigdem V |
| FAMILY NAME | Sirin |
| SIGNATURE | SIRIN C V |
| AFFILIATIONS | The University of Texas at El Paso |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3445-7047 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 156 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Outgroup Empathy and Opposition to Restrictive Voting Laws
A suite of state-level laws that increase the burden placed on eligible voters has proliferated in the years following the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision. Critics have argued that these laws are thinly veiled attempts by Republicans to disenfranchise minority groups who lean toward the Democratic Party. If this is the case, attitudes about these restrictive policies should be powerfully driven by empathy for the groups negatively impacted,…
The Effects of Empathic Reactions to the Overturning of Roe v. Wade on Campaign Participation and Voter Turnout: Evidence from the 2022 U.S. Midterm Elections
In June 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling overturned Roe v. Wade , reversing the nearly 50-year-old landmark decision that affirmed a woman’s constitutional right to abortion. Several months later, voters turned out in record numbers for the 2022 midterms, though a widely predicted “Red Wave” vote did not materialize. There has since been speculation that overturning Roe v. Wade played a crucial role in the midterms, generating a “Blue …
Seeing Us in Them: Social Divisions and the Politics of Group Empathy
What causes some people to stand in solidarity with those from other races, religions, or nationalities, even when that solidarity does not seem to benefit the individual or their group? Seeing Us in Them examines outgroup empathy as a powerful predisposition in politics that pushes individuals to see past social divisions and work together in complex, multicultural societies. It also reveals racial/ethnic intergroup differences in this predispos…
The Social Causes and Political Consequences of Group Empathy
Recent scholarship has discovered significant racial/ethnic group variation in response to political threats such as immigration and terrorism. Surprisingly, minority groups often simultaneously perceive themselves to be at greater risk from such threats and yet still prefer more open immigration policies and civil liberties protections. We suggest a group‐level empathy process may explain this puzzle: Due to their higher levels of empathy for ot…
The Relevance of Emotions in Presidential Public Appeals: Anger's Conditional Effect on Perceived Risk and Support for Military Interventions
This study investigates whether and to what extent the thematic relevance of emotive stimuli embedded in presidential speeches affects people's risk perceptions and policy support regarding military interventions in civil conflict. Conducting an experimental study with a total of 1,187 participants, we find the induction of anger via thematically relevant emotive triggers leads to higher levels of support for military interventions in civil confl…
Group Empathy in Response to Nonverbal Racial/Ethnic Cues: A National Experiment on Immigration Policy Attitudes
In this study, we argue that nonverbal racial/ethnic cues can activate one’s empathy toward disadvantaged out-groups, particularly when such cues resonate with one’s own in-group cultural experiences with discrimination. To explain this phenomenon, we propose Group Empathy Theory and test our expectations via a national survey experiment on undocumented immigration. We find trait-level group empathy is strongly linked with empathic reactions to v…
Group Empathy Theory: The Effect of Group Empathy on US Intergroup Attitudes and Behavior in the Context of Immigration Threats
Group Empathy Theory posits empathy felt by members of one group can boost support for another even when the groups are in direct competition for rights, security, and resources. We employ our theory to explain divergent reactions of majority versus minority groups to immigration threats. We conduct a two-wave national survey experiment with 1,799 participants consisting of a randomized sample of Anglos and randomized, stratified oversamples of A…
Dictators and Death: Casualty Sensitivity of Autocracies in Militarized Interstate Disputes
Why are some authoritarian regimes so quick to surrender amid lower numbers of casualties while others prove willing to incur significant casualty counts to continue their war efforts? In this study, we explore the propensity of different authoritarian regime types to sustain casualties in interstate conflicts. We argue that authoritarian leaders with smaller winning coalitions find it easier to distribute the costs of militarized conflicts outsi…
Analyzing the Determinants of Group Identity Among Alevis in Turkey: A National Survey Study
This study systematically explores the factors that affect collective identity associations within the Alevi community in Turkey by employing the social identity approach and examining survey data collected through fieldwork. The results show that Kurdish Alevis express lower levels of attachment to their religious identity as compared to Turkish Alevis. The results also indicate that personal experiences of discrimination tend to increase one's …
Examining the Distinct Effects of Emotive Triggers on Public Reactions to International Terrorism
In recent years, a growing body of research has set out to examine the role that emotions play in shaping political attitudes and behaviors regarding terrorism. However, one major issue that is generally overlooked is whether the thematic relevance of emotive triggers leads to differential effects on people's reactions to international terrorism. Specifically, does anger—regardless of its source—tend to drive people towards supporting an aggressi…
Public Support for Military Interventions across Levels of Political Information and Stages of Intervention: The Case of the Iraq War
This study examines the effect of political information levels and intervention stages on the formation and continuity of public support for military interventions by analyzing survey data pertaining to the 2003 military intervention in Iraq. The results show that before and immediately after the launch of the intervention, politically uninformed individuals expressed higher support for the war compared to politically informed ones. However, as t…
Scarcity-Induced Domestic Conflict: Examining the Interactive Effects of Environmental Scarcity and ‘Ethnic’ Population Pressures
This study argues that environmental scarcity is more likely to result in civil conflict in countries that experience ‘ethnic’ population pressures (i.e. where the size of the largest minority group is close to parity with the majority group). I refer to this argument as the ‘parity-threat’ approach to the study of scarcity-induced domestic conflict. I empirically test my argument by analysing time-series cross-section data for the period 1979–20…
Agenda Setting from the Oval Office: An Experimental Examination of Presidential Influence over the Public Agenda
This study employs an experimental approach to isolate and directly test the extent to which presidents can affect public perceptions of issue importance and support for policy action, taking into consideration key factors that condition such effects. Our findings provide new empirical evidence that presidents can, in fact, positively influence public opinion through agenda setting, particularly by increasing the perceptual importance of low sali…
Where Does the Buck Stop? Applying Attribution Theory to Examine Public Appraisals of the President
This study applies attribution theory to examine public appraisals of the president. To date, most political science research on attribution theory has focused on domestic policy, and no work has considered both domestic and foreign policy domains in tandem. To fill this gap, we formulate and experimentally test a series of hypotheses regarding the level of responsibility and credit/blame that individuals attribute to the president in both policy…
Examining the effects of political information and intervention stages on public support for military interventions: A panel experiment
Is it cohesion or diversion? Domestic instability and the use of force in international crises
This study asserts that cohesionary — rather than diversionary — motives primarily influence the propensity of political leaders to use external force in international crises in times of domestic turmoil. Specifically, I contend that mass violence leads political leaders to engage in cohesionary tactics to achieve and maintain social order in their country for political survival. Employing random effects probit analyses with International Crisis …
Group Empathy Theory: The Effect of Group Empathy on US Intergroup Attitudes and Behavior in the Context of Immigration Threats
Group Empathy Theory posits empathy felt by members of one group can boost support for another even when the groups are in direct competition for rights, security, and resources. We employ our theory to explain divergent reactions of majority versus minority groups to immigration threats. We conduct a two-wave national survey experiment with 1,799 participants consisting of a randomized sample of Anglos and randomized, stratified oversamples of A…
The Social Causes and Political Consequences of Group Empathy
Recent scholarship has discovered significant racial/ethnic group variation in response to political threats such as immigration and terrorism. Surprisingly, minority groups often simultaneously perceive themselves to be at greater risk from such threats and yet still prefer more open immigration policies and civil liberties protections. We suggest a group‐level empathy process may explain this puzzle: Due to their higher levels of empathy for ot…
Where Does the Buck Stop? Applying Attribution Theory to Examine Public Appraisals of the President
This study applies attribution theory to examine public appraisals of the president. To date, most political science research on attribution theory has focused on domestic policy, and no work has considered both domestic and foreign policy domains in tandem. To fill this gap, we formulate and experimentally test a series of hypotheses regarding the level of responsibility and credit/blame that individuals attribute to the president in both policy…
Dictators and Death: Casualty Sensitivity of Autocracies in Militarized Interstate Disputes
Why are some authoritarian regimes so quick to surrender amid lower numbers of casualties while others prove willing to incur significant casualty counts to continue their war efforts? In this study, we explore the propensity of different authoritarian regime types to sustain casualties in interstate conflicts. We argue that authoritarian leaders with smaller winning coalitions find it easier to distribute the costs of militarized conflicts outsi…
Is it cohesion or diversion? Domestic instability and the use of force in international crises
This study asserts that cohesionary — rather than diversionary — motives primarily influence the propensity of political leaders to use external force in international crises in times of domestic turmoil. Specifically, I contend that mass violence leads political leaders to engage in cohesionary tactics to achieve and maintain social order in their country for political survival. Employing random effects probit analyses with International Crisis …
Examining the effects of political information and intervention stages on public support for military interventions: A panel experiment
Group Empathy in Response to Nonverbal Racial/Ethnic Cues: A National Experiment on Immigration Policy Attitudes
In this study, we argue that nonverbal racial/ethnic cues can activate one’s empathy toward disadvantaged out-groups, particularly when such cues resonate with one’s own in-group cultural experiences with discrimination. To explain this phenomenon, we propose Group Empathy Theory and test our expectations via a national survey experiment on undocumented immigration. We find trait-level group empathy is strongly linked with empathic reactions to v…
Scarcity-Induced Domestic Conflict: Examining the Interactive Effects of Environmental Scarcity and ‘Ethnic’ Population Pressures
This study argues that environmental scarcity is more likely to result in civil conflict in countries that experience ‘ethnic’ population pressures (i.e. where the size of the largest minority group is close to parity with the majority group). I refer to this argument as the ‘parity-threat’ approach to the study of scarcity-induced domestic conflict. I empirically test my argument by analysing time-series cross-section data for the period 1979–20…
Agenda Setting from the Oval Office: An Experimental Examination of Presidential Influence over the Public Agenda
This study employs an experimental approach to isolate and directly test the extent to which presidents can affect public perceptions of issue importance and support for policy action, taking into consideration key factors that condition such effects. Our findings provide new empirical evidence that presidents can, in fact, positively influence public opinion through agenda setting, particularly by increasing the perceptual importance of low sali…
The Relevance of Emotions in Presidential Public Appeals: Anger's Conditional Effect on Perceived Risk and Support for Military Interventions
This study investigates whether and to what extent the thematic relevance of emotive stimuli embedded in presidential speeches affects people's risk perceptions and policy support regarding military interventions in civil conflict. Conducting an experimental study with a total of 1,187 participants, we find the induction of anger via thematically relevant emotive triggers leads to higher levels of support for military interventions in civil confl…
Analyzing the Determinants of Group Identity Among Alevis in Turkey: A National Survey Study
This study systematically explores the factors that affect collective identity associations within the Alevi community in Turkey by employing the social identity approach and examining survey data collected through fieldwork. The results show that Kurdish Alevis express lower levels of attachment to their religious identity as compared to Turkish Alevis. The results also indicate that personal experiences of discrimination tend to increase one's …
Examining the Distinct Effects of Emotive Triggers on Public Reactions to International Terrorism
In recent years, a growing body of research has set out to examine the role that emotions play in shaping political attitudes and behaviors regarding terrorism. However, one major issue that is generally overlooked is whether the thematic relevance of emotive triggers leads to differential effects on people's reactions to international terrorism. Specifically, does anger—regardless of its source—tend to drive people towards supporting an aggressi…
Public Support for Military Interventions across Levels of Political Information and Stages of Intervention: The Case of the Iraq War
This study examines the effect of political information levels and intervention stages on the formation and continuity of public support for military interventions by analyzing survey data pertaining to the 2003 military intervention in Iraq. The results show that before and immediately after the launch of the intervention, politically uninformed individuals expressed higher support for the war compared to politically informed ones. However, as t…
Scarcity-Induced Domestic Conflict: Examining the Interactive Effects of Environmental Scarcity and ‘Ethnic’ Population Pressures
This study argues that environmental scarcity is more likely to result in civil conflict in countries that experience ‘ethnic’ population pressures (i.e. where the size of the largest minority group is close to parity with the majority group). I refer to this argument as the ‘parity-threat’ approach to the study of scarcity-induced domestic conflict. I empirically test my argument by analysing time-series cross-section data for the period 1979–20…
Agenda Setting from the Oval Office: An Experimental Examination of Presidential Influence over the Public Agenda
This study employs an experimental approach to isolate and directly test the extent to which presidents can affect public perceptions of issue importance and support for policy action, taking into consideration key factors that condition such effects. Our findings provide new empirical evidence that presidents can, in fact, positively influence public opinion through agenda setting, particularly by increasing the perceptual importance of low sali…
Where Does the Buck Stop? Applying Attribution Theory to Examine Public Appraisals of the President
This study applies attribution theory to examine public appraisals of the president. To date, most political science research on attribution theory has focused on domestic policy, and no work has considered both domestic and foreign policy domains in tandem. To fill this gap, we formulate and experimentally test a series of hypotheses regarding the level of responsibility and credit/blame that individuals attribute to the president in both policy…
Examining the effects of political information and intervention stages on public support for military interventions: A panel experiment
Is it cohesion or diversion? Domestic instability and the use of force in international crises
This study asserts that cohesionary — rather than diversionary — motives primarily influence the propensity of political leaders to use external force in international crises in times of domestic turmoil. Specifically, I contend that mass violence leads political leaders to engage in cohesionary tactics to achieve and maintain social order in their country for political survival. Employing random effects probit analyses with International Crisis …
Public Support for Military Interventions across Levels of Political Information and Stages of Intervention: The Case of the Iraq War
This study examines the effect of political information levels and intervention stages on the formation and continuity of public support for military interventions by analyzing survey data pertaining to the 2003 military intervention in Iraq. The results show that before and immediately after the launch of the intervention, politically uninformed individuals expressed higher support for the war compared to politically informed ones. However, as t…
Analyzing the Determinants of Group Identity Among Alevis in Turkey: A National Survey Study
This study systematically explores the factors that affect collective identity associations within the Alevi community in Turkey by employing the social identity approach and examining survey data collected through fieldwork. The results show that Kurdish Alevis express lower levels of attachment to their religious identity as compared to Turkish Alevis. The results also indicate that personal experiences of discrimination tend to increase one's …
Examining the Distinct Effects of Emotive Triggers on Public Reactions to International Terrorism
In recent years, a growing body of research has set out to examine the role that emotions play in shaping political attitudes and behaviors regarding terrorism. However, one major issue that is generally overlooked is whether the thematic relevance of emotive triggers leads to differential effects on people's reactions to international terrorism. Specifically, does anger—regardless of its source—tend to drive people towards supporting an aggressi…
Dictators and Death: Casualty Sensitivity of Autocracies in Militarized Interstate Disputes
Why are some authoritarian regimes so quick to surrender amid lower numbers of casualties while others prove willing to incur significant casualty counts to continue their war efforts? In this study, we explore the propensity of different authoritarian regime types to sustain casualties in interstate conflicts. We argue that authoritarian leaders with smaller winning coalitions find it easier to distribute the costs of militarized conflicts outsi…
The Relevance of Emotions in Presidential Public Appeals: Anger's Conditional Effect on Perceived Risk and Support for Military Interventions
This study investigates whether and to what extent the thematic relevance of emotive stimuli embedded in presidential speeches affects people's risk perceptions and policy support regarding military interventions in civil conflict. Conducting an experimental study with a total of 1,187 participants, we find the induction of anger via thematically relevant emotive triggers leads to higher levels of support for military interventions in civil confl…
Group Empathy in Response to Nonverbal Racial/Ethnic Cues: A National Experiment on Immigration Policy Attitudes
In this study, we argue that nonverbal racial/ethnic cues can activate one’s empathy toward disadvantaged out-groups, particularly when such cues resonate with one’s own in-group cultural experiences with discrimination. To explain this phenomenon, we propose Group Empathy Theory and test our expectations via a national survey experiment on undocumented immigration. We find trait-level group empathy is strongly linked with empathic reactions to v…
Group Empathy Theory: The Effect of Group Empathy on US Intergroup Attitudes and Behavior in the Context of Immigration Threats
Group Empathy Theory posits empathy felt by members of one group can boost support for another even when the groups are in direct competition for rights, security, and resources. We employ our theory to explain divergent reactions of majority versus minority groups to immigration threats. We conduct a two-wave national survey experiment with 1,799 participants consisting of a randomized sample of Anglos and randomized, stratified oversamples of A…
The Social Causes and Political Consequences of Group Empathy
Recent scholarship has discovered significant racial/ethnic group variation in response to political threats such as immigration and terrorism. Surprisingly, minority groups often simultaneously perceive themselves to be at greater risk from such threats and yet still prefer more open immigration policies and civil liberties protections. We suggest a group‐level empathy process may explain this puzzle: Due to their higher levels of empathy for ot…
Seeing Us in Them: Social Divisions and the Politics of Group Empathy
What causes some people to stand in solidarity with those from other races, religions, or nationalities, even when that solidarity does not seem to benefit the individual or their group? Seeing Us in Them examines outgroup empathy as a powerful predisposition in politics that pushes individuals to see past social divisions and work together in complex, multicultural societies. It also reveals racial/ethnic intergroup differences in this predispos…
The Effects of Empathic Reactions to the Overturning of Roe v. Wade on Campaign Participation and Voter Turnout: Evidence from the 2022 U.S. Midterm Elections
In June 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling overturned Roe v. Wade , reversing the nearly 50-year-old landmark decision that affirmed a woman’s constitutional right to abortion. Several months later, voters turned out in record numbers for the 2022 midterms, though a widely predicted “Red Wave” vote did not materialize. There has since been speculation that overturning Roe v. Wade played a crucial role in the midterms, generating a “Blue …
Outgroup Empathy and Opposition to Restrictive Voting Laws
A suite of state-level laws that increase the burden placed on eligible voters has proliferated in the years following the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision. Critics have argued that these laws are thinly veiled attempts by Republicans to disenfranchise minority groups who lean toward the Democratic Party. If this is the case, attitudes about these restrictive policies should be powerfully driven by empathy for the groups negatively impacted,…
Political science (15 works) · Law (12 works) · Politics (11 works) · Psychology (11 works) · Law (10 works) · Social Psychology (8 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (6 works) · Economics (5 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (5 works)