ÖZGE SAVAS
Özge Savaş is a critical and applied social psychologist. She works with historically and systemically disadvantaged and marginalized individuals and communities, combining decolonial and intersectional feminist theories in explaining how systems of oppression are maintained. She examines the role of stigma, stereotypes, and prejudice in intergroup conflict.
Biography
Savaş received her Ph.D. in Psychology and Women’s and Gender Studies from the University of Michigan. Her research focuses on understanding how people develop in(ter)dependence and belonging within various social, cultural, and economic systems and across their lifetimes. In answering questions about when, where, and how “people” feel included or excluded and who belongs, she adopts a social justice lens, uses multiple methods, including quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods, and brings the macro (institutional), meso (symbolic), and micro (individual) levels of analyses together. Her research has significant social policy implications and applicability in addressing issues ranging from immigrant rights and humanitarian crises to the widening cultural/political divide and global gender inequality. Savaş joined the Bennington faculty in Fall 2020.
Peer-Reviewed Publications
Blankenship, B. T., Davis, T., Areguin, M. A., Savaş, Ö., Winter, D. & Stewart, A. J. (2021) Trust and tribulation: Racial identity centrality, institutional trust, and support for candidates in the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. Analysis of Social Issues and Public Policy.
Savaş, Ö. & Stewart, A. J. (2019) Alternative pathways to activism: Intersections of social and personal pasts in the narratives of women’s rights activists. Qualitative Psychology, 6(1), 27-46.
Blankenship, B., Savaş, Ö., Frederick, J., & Stewart, A. J., (2018) Piecing together the American voting puzzle: How voters’ personalities and judgments of issue importance mattered in the 2016 Presidential Election. Analysis of Social Issues and Public Policy, 18(1), 172-191.
Blankenship, B., Frederick, J., Savaş, Ö., Montgomery, S., & Stewart, A. J. (2017) Privilege and marginality: How group identification and personality predict right- and left-wing political activism. Analysis of Social Issues and Public Policy 17(1), 161-183.
Sümer, N., Sakman, E., Harma, M., & Savaş, Ö., (2016). Turkish mothers’ attachment orientations and mental representations of their children. Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology 34(1), 49-63.
Refereed Book Chapters
Public Engagements, Invited talks, and Workshops
Savaş, Ö. Trauma-informed Mentorship Training. (2023) Social Sciences Solidarity Network, Turkey. Online Workshop delivered to the participants of the Network.
Savaş, Ö. WEIRD and vulnerable psychology: Constructions of gender and global inequities in research. (2022) Invited speaker for Social Psychology Webinar Series at TED University, Ankara, Turkey.
Savaş, Ö. “On belonging” (2022) Keynote at Southern Vermont Economy Summit in Mount Dover, VT.
Savaş, Ö. Workshop on Intersectionality. (2021) Teaching Global Feminisms: Using Activist Interviews Across Disciplines Conference in Ann Arbor, MI.