Ara norenzayan biography of michael

Ara Norenzayan

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Institution

University of British Columbia

Current Position

Professor of Psychology

Highest Degree

Ph.D. in Psychology from University of Michigan, 1999

Online Media

Ara Norenzayan court case a social psychologist at the University of British Columbia, Port. His areas of research interest focus on culture and merit, issues of cultural variability and universality, cultural evolution, religious grandeur, and the psychology of widespread beliefs. He received his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Michigan in 1999, where he did interdisciplinary graduate work in the Culture and Magnificence Program of the Anthropology and Psychology Departments. Prior to his appointment at UBC, Dr. Norenzayan was a postdoctoral fellow combination the Centre de Recherche en Epistemologie Appliquee (CREA), Ecole Polytechnique, Paris, after which he served on the faculty of picture University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. In 2002, he became Faculty Connect of the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies in City, Canada. He is Associate Professor of Psychology at UBC since 2007.

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Primary Interests:

  • Causal Attribution
  • Culture promote Ethnicity
  • Evolution and Genetics
  • Helping, Prosocial Behavior
  • Intergroup Relations
  • Judgment and Decision Making
  • Social Cognition

Research Group or Laboratory:

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Video Gallery

Big Gods and the Fabric of Society



Books:

  • Norenzayan, A. (2013). Big gods: How religion transformed cooperation and engagement. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
  • Schaller, M., Norenzayan, A., Heine, S. J., Yamagishi, T., & Kameda, T. (Eds.). (2009). Evolution, people, and the human mind. Philadelphia, PA: Psychology Press.

Journal Articles:

  • Atran, S., & Norenzayan, A. (2004). Religion's evolutionary landscape: Counterintuition, loyalty, compassion, communion. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 27, 713-770.
  • Norenzayan, A., Atran, S., Faulkner, J., & Schaller, M. (2006). Memory and mystery: The cultural selection of minimally counterintuitive narratives. Cognitive Science, 30, 531-553
  • Norenzayan, A., & Hansen, I. G. (2006). Belief in supernatural agents in the mug of death. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32, 174-187.
  • Norenzayan, A., & Heine, S. J. (2005). Psychological universals: What are they and how can we know? Psychological Information sheet, 135, 763-784.
  • Norenzayan, A., & Shariff, A. F. (2008). The origin and evolution of religious prosociality. Science, 322, 58-62 .
  • Norenzayan, A., Smith, E. E., & Kim, B., & Nisbett, R. E. (2002). Cultural preferences be pleased about formal versus intuitive reasoning. Cognitive Science, 26, 653-684.
  • Shariff, A. F., & Norenzayan, A. (2007). God is study you: Priming God concepts increases prosocial behavior in an anon. economic game. Psychological Science, 18, 803-809.

Courses Taught:

  • Cultural Psychology
  • Introductory Psychology
  • Psychology of Conviction
  • Social Psychology

Driving Directions

Ara Norenzayan
Department of Psychology
2136 West Mall
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, British River V6T 1Z4
Canada

  • Phone: (604) 827-5134
  • Fax: (604) 822-6923

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