Ahmet Akbiyik

I am a Ph.D. candidate in Political Economy and Government at Harvard Kennedy School, with my research primarily centered on migration, social cohesion, and the role of social media in shaping intergroup relations. My work is supported by affiliations with The Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and The Institute for Quantitative Social Science (IQSS) and has received grants from J-PAL at MIT and The Stone Program at Harvard.

My research involves studying disinformation and intergroup relations across various digital platforms, such as Facebook, X, WhatsApp, and Telegram. I conduct survey studies and collaborate with great colleagues on other surveys in diverse regions, including Sweden, Turkey, and Lebanon, focusing on the impact of disinformation on individuals and intergroup relations.

Prior to embarking on my graduate studies, I earned my B.A. in Political Science and Economics at Bogazici University in Istanbul and my M.A. in Political Science at Boston University.

Attitudes toward an outgroup (such as refugees), even when not rooted in empirical evidence, can be difficult to alter, and correcting misperceptions often has limited impact. In my dissertation, I am conducting a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to explore strategies for changing these resistant attitudes. My study involves bringing together individuals from diverse backgrounds into WhatsApp groups, where they engage in non-political interactions. After these interactions, I introduce fact-checked information about their outgroup to see if this prior engagement makes participants more open to accepting the information. By lowering barriers created by prior beliefs through non-political interaction, fact-checked information may have a more significant impact on attitudes toward the outgroup.

Click on the image to view my research design summary:

Link for my pre-analysis plan

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I can be reached at my email: ahmetakbiyik@g.harvard.edu