Lab Members

Graduate Students

Mina Aryaie

Mina is a PhD student in Social and Personality Psychology. She completed a B.Sc. in Biology and an Honours B.SC. in Psychology at York University. She is intrigued by research in cultural psychology. Broadly speaking, she is interested in the belief in supernatural phenomena in relation to other cultural and religious practices. Aside from research, her personal interests generally involve volunteering, arts and travelling.

Graziela Farias Martelli

Graziela (Grazi) Farias Martelli is a PhD student in Social and Personality Psychology. Her Honours thesis studied the relationship between government restrictions on religion and cultural distance between coreligionists in several countries. Grazi is interested in researching faith and beliefs in general, and the ways they interact with culture.

Talia Buffone

Talia Buffone is a first year Masters student in Social and Personality Psychology. Broadly, she is interested in the psychological foundations of diverse religious/spiritual beliefs, and how these beliefs relate to people’s interpersonal behaviours. Outside of her studies, Talia enjoys knitting, crochet, and playing the guitar.

Spencer Arshinoff

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Spencer Arshinoff is a third-year PhD student in Social and Personality Psychology. His research addresses how people’s religious and epistemic beliefs and values help them make sense of moral disagreement. Does grounding religion in morality lead people to treat morality as “objective”, even in the face of widespread dissent? What are the behavioural outcomes and interpersonal consequences of this? His other interests include quantitative text analysis (such as probabilistic topic modelling) and historical value change (e.g., the World Values Survey).