Alin Coman

Biography

Alin Coman is an Assistant Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs at Princeton University, with a joint appointment between the Psychology Department and Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs. His research program is part of an emerging field in the social sciences aimed at connecting micro-level local dynamics (e.g., social influence) with large-scale social phenomena (e.g., the emergence of collective memories). Using experimental methods in conjunction with computer simulations and social network analysis, this research program is aimed at investigating complex social, cultural, and political phenomena. Research from his lab has revealed how selective media coverage has deleterious consequences on people''s knowledge about diseases, how socio-cognitive processes triggered in dyadic interactions lead to the formation of shared memories, and how information propagation in social networks affects the emergence of collective memories in small-scale networks. 

The research conducted in the Socio-Cognitive Processes Lab, which Dr. Coman directs, has been published in prestigious journals such as: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Psychological Science, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, and Perspectives in Psychological Science. It has also been featured in popular press, in venues such as Scientific American Mind, The Atlantic, and Time magazines.

Areas

• Socio-cognitive Processes

• Individual and Collective Memories

• Group Deliberation