About Us
The Motivation and Intercultural Relations (MIR) Lab is a social psychology lab located within the Department of Psychology at the University of Victoria, located on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. The MIR Lab is committed to enhancing the wellbeing, socio-cultural adaptation and acculturation of immigrants, ethnic minorities and diverse individuals by focusing on topics of intercultural communication, immigrants’ integration, language learning, and motivation. Our vision is to train students in research processes in these areas, and share this knowledge with our community.
We acknowledge and respect the lək̓ʷəŋən peoples on whose traditional territory the university stands and the Songhees, Esquimalt and W̱SÁNEĆ peoples whose historical relationships with the land continue to this day.
Areas of Research
Intercultural Communication
We study how culture affects communication and social relations, in addition to the way in which people perceive, think about, feel about and interact with people in other groups.
Motivation
Motivation is the central gear of the MIR Lab. We study what moves people to act and think the way they do in different social and educational contexts.
Language Learning
We study the psychology of language learning, including why and how people learn different languages and interact with people from other cultures.
Immigrants’ Integration
We study the psychological processes related to immigration, including negotiating loss and separation from the country of origin, language learning, identity changes, and experiences of discrimination.
We are a group of researchers from the Department of Psychology, University of Victoria. Everyone in the team contributing to the lab’s functioning – Graduate students, honours students, indepedent study students, and undergraduate research assistants – we all play a vital role in this effort. The director of the MIR lab is Dr. Nigel Mantou Lou, who is Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology.