Meltem Yucel

Duke University | DU · Department of Psychology and Neuroscience

By 3 years of age, children tattle about rule violations they observe, even as unaffected bystanders. It is argued that tattling is one way in which children enforce norms and that in the long term, it helps sustain co‐operation (e.g., Vaish, Missana, & Tomasello, 2011). However, an alternative explanation could be that children are worried that th...

From a young age, children understand and enforce moral norms, which are aimed at preserving the rights and welfare of others. Children also distinguish moral norms from other types of norms such as conventional norms, which serve to ensure coordination within social groups or institutions. However, far less is known about the mechanisms driving th...

When we commit transgressions, we need to be forgiven to restore our friendships and social standing. Two main ways we can elicit forgiveness is through asking for forgiveness after committing a transgression (i.e., retrospective elicitors) or before committing a transgression (i.e., prospective elicitors). Research on retrospective elicitors with...

Gossip (evaluative talk about others) is ubiquitous. Gossip allows important rules to be clarified and reinforced, and it allows individuals to keep track of their social networks while strengthening their bonds to the group. The purpose of this study is to decipher the nature of gossip and how it relates to friendship connections. To measure how g...

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all domains of human life, including the economic and social fabric of societies. One of the central strategies for managing public health throughout the pandemic has been through persuasive messaging and collective behaviour change. To help scholars better understand the social and moral psychology behind public...

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all domains of human life, including the economic and social fabric of societies. One of the central strategies for managing public health throughout the pandemic has been through persuasive messaging and collective behavior change. To help scholars better understand the social and moral psychology behind public h...

Young children robustly distinguish between moral norms and conventional norms (Smetana, 1984; Yucel et al., 2020). In existing research, norms about the fair distribution of resources are by definition considered part of the moral domain; they are not distinguished from other moral norms such as those involving physical harm. Yet an understanding...

Changing collective behaviour and supporting non-pharmaceutical interventions is an important component in mitigating virus transmission during a pandemic. In a large international collaboration (Study 1, N = 49,968 across 67 countries), we investigated self-reported factors associated with public health behaviours (e.g., spatial distancing and str...

This article describes the data reported in the paper “Being in the know: Social network analysis of gossip and friendship on college campuses” (Yucel et al. 2021). Data were collected from a Men's and Women's collegiate crew team members from a small liberal arts college. Participants (N = 44) reported information about how often they gossip about...

When we commit transgressions, we need to be forgiven to restore our friendships and social standing. Two main ways we can elicit forgiveness is through asking for forgiveness after committing a transgression (i.e., retrospective elicitors) or before committing a transgression (i.e., prospective elicitors). Research on retrospective elicitors with...

How do environmental morality and sustainable behavior emerge in childhood? We examined individuals’ moral judgments of environmental actions and their observed sustainable behavior in an environmental trade-off task in a sample of N = 555 young adults (Study 1) and N = 45 children ages 3–10 (Study 2). We show that both children and adults viewed p...

We all experience boredom, from being stuck in airport security lines to reading poorly written book chapters. But what is boredom, why do we experience it, and what happens when we do? We suggest a new take on this everyday emotional experience, as an important and potentially useful cue that we’re not cognitively engaged in meaningful experiences...

Yucel, M. & Westgate, E. C. (Accepted). From electric shocks to the electoral college: How boredom steers moral behavior. In A. Elpidorou (Ed.), The Moral Psychology of Boredom. London: Rowman & Littlefield.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is a devastating global health crisis. Without a vaccine or effective medication, the best hope for mitigating virus transmission is collective behavior change and support for public health interventions (e.g., physical distancing, physical hygiene, and endorsement of health policies). In a large-scale international co...

This article describes the data reported in the paper “Being in the know: Social network analysisof gossip and friendship on college campuses” [1]. Data were collected from a Men’s andWomen’s collegiate crew team members from a small liberal arts college. Participants (N = 44)reported information about how often they gossip about members of the tea...

Gossip (evaluative talk about others) is ubiquitous. Gossip allows important rules to be clarified and reinforced, and it allows individuals to keep track of their social networks while strengthening their bonds to the group (Fine, 1977; Foster, 2004). To measure how gossip relates to friendship, participants from a Men’s and Women’s collegiate cre...

Tomasello offers a compelling account of the emergence of humans’ sense of obligation. We suggest that more needs to be said about the role of affect in the creation of obligations. We also argue that positive emotions such as gratitude evolved to encourage individuals to fulfill cooperative obligations without the negative quality that Tomasello p...

Yucel, N. M. & Vaish, A. (April, 2017). Young children tattle to enforce cooperative norms. Society for Research in Child Development Biennial Meeting, Austin, TX.

Yucel, N. M. & Vaish, A. (January, 2017). Children’s norm enforcement behavior and its temperamental correlates. Budapest CEU Conference on Cognitive Development, Budapest, Hungary.

Selcuk (Yağmurlu), B. & Yucel, N. M. (2017). The role of institutionalization in theory of mind. In V. Slaughter & M. de Rosnay (Eds.), Theory of mind development in context. Pp. 89-105. London: Routledge.