Meltem Yucel
Postdoctoral Associate

I'm a Postdoctoral Associate at Duke University's Department of Psychology and Neuroscience working with Dr. Tamar Kushnir. I am also an Affiliate at the Center for the Science of Moral Understanding. I received my Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology with a concentration in Quantitative Psychology at the University of Virginia in 2021. 

I'm primarily interested in the healthy development of social cognition and morality, specifically focusing on how and when children become moral beings. Using behavioral, eye-tracking, pupillometry, and network analysis methods, my research investigates how children and adults understand (Yucel et al., 2020, 2022) and enforce norms (Yucel & Vaish, 2018, 2021; Yucel et al., 2021), and the role of affect in moral decision-making (* Beeler-Duden, * Yucel, & Vaish, 2020; Yucel & Westgate, 2022). 

I also deeply care about making Psychology more accessible. For this reason, I've put together various lists for paid internships, virtual graduate school information sessions, and resources for applying to graduate school at psychresearchlist.com . To date, over 37,000 people from 132 countries have visited and made use of these resources. As a recognition of these efforts, I received a Commendation from the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science.

Current Research Interests

Belongingness, Development, Emotion, Fairness, Gossip, Morality, Norms, Social Cognition, Tattling, Well-being

Current Appointments & Affiliations

Some information on this profile has been compiled automatically from Duke databases and external sources. (Our About page explains how this works.) If you see a problem with the information, please write to Scholars@Duke and let us know. We will reply promptly.