Meltem Yucel
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drmeltemyucel.bsky.social
Meltem Yucel
@drmeltemyucel.bsky.social
Assistant Professor @msupsychology.bsky.social • studying norms, morality, & gossip • Previously @ Duke, UVA, IMPRS LIFE • she/her • Founder: @psychresearchlist.bsky.social • Lab: @moralmindslab.bsky.social • www.meltemyucel.com
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Come join the Moral Minds Lab as a grad student at MSU! Brand-new lab equipped for child & adult testing, with motivated undergrads in a happy department. 🤩

Learn more: www.moralmindslab.com/join-our-tea...

(P.S. @tedmond.bsky.social is also taking a student!) @msupsychology.bsky.social
Reposted by Meltem Yucel
We are out here fighting over whether we should keep burning the atmosphere or if people should have enough food to eat, and meanwhile the spiders are learning to cooperate. You do not want the spiders to cooperate.

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/08/s...
Stinking, Spongy, Dark, Huge: A Spider Web Unlike Any Seen Before
www.nytimes.com
November 10, 2025 at 6:08 PM
Missed yesterday's #MPRG2025 talks? No worries. You can watch the recording: www.youtube.com/watch?v=nei1...

Though you should probably hold of on watching us and hop on the Zoom call for Day 2 instead! sites.google.com/view/mprg/on...
November 8, 2025 at 4:12 PM
Wow, that was a blast! Thank you for the opportunity to present our work.

#MPRG2025
November 7, 2025 at 10:41 PM
Join us for two fun days of moral psychology and philosophy!

#MPRG2025
The Moral Psychology Research Group's Online Gathering has a complete schedule of speakers, including Joshua Greene, Meltem Yucel, Paul Bloom, and Linda Skitka!

Nov 7th and 8th sites.google.com/view/mprg/on...
MPRG - Online Events
An Online Gathering for Moral Psychology -- Fall 2025* Friday, November 7th: 4:00pm to 7:00pm (EST) Saturday, November 8th: 11:00am to 3:15pm (EST)
sites.google.com
November 6, 2025 at 3:30 PM
Reposted by Meltem Yucel
Two great scholars doing work on moral (@drmeltemyucel.bsky.social) & personality (@tedmond.bsky.social) development & change are recruiting PhD students this year @msupsychology.bsky.social!

Your grad office could be across the hall from my office!*

*not necessarily a selling point, just a fact
Come work with us @msupsychology.bsky.social!

I promise, we don’t match *all* the time @tedmond.bsky.social
November 5, 2025 at 2:22 PM
Come work with us @msupsychology.bsky.social!

I promise, we don’t match *all* the time @tedmond.bsky.social
November 5, 2025 at 1:57 PM
Reposted by Meltem Yucel
Come join the Moral Minds Lab as a grad student at MSU! Brand-new lab equipped for child & adult testing, with motivated undergrads in a happy department. 🤩

Learn more: www.moralmindslab.com/join-our-tea...

(P.S. @tedmond.bsky.social is also taking a student!) @msupsychology.bsky.social
September 25, 2025 at 7:12 PM
Reposted by Meltem Yucel
Thank you for hosting me in your lab @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social! It was a lot of fun meeting your students. And huge thanks to you all for your patience in listening to me excitedly ramble about my work at 10pm after a long work day...a testament to your own ER abilities, I'm sure 😅
We hosted our first external speaker at our lab meeting! Many thanks to @kaitlynmwerner.bsky.social for telling us about her cool work on emotion regulation!
November 3, 2025 at 9:30 PM
Reposted by Meltem Yucel
We hosted our first external speaker at our lab meeting! Many thanks to @kaitlynmwerner.bsky.social for telling us about her cool work on emotion regulation!
November 3, 2025 at 8:12 PM
Reposted by Meltem Yucel
Anyone have recommendations for books and/or papers on the methods behind translating questionnaires to other languages?
November 3, 2025 at 1:47 PM
Reposted by Meltem Yucel
YES! "to explain all human cognition, we inherently must include development".
Beyond the Adult Mind: A Developmental Framework for Predictive Processing in Infancy - Ward - Topics in Cognitive Science - Wiley Online Library onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Beyond the Adult Mind: A Developmental Framework for Predictive Processing in Infancy
In this paper, we argue that Predictive Processing cannot be a unifying account of cognition until it can explain infant development. We show why development is crucial for understanding human cognit...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
November 2, 2025 at 11:54 AM
Reposted by Meltem Yucel
Suggestions for resources on secondary data analysis? We're trying to support teams who want to make better use of big gov datasets. They need to explore but we also need to be careful of p-hacking. And then report appropriately to gov stakeholders. Suggestions for resources are appreciated!
October 29, 2025 at 11:56 AM
Reposted by Meltem Yucel
So sad to hear we lost Judy DeLoache this week. Judy’s brilliance, her warmth, her humor, were grad school highlights. Whether it was at a dept party, on a sailboat, or in her home high in the Blue Ridge mountains, Judy made me feel like I mattered.

“Eyes open, minds open.” - JD

Sail on, Judy 💔
October 25, 2025 at 9:42 PM
Reposted by Meltem Yucel
Judy DeLoache passed away yesterday. She was a brilliant scientist and giant in the field of developmental psychology. She will be missed dearly.
October 24, 2025 at 3:21 PM
Reposted by Meltem Yucel
Finally read the paper and it's worth the buzz.
mRNA vaccines saved 20 million lives in a global pandemic and the technology is opening up new avenues for the treatment of deadly cancers. This is really one of the most impactful scientific developments of our time.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines sensitize tumours to immune checkpoint blockade - Nature
mRNA vaccines targeting SARS-CoV-2 also sensitize tumours to immune checkpoint inhibitors.
www.nature.com
October 25, 2025 at 1:42 PM
Heartbroken to share that Judy DeLoache passed away yesterday. She was a brilliant scientist and a fantastic role model.

I met her 10+ years ago as a grad student @uvapsychology.bsky.social. She believed in me at my lowest and inspired me to persevere through the challenges of grad school + life.
October 24, 2025 at 3:14 PM
Last day to submit to the #SPSP2025 Religion & Spirituality pre-conference!
The @spspnews.bsky.social Religion & Spirituality Preconference is accepting applications for talks, data blitzes, & posters until 10/23! We're excited to hear from Kathleen Corriveau, @alexandraworm.bsky.social, @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social & @joshcjackson.bsky.social. More info: tinyurl.com/33x9za7r
October 23, 2025 at 1:27 AM
Reposted by Meltem Yucel
Another instant classic by @AngelLillard!!!! Check out her new results on Montessori education as cheaper and with better results than traditional preK and K classes. Hmm -- there really is something to this #playfullearning model. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
A national randomized controlled trial of the impact of public Montessori preschool at the end of kindergarten | PNAS
Although seminal studies from the early 1960s suggested quality preschool can have lasting positive effects, agreement is lacking on the efficacy o...
www.pnas.org
October 22, 2025 at 9:16 PM
Reposted by Meltem Yucel
Meet Dr. Meltem Yucel, our new moral psychologist!

Dr. Yucel has a passion for understanding why people behave the way they do. Her research focuses on how children and adults understand rules, group identity, & moral development.

psychology.msu.edu/news-events/...

@drmeltemyucel.bsky.social
October 21, 2025 at 2:47 PM
Reposted by Meltem Yucel
A recent paper by Jessica A. Stern et al. in JCD:
"Environmental Moral Cognition in Children and Adults: Journal of Cognition and Development"

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

@drmeltemyucel.bsky.social
www.tandfonline.com
October 20, 2025 at 4:14 PM
Reposted by Meltem Yucel
"But when the team looked at the employees’ actual work output, they found that the developers had completed tasks 20% slower when using AI than when working without it. Researchers were stunned. “No one expected that outcome. We didn’t even really consider a slowdown as a possibility.”

🎁link
October 19, 2025 at 10:51 PM
WOAH
I am excited to share my PhD work on head-direction cells recorded in the wild, now published in @science.org, where we recorded neurons in bats flying outdoors on an island.

doi.org/10.1126/sci...

With @ray-neuro.bsky.social, Shir Maimon, Liora Las, Nachum Ulanovsky and many others
October 18, 2025 at 12:27 AM
Reposted by Meltem Yucel
Two day virtual conference on moral psychology hosted by the Moral Psychology Research Group: November 7 & 8 | Look like an excellent line-up! sites.google.com/view/mprg/on...
MPRG - Online Events
An Online Gathering for Moral Psychology -- Fall 2025* Friday, November 7th: 4:00pm to 7:00pm (EST) Saturday, November 8th: 11:00am to 3:15pm (EST)
sites.google.com
October 16, 2025 at 11:59 AM
“If you wanna get ahead, don’t worry about tenure” James Pennebaker #SESP2025
October 17, 2025 at 1:07 PM
@page-gould.bsky.social: Prejudice reduction is not enough, we need to acknowledge the systemic aspects
#SESP2025
October 17, 2025 at 12:49 PM