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Meltem Yucel

@drmeltemyucel.bsky.social
5.6K followers 1.7K following 371 posts

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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Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 2h
Sad to report: no moose 🫎 Happy to report: it’s been a fantastic conference with a fabulous view!
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Martin Zettersten @mzettersten.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Glad to see this large-scale replication attempt of rule learning in infants finally out. Bottom line: we find no evidence for an effect (650 infants from 30 labs) in a close conceptual replication of Marcus et al. 1999; no effect of potential moderators (e.g., age, method). 1/2
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Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I *can’t* wait to experience what might be one of the best conference agendas to date.
Tuesday, September 29 early a.m. moose search 7 to 8
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Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
We had to switch to online instruction due to a power plant outage over the weekend. I’d forgotten that remote instruction can be fun! Happy to report that my students see a new career path for me. 😃 After that comment, of course, I had to end class with: “Please like and subscribe.”
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Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Many thanks to everyone who came and supported the inaugural International Society for Moral Psychology Conference. This was the perfect combination of beautiful scenery and intellectually stimulating conversations. See you at the next ISMP! #ISMP2026
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Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Last talk of the moral development session, presented by David Rose on the development of tort cognition in children #ISMP2026
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Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Join us in congratulating ISMP Early Career Harman Prize Award recipient Dr. Federico Burdman, as he presents his lecture on addiction. #ISMP2026
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Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
#ISMP2026 Day 2 kicks off with a symposium on the Division of Moral Labor, can’t wait to hear Ron Mallon, David Shoemaker, Maria Waggoner, Justin D'Arms, Kate Manne’s talks!
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MSU Psychology @msupsychology.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Congratulations to Dr. Meltem Yucel on receiving the SAGE Early Career Trajectory Award from @spspnews.bsky.social! This award recognizes the outstanding achievements by early career scholars in social and personality psychology. Full story here: psychology.msu.edu/news/2026/09...
Congratulations to Meltem Yucel on being awarded the Early Career Trajectory Award! Includes a photo of Meltem presenting and a headshot.


Quote from Meltem Yucel: “I am truly honored to be one of the recipients of the SAGE Early Career Trajectory Award. Having previously received the SAGE Emerging Scholar Award in 2023, it is meaningful to be recognized again at this stage of my career," said Yucel. “I’m deeply grateful to my mentors, colleagues, collaborators, and students for their support; to the Society for Personality and Social Psychology and SAGE for this recognition; and to the reviewers for their time and thoughtful consideration.”
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Lindsey Powell @lindseypowell.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
UCSD Psychology is hiring!! We’re seeking a new assistant professor colleague who studies high-level human cognition, broadly construed. Please share and/or apply! apol-recruit.ucsd.edu/JPF04646
apol-recruit.ucsd.edu
Assistant Professor in High-level Human Cognition
University of California, San Diego is hiring. Apply now!
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Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Wow, I did not realize how many masonry terms we use in daily and academic life. Just to give an example:
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Jin X. Goh | 吴晋勋 @jinxungoh.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
American professors be like: “Labor Day? Great day to catch up on work!!”
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Ted Schwaba @tedmond.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Our big Big Five GWAS, out today! Personality Genomics is extremely hot in 2026.
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samuel mehr @mehr.nz · 20/02/2026
the new paper on bouba/kiki in chicks is utterly compelling canonical, elegant method from comparative cogsci & its partner in developmental science, ultra-simple design, ultra-clear effects, no need for fancy analyses, machine learning, or AI it appeared in an appropriately badass venue (Science)
Matching sounds to shapes: Evidence of the bouba-kiki effect in naïve baby chicks  Maria Loconsole1*, Silvia Benavides-Varela2,3, Lucia Regolin1  Humans across multiple languages spontaneously associate the nonwords “kiki” and “bouba” with spiky and round shapes, respectively, a phenomenon named the bouba-kiki effect. To explore the origin of this association, and whether it is unique to humans, we tested the bouba-kiki effect in baby domestic chickens (Gallus gallus). as a precocial species, chicks can be tested shortly after hatching, allowing us to control their pretest experiences. Similar to humans, both 3-day-old [experiment 1 (exp. 1)] and 1-day-old (exp. 2) chicks spontaneously choose a spiky shape when hearing the “kiki” sound and a round shape when hearing the “bouba” sound. results from naïve young animals suggest a predisposed mechanism for matching the dimensions of shape and sound, which may be widespread across species.main fig from the paper showing the association between bouba/round and kiki/spiky in newborn chicks
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Jay Van Bavel, PhD @jayvanbavel.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Are you applying to PSYCHOLOGY PHD programs this cycle? Several programs have recently changed their admissions criteria and now require the General GRE Test (including NYU, Dartmouth, Northwestern, UChicago, and Penn) Please add any info from other programs and share the list with propsectives:
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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
For those in the mood for some seriously well-done gallows humor, I heartily recommend this... inpreparation.substack.com/p/nih-simpli...
inpreparation.substack.com
NIH Simplifies Grant Scoring To 👍 🤷‍♂️ 😂
BETHESDA, MD—The National Institutes of Health announced Tuesday that it would replace its 50-year-old numerical scoring system with a streamlined three-emoji format, in which grant applications will ...
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Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
🥳 What a week with two paper acceptances: 1- Yucel. Global developmental research: Ethics and equity. Current Directions in Psych Science 2- Bojarskich, V., Yucel, M., Hahn, L., & Rothmund, T. Ideological (a)-symmetries in moral judgments of online hate. Political Psych @vbojarskich.bsky.social
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Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
I am truly honored to be one of the recipients of the SAGE Early Career Trajectory Award from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology! 🎊
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mark brandt @mjbsp.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
New pub, led by Aymin Triki & in collab w/ @abbycassario.bsky.social, accepted at JESP! We found similarities in party cues among the left and the right when using representative samples of issues, although right-wing authoritarians may be an exception Other interesting findings follow!
Abstract of paper. It reads, How do people with different political ideologies process political information? Party cues are an
effect where people are more likely to support a policy position if they learn their party also
supports it, shifting their judgement in accordance with cues from their inparty and against their
outparty. This effect has been at the center of the debate over the psychological differences
between liberals and conservatives, with some scholars suggesting that differences in cognitive
styles between liberals and conservatives (e.g., rigidity, cognitive reflection) should result in
differences in party cue susceptibility. We advance this debate by measuring rigid cognitive
styles and applying a stimuli sampling approach to party cues across four preregistered
experiments (N’s per study > 1200). We found convincing evidence for ideological symmetries
in party cues in quota matched samples of Americans (Studies 1 & 2). In Studies 3 and 4, across
four measures of ideology and three self-report measures of cognitive rigidity, we found
ideological differences in self-reported rigidity in line with previous research. In Study 3, a
convenience sample, we found that conservatives were more likely to follow party cues.
However, Study 4, using a quota matched sample, found no ideological differences in cue
susceptibility, except with respect to right-wing authoritarianism. Exploratory analyses found
that when one group has greater prior awareness or stronger initial views on a topic, they show
smaller cueing effects. We conclude that while liberals and conservatives differ in cognitive
style, they largely share similar cognitive processes for interpreting and integrating political
information.
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Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Meet Austin who is joining my lab and Brooke, joining Ted’s lab! They are both fantastic scholars, so keep an eye out for them!
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Ted Schwaba @tedmond.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
New meta by @peterhaehner.bsky.social et al (I'm a little middle author) on individual differences in personality change across the lifespan (229 studies, N = 230k) 10.1037/bul0000525 Cool finding (imo): For all Big Five, variance in change is greatest in youth, declining through young adulthood!
Individual differences in change for each of the Big Five across ages 0 to 80. The trend for each trait is that individual differences in change are decreasing with age.
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Mike Frank @mcxfrank.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
Most of the statistical tests you learned in stats class — t-test, ANOVA, correlation — are actually special cases of a single thing: linear regression. Ch 7 of Experimentology argues that thinking in models, not tests, is more flexible and a better foundation for theory. 🧵 experimentology.io
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MSU Psychology @msupsychology.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Congratulations to Dr. Meltem Yucel on being elected as a Fellow of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology! psychology.msu.edu/news-events/... @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social @moralmindslab.bsky.social
A headshot of Meltem Yucel with the word congratulations repeating in the background.


Congratulations to Dr. Meltem Yucel on being elected as a Fellow of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology!

This honor recognizes Dr. Yucel's substantial contributions to social psychology as an empirical science. She joins a select group of researchers that grows by less than 5% each year.
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Mike Frank @mcxfrank.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Within-participants designs need 2-8x fewer participants than between-participants designs for the same level of precision. Ch 9 of Experimentology argues for making within your default. 🧵 experimentology.io
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Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Read my interview with @vox.com about #Gossip with our neighbors. The funny part is that I gossiped about this piece *with* my neighbors too 👂
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Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
Yesterday I gave a talk at the European Association of Social Psychology (EASP) General Meeting in Strasbourg, France! 🇫🇷 Many thanks to the organizers and all the attendees—I can't believe the room was so full that people were sitting on the floor! @easp2026.bsky.social
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Prof Nichola Raihani @nicholaraihani.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
If you have (or will soon) complete your PhD & would like to join a thriving cultural evolution research group in NEW ZEALAND, drop me a line. UoA offers a handful of funded research fellowships. Applications must be made by a faculty member. Deadline August. Pls share with your students
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Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
Hello, fellow Fellows! I'm delighted to share that I've been elected as a Fellow of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology (SESP). 🎉
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Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
Honored to be featured by my middle/high school in an event celebrating Koç School's alumnae in science and engineering! Proud to be featured alongside a bunch of smart women! 🤩
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Kirsten Lesage @kirstenlesage.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
Overall, these results suggest that when examining how the public responds to questions about the morality of same-sex relationships, Americans give similar answers to questions about the morality of “homosexuality” and “homosexual behavior.” 8/
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Kirsten Lesage @kirstenlesage.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
New analysis from @pewresearch.org that I wrote up with my colleague William Miner on how question wording affects polling on the morality of homosexuality is now out! www.pewresearch.org?p=301100 A 🧵 1/
pewresearch.org
How question wording affects polling on the morality of homosexuality
A new survey experiment reveals Americans largely don't distinguish between the morality of "homosexuality" and "homosexual behavior," though some subgroups may.
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Mark Thornton @markthornton.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
Where did this year's #psychjobs market end up? Thanks to an unusually high number late postings, not as bad as it was looking earlier in the year. Still, this is the smallest number of jobs posted since 2012, representing a 26% decline from last year (~2/3rds the size of the covid drop in 2020).
Bar graph showing tenure track psychology jobs posted each year since 2010 broken up by area.
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Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 03/05/2026
First graduation as faculty ✅ This concludes my first year on the tenure track 🙌 🥂
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Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
Wrapped up the last exam of the semester. Exhausted but full of gratitude for our students 🙏🥰
Text from an exam sheet: “ thank you for a great semester by far one of my favorite classes, I’ve taken as a senior about to graduate on Friday”
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Hey! It's me! It's Gray! Ask me anything! @gray.merping.synth.download · 22/04/2026
at a job interview "whats your biggest weakness?" "understanding the semantics of a question but ignoring the pragmatics" "could you give an me an example?" "yes i could"
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Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · 23/04/2026
Enjoyed the linked post by Alex Imas: "If the model is right, the durable jobs of the future won’t be about monitoring AI systems or prompt engineering. ... . The durable jobs will be in the relational sector, where the human element is the product itself." aleximas.substack.com/p/what-will-...
aleximas.substack.com
What will be scarce?
The economics of structural change and the post-commodity future of work
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Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 21/04/2026
Today I used "6-7" in my intro class with this exact gif. They laughed, and then there was an awkward pause. Therefore I feel secure in saying that I think I killed the meme (you're welcome).
media.tenor.com
a man in a bow tie is standing in a park with the number 6 and 7 on his shirt
ALT: a man in a bow tie is standing in a park with the number 6 and 7 on his shirt
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Simon Hammann @simonhammann.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
Don't be shy to take on a little two-week side project. These five months will be the most precious three years of your academic journey.
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Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
🚨🚨🚨 International Society for Moral Psychology (ISMP) 🚨🚨🚨 ISMP was formed to create an interdisciplinary and international home for moral psychology, aimed at fostering deeper engagement across traditions, methodologies, and cultural contexts. internationalsocietymoralpsychology.com/join-ismp/
internationalsocietymoralpsychology.com
Become a Member – International Society for Moral Psychology
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Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
Honored to have been included in this exciting lineup. @dcameron.bsky.social did a fantastic job putting together such an exciting conference. I'm learning something new with each and every talk!
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Moral Minds Lab @moralmindslab.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
UURAF was a HUGE success!! Congrats team 💕
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Moral Minds Lab @moralmindslab.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
Congrats to Avery, Emily, and Kennedy for presenting their project at MSU’s University Undergraduate Research and Arts Forum (UURAF)!
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Daryl Cameron @dcameron.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
Folks in State College! If you're around this Saturday, I encourage you to check out the reception that the Consortium on Moral Decision-Making is hosting at Webster's Bookstore, one of our independent bookshops. This is the opening, informal meet-and-greet with several of the invited speakers.
Moral Fragmentations and Boundaries Book Reception, 6-8 pm at Webster's in State College
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yang-wu.bsky.social @yang-wu.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
Our new paper is out in Child Development! We’re the first to use the looking-while-listening paradigm to examine emotion word comprehension in early childhood. Work with my fantastic grad student @chenhanqi.bsky.social 🙌 Read more: academic.oup.com/chidev/advan...
academic.oup.com
The emergence of emotion word comprehension in toddlerhood: Evidence from a looking-while-listening paradigm
Abstract. At what age do children acquire emotion words? Research shows gradual acquisition from ages 3 to 5, with mixed findings for age 2. However, most
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Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
Many thanks to @bostonu.bsky.social for having me today at the Developmental Science Colloquium. I loved getting to meet and chat with you all! P.S. I finally *met* @levelsof.bsky.social!!
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Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
Massive and important positive news... #NSF #GRFP awards are out. 2,599 awards! + 1,440 Honorable Mentions. A significant boost from last year. Congratulations to the winners (and HM-s)! & many thanks to the reviewers & program officers who made this possible. www.research.gov/grfp/Awardee...
2,599 applicants offered NSF GRFP awards!

Congrats to all the NSF GRFP award winners and recipients of honorable mention.

https://www.research.gov/grfp/AwardeeList.do?method=loadAwardeeList
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Dannagal Goldthwaite Young @dannagal.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
First, Two-thirds of all recorded episodes of democracies turned autocracies occurred in the last 30 years, from 1994 to 2023: 64 episodes of backsliding in 54 countries. (Nord & Lindberg, 2025) www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
tandfonline.com
State of the world 2024: 25 years of autocratization – democracy trumped?
Using the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) dataset version 15, we offer six main findings about contemporary trends of regime transformations. First, the average level of liberal democracy continues ...
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Meltem Yucel @drmeltemyucel.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
🚨🚨🚨 International Society for Moral Psychology (ISMP) 🚨🚨🚨 ISMP was formed to create an interdisciplinary and international home for moral psychology, aimed at fostering deeper engagement across traditions, methodologies, and cultural contexts. internationalsocietymoralpsychology.com/join-ismp/
internationalsocietymoralpsychology.com
Become a Member – International Society for Moral Psychology
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Moral Minds Lab @moralmindslab.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
Discover How Children Think with the Moral Minds Lab!
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shauna @goldengateblond.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
what do you MEAN my flight will be late, i just watched something from THE MOON land on time
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