How do people, both young and old, make sense of different norms and those who violate them?
I examine cooperative behavior from an interdisciplinary lens, integrating developmental, social, affective, cognitive, and evolutionary perspectives with robust, quantitative methods. In addition to examining this question from a lifespan perspective, I also incorporate cross-cultural methods to better understand how different aspects of our intergroup social cognition are shaped by differing cultural environments. 
​Learn more about my work here.
(1) Moral and Non-Moral Norm Perception
Adults and even young children distinguish moral norms (norms that concern others' welfare) from other types of norms. How? My work suggests that affect may underlie the distinctions that people make between moral and non-moral norms. 

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Here's a 3 minute video summary of my dissertation work on children's understanding of fairness that won the First Place Award and the People's Choice Award at UVA's Three Minute Thesis Competition.
(2) Group Influence on Norm Perception
One noticeable way that people differ across groups is in the norms that they follow. Whether it is manners of dress, mealtime practices and foods, or even norms surrounding how to treat others with respect or kindness, there is often significant variation in behaviors and behavioral expectations across cultures and social groups. Perhaps in some encounters, noticeable differences are unproblematic, or even spark interest and curiosity. But it is easy to imagine cases where one’s group identity or the contrast between norms of different groups can create conflict, divisiveness, or intolerance (Bojarskich, Yucel, Hahn, & Rothmund, in revision, Psychological Science).
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​To foster tolerance and understanding of diverse perspectives and lived experiences, it is fundamental to understand people's perceptions of these differences before strong stereotypes take root. Therefore, research on how people’s normative beliefs develop can offer powerful insights into when, if ever, people do or do not expect others to abide by their own norms. I have begun investigating children’s developing moral attitudes towards immigrants, foreigners, and citizens (Yucel et al., under review).

I am also investigating the role of religious identity and upbringing on moral cognition because it provides insights into how deeply ingrained beliefs and practices shape children’s moral thinking. As part of the international Developing Belief Network (Weisman,…Yucel,…& Richert, 2024), I am examining how children’s responses to ingroup (same-religion) and outgroup (other-religion) members’ norm violations change with age and mapping the cross-cultural and cross-religious variability in children’s judgments of different norm violations (Yucel* & Reyes-Jaquez* et al., in prep.). 
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(3) Developing Perceptions of Norm Violators
Humans are really concerned not just with learning and following norms themselves but also carefully tracking other’s behaviors and reputations in relation to norms (see Yucel & Vaish, 2021 on how we make amends).

​For instance, by 3 years of age, children protest and tattle about norm violations they observe, even as unaffected bystanders (Yucel & Vaish, 2018). Around 5- to 7 years of age, children begin to account for the “gray” areas of morality (Yucel et al., 2025), and even gossip about their peers’ uncooperative behavior (Yucel et al., in prep.).

Supported by the National Institutes of Health NRSA Postdoctoral Fellowship (F32), my research seeks to address how children and adults form their opinions about those who violate norms, and when, how, and why do we gossip. Using social network analysis, I found that both positive and negative gossip influence and are influenced by friendship connections in adult social networks (Yucel et al., 2021a, 2021b), and being the subject of gossip can signal belongingness in adults (Hales, Yucel, & Rudert, 2025).
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This work has been generously supported by the following groups and institutions: