Faculty Director
Address(es)
890 Drillfield Drive, 353 Williams Hall
EMail(s)
Primary Phone

About Us

Positive Social Development (PSD) Lab focuses on understanding positive social development during childhood and adolescence. We are particularly interested in prosocial behavior and moral development with individual, parental, cultural, and contextual correlates in culturally diverse children and adolescents.

Areas of Interest:

  • Positive social development during childhood and adolescence
  • Prosocial behavior
  • Moral development
  • Parenting
  • Parent-child relationship
  • Culture

People

Lab Members

   Director:
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Zehra Gulseven

 

  Graduate Students:
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Bengisu Nisa Aras
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Kennedy Kreidell
   Undergraduate Research Assistants:
  • Brianna Leon
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Brianna

 

  • Jaya Powell
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Jaya

 

  • Xi Zeng
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Xi Zeng

 

Former Undergraduate Research Assistants

Basem Huneidi - Spring 2024

 

Current Research Projects

Cultivating Kindness: Mapping the Socialization Landscape of Prosocial Development in Early Adolescence

This study focuses on understanding early adolescents’ prosocial behaviors and moral development. 

We are recruiting parents/guardians with 6th-grade youth in the New River and Roanoke Valley areas. 

Parents/guardians and their 6th-grade youth will separately fill out an online questionnaire that takes approximately 60 minutes to complete (30 minutes for parents/guardians and 30 minutes for youth) three times over two years. Participants will receive a total of $135 upon successful completion of all study surveys.

Please use this link to fill out our form if you and your child are interested in participating. Feel free to contact our team (psdlab@vt.edu) for more information or with any questions.

The study is approved by VT IRB # 24-390

 

College Students' Stress, Wellbeing, and Prosociality

The purpose of this study is to understand the relations among college students’ stress, well-being, relationships, and prosocial behavior. (IRB# 23-1302)

 

Latine Youth's Cultural Assets and Positive Social Development

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of Latine youth and parents’ culture-related experiences and stress on youth’s social-emotional development, moral development, and psychological well-being. (IRB #24-342)

 

Other Collaborative Projects

•Prosociality in Times of COVID-19: A Cross-National Investigation of Prosocial Attitudes and Behaviors During the COVID-19 Crisis

•Longitudinal Study of Children’s Cognitive, Emotional &Prosocial Development in Türkiye

•Adolescents’ Prosocial and Moral Development in Nicaragua

•College Students’ Prosocial Behaviors and Moral Development

Select Publications and Presentations

  • Cruz, A. M., Carlo, G., Gülseven, Z., & Vandell, D.L. (2024). A Longitudinal study of prosocial behaviors predicting later academic performance in U.S. Latine youth. Journal of Adolescence. http://doi.org/10.1002/jad.12401
  • Gülseven, Z., Simpkins, S.D., Jiang, S., & Vandell, D.L. (2024). Patterns of afterschool settings: Are they related to changes in academic and social functioning in children and adolescents?. Applied Developmental Science, Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888691.2024.2385425
  • Xiao, S. X., Gülseven, Z., Clancy, E. T., Liew, J., Carlo, G., Kim, S., & Jiang, S. (2024). Measuring early adolescents’ prosocial behavior toward diverse others: Considering multiple social identities. Journal of Adolescence, 96(4), 841-854. http://doi.org/10.1002/jad.12305
  • Gülseven, Z., Pierotti, S.L., Killoren, S.E., Alfaro, E.C., & Carlo, G. (2024). The role of maternal warmth in understanding the relations between cultural orientations and prosocial behaviors in U.S. Mexican college students. Journal of Latinx Psychology, 12(3), 261-276. https://doi.org/10.1037/lat0000253
  • Gülseven, Z., Puente, K., Tulagan, N., Zarrett, N., Simpkins, S. D., & Vandell, D. L. (2023). Children’s self-control as an antecedent of adolescent prosociality and adult civic engagement. Applied Developmental Science, 28(2), 178–192. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888691.2022.2158827
  • Vandell, D.L. & Gülseven, Z. (2023). The Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD): Studying development from infancy to adulthood. Annual Review of Developmental Psychology, 5(1), 331-354. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-devpsych-120621-035345
  • Gülseven, Z., Yu, M., Zarrett, N., Vandell, D. L., & Simpkins, S.D. (2023). Self-control and cooperation in childhood as antecedents of less moral disengagement in adolescence. Development and Psychopathology, 35(1), 290-300. doi:10.1017/S0954579421000584
  • Maiya, S., Gülseven, Z., Killoren, S. E., Carlo, G., & Streit, C. (2023). The intervening role of anxiety symptoms in associations between self-regulation and prosocial behaviors in U.S. Latino/a college students. Journal of American College Health, 71(2), 584-592. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2021.1899187
  • Carrizales, A., Gülseven, Z., & Lannegrand, L. (2023). The mediating role of empathy in the links between relationships with three socialization agents and adolescents’ prosocial behaviors. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 40(9), 2855-2877. https://doi.org/10.1177/02654075221099652
  • Gülseven, Z., Maiya, S., & Carlo, G. (2022). The intervening roles of shame and guilt in relations between parenting and prosocial behavior in college students. Journal of Genetic Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221325.2022.2098004
  • Padilla-Walker, L., Van der Graaff, J., Workman, K., Carlo, G., Branje, S., Carrizales, A., Gerbino, M., Gülseven, Z., Hawk, S., Luengo Kanacri, P., Mesurado, B., Samper, P., Shen, Y., Taylor, L., Trach, J., Van Zalk, M., Zukauskiene, R. (2022). Emerging adults’ cultural values, prosocial behaviors, and mental health in fourteen countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 46(4), 286-296. https://doi.org/10.1177/01650254221084098
  • Gülseven, Z., Carlo, G., Kumru, A., Sayıl, M., & Selçuk, B. (2022). The protective role of early prosocial behaviors against young Turkish children’s later internalizing and externalizing problems. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 19(3), 400-418. https://doi.org/10.1080/17405629.2021.1920917
  • Gülseven, Z. & Carlo, G. (2021). Parenting and prosocial behaviors in Nicaraguan adolescents: The roles of moral reasoning and familism. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 38(9), 2545-2565. https://doi.org/10.1177/02654075211009298
  • Gülseven, Z., Liu, Y., Ma, T., Yu, M., Simpkins, S.D., Vandell, D. L., & Zarrett, N. (2021). The development of cooperation and self-control in middle childhood: Associations with earlier maternal and paternal parenting. Developmental Psychology, 57(3), 397-409. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0001151