Selin Gülgöz

• 2009 BA in Psychology, Koç University
• 2011 MS in Developmental Psychology, University of Michigan
• 2015 PhD in Developmental Psychology, University of Michigan

My broad research interests lie in children’s social cognition and conceptual development, with particular focus on children’s reasoning about individuals and social groups. I examine how children with diverse (and often marginalized) identities construct social categories, how children’s reasoning about social categories is reflected in their attitudes and behaviors toward members of those categories, and how we can learn about the developmental origins of early social cognition by observing these cognitive and behavioral outcomes. In my recent work, I have been investigating children’s social cognition and conceptual development in the following areas:

• Gender cognition in transgender, gender-nonconforming and cisgender children, with focus on gender essentialism, gender identity development, and gender-based prejudice
• Children’s understanding of social status hierarchies between individuals and between groups
• Cross-cultural examinations of children’s category-based inferences when reasoning about social others

• Foundations of Psychology (Spring 2020)
• Psychology of Sex Roles (Spring 2020)

• Association for Psychological Science
• Cognitive Development Society
• Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society
• Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science
• Society for Personality and Social Psychology
• Society for Research in Child Development

Glazier, J. J., Gülgöz, S., & Olson, K. R. (accepted for publication). Gender encoding in transgender and cisgender children. Child Development.

Gülgöz, S., Glazier, J. J., Enright, E. A., Alonso, D. J., Durwood, L. J., Fast, A. A., Lowe, R., Ji, C., Heer, J., Martin, C. L., & Olson, K. R. (2019). Similarity in transgender and cisgender children’s gender development. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1909367116

Gülgöz, S., DeMeules, M., Gelman, S. A., & Olson, K. R. (2019). Gender essentialism in transgender and cisgender children. PLOS ONE. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0224321

Rubin, J. D., Gülgöz, S., Alonso, D., & Olson, K. R. (2019). Transgender and Cisgender Children’s Stereotypes and Beliefs About Others’ Stereotypes. Social Psychological and Personality Science. doi: 10.1177/1948550619879911

Roberts, S. O., Ho, A., Gülgöz, S., Leeka, J., & Gelman, S. A. (2019). The roles of group status and group membership in the practice of hypodescent. Child Development. doi: 10.1111/cdev.13279.

Rae, J. R., Gülgöz, S., Durwood, L., DeMeules, M., Lowe, R., Lindquist, G., Olson, K. R. (2019). Predicting early childhood gender transitions. Psychological Science, 30, 669-681. doi: 10.1177/0956797619830649

Gülgöz, S., Gomez, E. M., DeMeules, M. R., & Olson, K. R. (2018). Children’s evaluation and categorization of transgender children, Journal of Cognition and Development, 19, 325-344. doi: 10.1080/15248372.2018.1498338

[Recipient of the 2018 Cognitive Development Society Journal Award]

Gülgöz, S. & Gelman, S. A. (2018). Status hierarchy. In M. Bornstein (Ed.), The Sage Encyclopedia of Lifespan Development. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Olson, K. R., & Gülgöz, S. (2018). Early findings from the TransYouth Project: Gender development in transgender children. Child Development Perspectives, 12, 93-97. doi: 10.1111/cdep.12268

Gülgöz, S., & Gelman, S. A. (2017). Who’s the boss? Concepts of social power across development. Child Development, 88, 946-963. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12643

Gülgöz, S., Martin, C. L., & Olson, K. R. (2019, October). Transgender children’s recall for gender-typed images. Poster presented at the Biennial Meeting for Cognitive Development Society, Louisville, KY.

Gülgöz, S., Gelman, S. A. & Olson, K. R. (2019, March). Gender essentialism in transgender and cisgender children. Paper presented in S. Gülgöz (chair), New Directions in Social Essentialism Research. Symposium at the Biennial Meeting for the Society for Research in Child Development, Baltimore, Maryland.

Gülgöz, S., Olson, K.R., & Gelman, S. A. (2019, March). Children’s perceptions of social power differences between boys and girls. Paper presented in M. Stavans (chair), New Directions in the Study of Children’s Concepts of Leadership. Symposium at the Biennial Meeting for the Society for Research in Child Development, Baltimore, Maryland.

Gülgöz, S., Gelman, S. A., & Olson, K. R. (2017, October). Gender essentialism in transgender and gender typical children. Poster presented at the Biennial Meeting for Cognitive Development Society, Portland, OR.

Gülgöz, S., Gomez, E. & Olson, K. R. (2017, April). The relation between gender essentialism and children’s evaluations of transgender peers. Poster presented at the Biennial Meeting for the Society for Research in Child Development, Austin, TX.

Gülgöz, S., DeMeules, M. & Olson, K. R. (2017, April). The relation between implicit and explicit gender development in transgender children. Poster presented at the Biennial Meeting for the Society for Research in Child Development, Austin, TX.

Gülgöz, S. & Gelman, S. A. (2016, October). Relations between gender essentialism and gendered attitudes. Poster presented at the Gender Development Research Conference, San Francisco, CA.