Researches | Çocuk ve Aile Çalışmaları Laboratuvarı

Researches

Güncel Araştırmalar

Parental Reflective Functioning

In this study, we aim to investigate the role of parental reflective functioning on the well-being of children. Our research focuses on the understanding of which characteristics of this parental ability support well-being of children.

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The Relationship Between Mothers' Supportive Language for the Mental States and Children's Theory of Mind Skills

Theory of mind is the ability to correctly attribute states of mind such as invisible thoughts and intentions of others, and it is one of the fundamental elements for social communication. In studies conducted with children and adults, it has been found that the theory of mind skill differs depending on the group belonging of the opposite individual. The literature has shown that one perceives the mental state of one's inner group members more accurately than the outer group members. This difference in performance has been attributed to the prejudice and threat perception towards the out-group. Our research aims to examine the developmental bases of the performance difference in understanding the mental states of the in-group and out-group members of the children. With this research, we will examine the mentalizing language use of mothers and investigate its relationship with children’s theory of mind skills towards the in-group and out-group.

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Tamamlanan Araştırmalar

The Effects of Lies Told by Parents on Children's Future Psychosocial Behaviors

This study investigates the effects of the lies, described as small, innocent, or white, that parents tell their children in order to control and shape their children's behaviors on children's future adjustment problems. When parents, who advise their children to be honest, resort to lies that they consider innocent to change their children's behavior, whether these lies affect their children's future lying behavior and social adaptation was examined in this study.

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The Relationship Between Social Identity and Perceptions of Different Cultural Groups with Theory of Mind

Theory of mind is the ability to accurately attribute unobservable mental states such as thoughts and intentions to others. It is one of the essential elements for establishing social relationships. In studies conducted with children and adults, it has been found that the theory of mind skill differs according to the group membership of the other individual. The literature has shown that individuals perceive the mental state of their ingroup members more accurately than the outgroup members. This difference in performance has been attributed to the prejudice and threat perception towards the outgroup. Our research aimed to examine the developmental bases of the performance difference in understanding the mental states of the ingroup and outgroup members of the children. This research will investigate the relationship between mothers' mental state language usage depending on the group membership and the children's theory of mind skills.

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Social Competence, Theory of Mind and Executive Functions in Preschool Period

This project investigates the development of the theory of mind, executive functions, receptive language, and social competence longitudinally in early childhood and examines the role of growth context in the speed and form of these skills. For this purpose, the study makes a detailed and longitudinal assessment of children in Türkiye from low, medium, and high socioeconomic levels and raised by their parents, and children born in the most disadvantaged contexts and growing up in orphanages. This research reveals in which developmental areas children growing up in orphanages have difficulties and provides important information for prevention and intervention programs.

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Effects of Parents and Temperament on Child's Social Adaptation and Social Information Processing: A cross-cultural study

This project examines the social development and social information processing skills of preschool children within the framework of the bioecological model, taking the socio-cultural context as the main axis. Social information processing, which is related to how the child interprets social events and how the child attributes meaning to them, is closely related to the child's social development aspects such as peer relationships, internalizing and externalizing behaviors, and prosocial behavior. This relationship between social information processing and social adaptation is directly and indirectly affected by mothers' cognition and behavior. Moreover, this relationship is influenced by the fundamental characteristics that the child is born with. The child's temperamental characteristics may directly affect the cognition and behavior of the mother and indirectly shape the mother's cognition and behavior by affecting the mother's well-being and stress level. In addition, socio-cultural characteristics such as the mother's self-construal, social and religious values, and how much the child perceives parenting behavior as normative are also effective in this process.

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Moral Reasoning and Empathy Development in Children

This project examines the individual and familial factors that influence the development of moral reasoning and empathy in the 3-12 age period. The moral judgment includes behaviors such as distinguishing between right and wrong and internalizing values. Empathy refers to feeling the same or similar feelings experienced by another person. The development of moral reasoning ability begins in the preschool period and continues rapidly during the school period. Some features that are thought to be influential in the development of this ability are children's empathy, language, executive functions, understanding of emotions and theory of mind skills, and some temperamental characteristics. It is also believed that certain values and skills of parents (e.g. empathy, sense of justice, spirituality) may be important in the development of the child's moral reasoning ability. In this study, we aim to understand how much and in what direction these individual and familial characteristics are effective in the development of moral reasoning. This comprehensive international study is carried out jointly with Jean Decety from the University of Chicago and Kang Lee from the University of Toronto.

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Mothers’ Cognition About Displaying Warmth and Firmness

The primary purpose of this research is to examine the cognitions and behaviors of mothers in Türkiye about displaying warmth and firmness to their children. Warmth and firmness are fundamental dimensions of parenthood. Many studies in our country use scales developed in the West to evaluate these major parenting dimensions. However, this method may lead to overlooking some of the attitudes of mothers in Türkiye while being warm and firm towards their children, and it may not measure some basic attitudes and behaviors that need to be measured. Moreover, since the meaning of the behaviors can differ depending on the culture, it is important to know whether the mother is doing a certain behavior to display warmth or act firmly. All of this requires the study of parenting ethnotheories that illustrate the cognitive theories of parents' behavior. Our research aims to increase our knowledge on the issues mentioned here by using quantitative and qualitative analysis methods. Using the in-depth interview method with open-ended questions, we aim to understand better why mothers consider warmth and firmness important, what they do when they display warmth and when they are firm, and in what situations they display these behaviors. In order to examine whether the positive and negative effects of warm and firm attitudes on the development of children are similar to the findings of the studies conducted in the West. We also investigate the relationship of these behaviors with social adaptation and behavioral problems in children

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Examination of the Conceptualization of the Phenomenon of ``Ideal Parenting``

The understanding of parents, and clinical psychologists, and psychological counselors (clinicians) working with children in a community about the ideal child-rearing is informative about parenting ethnotheories and processes related to the child's development in that society. In this project, how the phenomenon of “ideal parenting” is conceptualized by mothers (the parent who has a direct impact on the development of the child) and clinicians working on the parent-child relationship (who might have an indirect but significant impact on the child's development) and the relationship of these conceptualizations with culture is examined. The research examines the ideal parenting phenomenon in mothers and clinicians in Türkiye and the Netherlands, which are defined as collectivistic and individualist societies, respectively. It discusses the role of education and religious beliefs in parenting ethnotheories. This project is carried out jointly with Judi Mesman from Leiden University in the Netherlands. The project's data collection phase was completed in 2012, and a total of 150 mothers and 98 clinicians were interviewed. The data analysis process of the research continues.

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The Role of Cognitive Representation and Communication Skills in the Social Behavior of Children with Autism

The ability to understand mental states, which is also the basis of the theory of mind, is an important cognitive representation and is closely related to language development. Cognitive representation and language skills play an important role in the development of social competence. Autism is a disorder in which great difficulties are observed in all these areas. One of the areas that has not been studied much in children with autism is the cognitive representation of understanding the internal states of others, such as feeling cold, hunger, pain. This project deals with the ability to represent internal states, verbal and non-verbal communication skills together and examines the roles of these skills in social competence in children diagnosed with autism spectrum. The research aims to specifically understand the representation skills associated with children's social competence with autism, thereby providing valuable information for intervention programs.

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Social Development in Children with Physical Disabilities

This project examines the social development of children with chronic orthopedic disabilities. Chronic orthopedic disability can contribute to the formation of a disadvantageous environment for the development of social competence by negatively affecting the child's internal characteristics such as temperament and family processes. It is important to reveal the factors that affect social competence to develop the contents of prevention and intervention programs focused on the person and the environment. For this purpose, factors such as the severity of orthopedic disability, congenital or acquired, treatment processes (traumatic experiences such as multiple surgeries), internal and external support received by the mother, stress, physical and emotional well-being are examined in our project. The research includes 105 children with orthopedic disabilities and their mothers from many different cities and socioeconomic backgrounds with urban and rural origin.

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The Perceptions of Normal Aggression of Adolescents in Türkiye

Relational aggression can be defined as a set of behaviors whose purpose is to manipulate and harm relationships. Before this type of aggression was defined, aggression was perceived as a male-specific behavioral pattern. Relational aggression behaviors helped to examine a set of behavioral patterns (such as talking behind their friends, disturbing their friendships) that were previously not the subject of research and the relationship patterns especially among young girls of school age who were previously thought not to exhibit aggressive behaviors. Our research, which was previously carried out abroad and tried to identify certain types of aggression, collected data with a 4-question questionnaire applied to young people between the ages of 12-18 in Türkiye. Simultaneously, the roles of culture and gender on aggression types are investigated by comparing the data of Turkish youth with the study conducted by David A. Nelson in the United States.

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Life Without Barriers Project

In Koç University Psychology Department Child Family Studies Laboratory, we are conducting a comprehensive study with the Engelsiz Hayat Dayanışma Association, which examines the family relations and disability processes of orthopedically disabled individuals. This study includes the links between orthopedic disability and family-individual relationship and we say ``More Information for a Barrier-Free Tomorrow!``

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