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Social and Emotional Development Lab

Research focus

We are a research group of the Institute of Psychology of the Czech Academy of Sciences and we focus on children and adolescents. We investigate how their mental health, well-being, attitudes towards others and relationships with peers develop. For example, we examine how exclusion and bullying arise in groups, or, on the contrary, how positive relationships and helping others develop. We are also interested in how peer relationships translate into psychological well-being. We also address interdisciplinary topics, such as the dynamics of complex systems. Our lab was established in the summer of 2022 and is open to those who share our interest in rigorous research, open science, and innovative methods. Our work has practical implications that include providing useful information for psychologists in practice and teacher training.

More about us

Research principles

We are guided by ethical principles and standards, such as the EFPA or the Declaration of Helsinki. We subscribe to the principles of open science (power analysis, preregistration, sharing of anonymised data and analytical code for replicability of outputs). Before conducting empirical research, we usually create a systematic literature search and, in the case of intervention research, we also create a theory of change. For data collection, we usually use standardized instruments localized into Czech (or we perform the validation into Czech ourselves). We manage data in accordance with GDPR principles. For data processing and analyses, we mainly use the statistical program R and maintain the codes in GitHub.

The Social and Emotional Development Laboratory (SEDL) is part of the Department of Personality and Social Psychology, which is part of the Institute of Psychology of the CAS.

IP CAS

Research interests

Classroom dynamics

Applying social network analysis to gain a deeper understanding of peer dynamics in school classrooms (e.g., examining influence, popularity, friendship reciprocity, clustering of students into small groups).

Bullying and disrupted peer relationships

Understanding negative group phenomena, victimization, social exclusion or social segregation

We examine how bullying and exclusion from activities and groups emerge in classrooms. In studying these issues, we examine the role of a variety of factors ranging from adolescent attitudes and moral characteristics to classroom norms. We also look at how disrupted classroom relationships translate into adolescents’ psychological well-being and mental health.

Safe environment and the role of the teacher

We look at how classrooms develop safe environments where there is little risk of bullying or where bullying stops soon after it occurs. For example, we examine which teacher interventions are effective, or how schools can support teachers to be more willing to intervene in bullying situations. We also look at the conditions under which adolescents are willing to stand up for bullied classmates.

Program evaluation

We collaborate with application partners to evaluate the effectiveness of educational programs (e.g. we investigate the effectiveness of the KiVa anti-bullying program)

Artificial intelligence

We are also interested in how to ensure the use of AI is consistent with human values and goals, and how to minimize the potential unintended negative outcomes of using AI.

Investigation of psychometric properties

We apply psychometric procedures to measurement tools that we develop or translate into Czech.

Complexity of psychological phenomena

Psychological phenomena are often complex and intertwined. Psychological network analysis can be used to disentangle them, allowing a large number of variables to be modelled together over time. However, we are also interested more generally in the dynamics of complex systems in psychological data.