Roman Stengelin
Senior scientist
Abteilung für Vergleichende Kulturpsychologie
Max-Planck-Institut für evolutionäre Anthropologie
Deutscher Platz 6
04103 Leipzig
Telefon: +49 (0) 341 3550 408
E-Mail:
roman_stengelin@[>>> Please remove the text! <<<]eva.mpg.de
Research Interests
I am an experimental psychologist interested in childhood social learning and social cognition. My research combines cross-cultural and developmental approaches to learn how children come to engage in and benefit from social interactions and how these processes are shaped culturally. My recent work focuses on how children come to understand and predict others’ behaviors in the light of their mental states (i.e., Theory of Mind) and how they learn to cooperate with others for mutual benefit (i.e., collaboration).
I conduct fieldwork in rural and urban Namibia to shed light on variation in childhood social cognition with cultural emphases on child autonomy, relatedness, and pedagogy. I also study urban German children, maintaining this cultural lense to understand and affirm the role of culture in child development in this context. Doing so, I aim to raise an awareness of current cultural blindspots in developmental theory and research methods to support a more ecologically-valid and inclusive study of childhood social cognition and learning.
Curriculum Vitae
Career & Education
| 2023 - present | Senior Scientist Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig |
| 2020 - 2023 | Postdoctoral Researcher Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig |
| 2015 - 2020 | Research Associate | PhD Student Department of Early Child Development and Culture Leipzig University |
| 2013 - 2015 | M.Sc in Psychology Leipzig University |
| 2010 - 2013 | B.Sc in Psychology Koblenz-Landau University |
Fieldwork
| 2016 - present | Cross-cultural developmental Psychology in Namibia among Hai||om, Khwe, and Owambo communities |
Publications
Stengelin, R., Petrović, L., Thiele, M., Hepach, R., & Haun, D. B. M. (2024). Social reward predicts false belief understanding in Namibian Hai||om children (advance online). Social Development. |
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Bohn, M., Fong, F. T. K., Pope-Caldwell, S. M., Stengelin, R., & Haun, D. B. M. (2024). Understanding cultural variation in cognition one child at a time (advance online). Nature Reviews Psychology. |
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Stengelin, R., Bohn, M., Sánchez Amaro, A., Haun, D. B. M., Thiele, M., Daum, M. M., Felsche, E., Fong, F. T. K., Gampe, A., Giner Torréns, M., Grueneisen, S., Hardecker, D. J. K., Horn, L., Neldner, K., Pope-Caldwell, S. M., & Schuhmacher, N. (2024). Responsible research is also concerned with generalizability: Recognizing efforts to reflect upon and increase generalizability in hiring and promotion decisions in psychology. Meta-Psychology, 8. |
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Kaminski, J., Stengelin, R., Girndt, A., Haun, D., & Liebal, K. (2024). Understanding others' preferences: A comparison across primate species and human societies. PLoS ONE, 19(1): e0295221. |
Open AccessThiede, N., Stengelin, R., Seibold, A., & Haun, D. B. M. (2023). Testing causal effects of empathy on children’s prosociality in politeness dilemmas. Open Mind, 7, 691-710. |
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Stengelin, R., Ball, R., Maurits, L., Kanngiesser, P., & Haun, D. B. M. (2023). Children over‐imitate adults and peers more than puppets. Developmental Science, 26(2): e13303. |
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Stengelin, R., Haun, D. B. M., & Kanngiesser, P. (2023). Simulating peers: can puppets simulate peer interactions in studies on children's socio-cognitive development? Child Development, 94(5), 1117-1135. |
Bruno, D., Pope-Caldwell, S. M., Haberl, K., Hanus, D., Haun, D., Leisterer-Peoples, S., Mauritz, S., Neldner, K., Sibilsky, A., & Stengelin, R. (2022). Ethical guidelines for good practice in cross-cultural research. Leipzig: Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology, Max Planck Institute for evolutionary anthropology. |
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Stengelin, R., Schleihauf, H., Seidl, A., & Böckler-Raettig, A. (2022). Spreading the game: An experimental study on the link between children’s overimitation and their adoption, transmission, and modification of conventional information. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 213: 105271. |
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Stengelin, R., Toppe, T., Kansal, S., Tietz, L., Sürer, G., Henderson, A. M. E., & Haun, D. B. M. (2022). Priming third-party social exclusion does not elicit children's inclusion of out-group members. Royal Society Open Science, 9(1). |
Toppe, T., Stengelin, R., Schmidt, L. S., Amini, N., & Schuhmacher, N. (2021). Explaining variation in parents' and their children's stress during COVID-19 lockdowns. Frontiers in Psychology, 12: 645266. |
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Stengelin, R., Golubovic, A., Toppe, T., Over, H., & Haun, D. B. M. (2021). Priming third-party ostracism does not lead to increased affiliation in three Serbian communities. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 203: 105019. |
Stengelin, R., Hepach, R., & Haun, D. B. M. (2020). Cultural variation in young children’s social motivation for peer collaboration and its relation to the ontogeny of Theory of Mind. PLoS One, 15(11): e0242071. |
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Stengelin, R., Hepach, R., & Haun, D. B. M. (2020). Cross-cultural variation in how much, but not whether, children overimitate. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 193: 104796. |
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Stengelin, R., Hepach, R., & Haun, D. B. M. (2020). Hai||om children mistrust, but do not deceive, peers with opposing self-interests. PLoS One, 15(3). |
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Haun, D., Liebal, K., Amici, F., Bender, A., Bohn, M., Bräuer, J., Buttelmann, D., Burkart, J., Cacchione, T., DeTroy, S., Faßbender, I., Fichtel, C., Fischer, J., Gampe, A., Gray, R. D., Horn, L., Oña, L. S., Kärtner, J., Kaminski, J., Kanngießer, P., Keller, H., Köster, M., Kopp, K. S., Kornadt, H.-J., Rakoczy, H., Schuppli, C., Stengelin, R., Trommsdorff, G., Van Leeuwen, E. J. C., & Schaik, C. v. (2020). Ein Plädoyer für die Relevanz der Vergleichenden Psychologie für das Verständnis menschlicher Entwicklung (Kommentare zu Daum, M. M., Greve, W.,Pauen, S., Schuhrke, B. und Schwarzer, G.(2020). Positionspapier der Fachgruppe Entwicklungspsychologie: Ein Versuch einer Standortbestimmung. In: Psychologische Rundschau, 71(1), 24-46). Psychologische Rundschau, 71(1), 40-41. |
Stengelin, R., Hepach, R., & Haun, D. B. M. (2019). Being observed increases overimitation in three diverse cultures. Developmental Psychology, 55(12), 2630-2636. |
Stengelin, R., Grüneisen, S., & Tomasello, M. (2018). Why should I trust you? Investigating young children’s spontaneous mistrust in potential deceivers. Cognitive Development, 48, 146-154. |
