Welcome to the Social Psychology Program

Program Description

The objectives for graduate training in the Social Program emphasize scholarly excellence in all aspects of Social Psychology. The primary aim of the program is to train students who will excel in research careers in academic or other research settings, and who will be able to conduct research on social psychological processes in laboratory and non-laboratory settings. Faculty research interests are broad, including attitudes and attitude change, decision making, social cognition, emotions, stereotyping and prejudice, interpersonal processes, and group interactions. The Social Program has close ties to Clinical and Health psychology, Quantitative psychology, and Cognitive psychology programs. See Faculty listings for more information on research interests.

We admit graduate students who we feel best fit in our program, and permit research interests to develop over time. All students are assigned to a faculty member for research supervision during their first year. Student independent research, including M.A. and Ph.D. work, may follow from or complement work of faculty. However, students are free to explore their own research goals throughout their training. For example, students may work with one faculty member the first year, and then may choose to work with that person or someone else on their M.A. or Ph.D. work. In fact, we encourage students to be involved actively in research on more than one project and with more than one faculty member at a given time. It has been our hope that the Ph.D. dissertation will be largely completed during the fourth year or by the end of the fifth year at the latest, during which time students will continue to be involved heavily in independent and collaborative research.

Link to Psychology Graduate Admissions Information