Program Area Mission

Our research goal is to understand how the organism and its capabilities develop throughout the lifespan. Our interdisciplinary approach is multi-species, multi-system, and multidisciplinary in nature. We study change over time in cognitive, social, emotional, and physiological processes.

Our explanations include both neurological accounts of the plasticity that is observed in the developing brain and other systems and computational and psychological accounts of development. The bi-directionality of these processes is emphasized, with the organism's genetically program development being influenced by its physical and social environments and in turn influencing those environments. Thus, our research is situated at the interface between the fields of developmental psychology, social psychology, cultural psychology, cognitive psychology, clinical psychology, community psychology, genetics (including gene-environment interactions), and neuroscience.

Our research examines numerous areas of development, plasticity, and change including sensory processes, cognitive capacities, language, everyday knowledge of the world, emotions, and social relationships. We utilize cross-species comparisons to help us elucidate core mechanisms. Finally, we examine both typical and atypical development, each providing rich insights for better understanding the other and suggesting new approaches for effective treatments and preventive interventions.

Faculty

Core CPD Faculty

Campos, Joseph	Professor	Social-emotional development in infancy, especially emotional communication and perception of emotion; and the relation of motor development to cognitive, social and emotional development
Gopnik, Alison	Professor	Cognitive development, causal learning, psychology and philosophy
Hudson Kam, Carla	Assistant Professor	First and second language acquisition: In particular, I am interested in how these processes may constrain the form of languages, and how they might influence how languages change over time
Jacobs, Lucia	Associate Professor	Evolution and ecology of cognition, in particular spatial memory, navigation and reasoning
Langer, Jonas	Professor	Cognitive development in infancy and early childhood; primate cognitive development and evolution
Main, Mary	Professor	Attachment; individual differences in relationship representation in discourse, drawing, and narrative; functional disorders of consciousness; ethology
Markson, Lori	Assistant Professor	Conceptual development, word learning and categorization, pragmatics and theory of mind, development of social cognition
Theunissen, Frederic	Associate Professor	Neural basis of vocal learning in songbirds; auditory physiology; speech perception

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Affiliated CPD Faculty

Ayduk, Ozlem	Assistant Professor	Close relationships; emotion regulation; development of self-regulation in children
Banks, Martin	Affiliated Professor	Visual space perception, spatially guided navigation, visual-haptic integration
Bunge, Silvia	Assistant Professor	Cognitive neuroscience and developmental cognitive neuroscience; cognitive control and prefrontal function
Cowan, Carolyn	Adjunct Professor Emerita	Research and clinical work with couples making the transition to parenthood and children making the transition to elementary and high school; focus on couple relationships during adult life transitions, marital distress, and parenting issues.
Cowan, Philip	Emeritus	Clinical Science; Developmental
Francis, Darlene	Assistant Professor	Behavioral neuroscience, developmental psychobiology, animal models, stress, maternal care, gene-environment interaction
Glickman, Stephen	Professor	Comparative studies of species characteristic behavior patterns in mammals
Hinshaw, Stephen	Chair & Professor	Childhood behavior disorders, developmental psychopathology. Attention deficits and hyperactivity; aggressive behavior, peer relations, family interactions, and neuropsychological risk factors; psychosocial and pharmacological interventions for children with ADHD; process and outcome research in child interventions; assessment, diagnosis, and classification of child disorders; definitions of mental disorder; stigma associated with mental disorder.
Keltner, Dacher	Professor	Social/Personality: emotion; social interaction; individual differences in emotion; conflict and negotiation; culture
Knight, Robert	Professor	Attention and memory; neuropsychology and physiology; cognitive neuroscience
Levenson, Robert	Professor	Emotion. Autonomic nervous system and facial expressive components, cultural influences, empathy, emotional control, emotional changes with aging, dementing disorders, and brain pathology. Marital interaction across the life span: emotional and physiological signs and predictors of marital distress.
Peng, Kaiping	Associate Professor	Social: cultural psychology, culture and cognition, reasoning and judgment across cultures and domains, and cross-cultural understandings
Turiel, Elliot	Affiliated Professor
Weinstein, Rhona	Professor	Community psychology (children, schools, and community settings): Classroom/school processes and the development of competence; expectations about ability and self-fulfilling prophecies; social cognition and achievement motivation; school reform and the prevention of school failure; consultation, institutional change, and policy.

CPD Colloquium (Psych 249)

Psych 249 || CCN 75307 || Beach Room, 3105 Tolman 12 PM -2 PM
♣ Spring 2008 ♣

March 3	No Meeting (Frederic is out of town)
March 10	Carolyn Mervis - Louisville University Genotype/Phenotype Relations: Children with Williams Syndrome or Duplication of the Williams Syndrome Region."
March 17	Rob Goldstone, Indiana University TBA
March 24	Spring Break
March 31	Dan Feldman, UC Berkeley Neural Mechanisms for Plasticity in the Somatosensory System of Rats.
April 7	Michael Brainard, UCSF Contributions of Behavioral Variability to Adult Song Plasticity
April 14	Paula Fass, UC Berkeley TBA: Children and Globalization
April 21	Rand D. Conger, UC Davis Long-Term Developmental Research: A Scientific Addiction
April 28	Lori Markson, UC Berkeley TBA
May 5	Barbara Fredrickson, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill TBA
May 12	CPD Group Meeting Election Of Area Head for 2008-2010