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 Social/Personality Program

Program Description

Serena Chen
Associate Professor
Serena Chen
Social/Personality Area Head
 
  • Social/Personality Program Faculty
  • Curriculum
  • Colloquium Series
  • Placement of Our Ph.D. Students

  • Graduate Program Application

    Students in this joint program become familiar with social and personality psychology through a one-year proseminar for first-year graduate students. Students then focus on preferred aspects of the field. The program is designed to encourage the development of quantitative skills and a theoretical background suitable for research. The goal of the program is to prepare students for careers in research and university teaching.

  • Social psychology concerns itself with the effects of other people on the individual as well as with interaction between persons. Personality psychology is concerned with the ways individuals perceive, act upon, and understand their respective worlds as they seek to establish adaptive life modes. The joint, integrated program provides training in six core areas: (1) self, identity, and culture; (2) social cognition; (3) emotion, motivation,and health; (4) personality processes and adult development; (5) interpersonal and intergroup relations; and (6) groups and organizations.

    Curriculum

    First Year

  • There is a single one-year-long proseminar to introduce students to the area of social/personality psychology.
  • All students will take a one-year long research and data analysis course and a one-semester methods class.
  • Students will take topical seminars (290s) with faculty.
  • Students will enroll for course credit for participation in a colloquium series.

  • Second Year
    All students will complete a second-year project. This project will take the form of a research project supervised by a faculty member or affiliated faculty member in the group. A second reader from the Department or affiliated area is required. The student and the sponsor should plan explicitly to create a program of research experience and training that will appropriately broaden the student's expertise. This project should be completed by the end of the semester of the second year.

    Students specializing in personality assessment will take a one-year course (251A-B).

    Third Year
    Students will sit for the Qualifying Examination in the third year. The examining committee will consist of four faculty, one of whom must be a Berkeley Academic Senate member from another department (outside member). The Graduate Division requires that students be examined on three broad topics which are to be listed on the application to sit for the Qualifying Examination.

    The Qualifying Examination consists of a written and an oral part. The written part is departmental policy, whereas the oral part is governed by the Graduate Division's regulations. Social/Personality students may complete the written part of the examination by producing two review papers on two topics or by responding to faculty questions in a formal written examination. In the paper option, the student will prepare comprehensive review papers on two topics, though the oral examination part focuses on three topics. The papers are expected to be of the quality and format of Psychological Review or Psychological Bulletin. Application for the Qualifying Examination is available in the Student Services Office. Students will determine which option they want to pursue in consultation with their advisor.

    Upon completion of the Qualifying Examination students are expected to advance to candidacy. Students must file for advancement to candidacy no later than the semester following completion of the Qualifying Examination. The application for candidacy requires students to indicate the three- member research/dissertation committee which will be responsible for guiding the student through research and the dissertation. The research/dissertation committee will consist of a chair, an outside member (Berkeley Academic Senate faculty member from another department) and another psychology professor.

    Fourth Year
    The department requires students advanced to candidacy to have their dissertation proposal reviewed by a Thesis Advisory Committee. The Committee will consist of the three-member research/dissertation committee noted above and other members selected by the chair of the committee and student. It is expected that the completed dissertation will be submitted to the Graduate Division at the end of the fourth year.

    Colloquium Series
    Students are required to participate in three colloquia series, which are offered each semester: (1) Departmental-wide, (2) Institute of Personality and Social Research, and (3) Gordon Allport Series (sponsored by the Social/Personality graduate students).

    Faculty

    Core SP Faculty
    Ayduk, OzlemAssistant ProfessorClose relationships; emotion regulation; development of self-regulation in children
    Chen, SerenaAssociate ProfessorSocial bases of the self, multiple levels of self-definition, close relationships and cognition, social identity, intergroup relations, dual process models, knowledge representation and use
    Covington, MartinProfessorProblem-solving and thinking; educational applications; creativity and affective
    John, OliverProfessorSelf-concept; self-perception accuracy and biases; personality development and assessment across the life span; emotion experience and expression; cultural differences
    Keltner, DacherProfessorSocial/Personality: emotion; social interaction; individual differences in emotion; conflict and negotiation; culture
    Maslach, ChristinaProfessorSocial: job burnout and health psychology; individuation and dissent, gender roles
    Mendelsohn, GeraldProfessorPersonality; causal attribution and interpersonal attraction; individual differences in purposive behavior; computer mediated communication
    Mendoza-Denton, RodolfoAssistant ProfessorPrejudice; stereotyping; cultural influences on social cognition; personality; intergroup processes; coping
    Nemeth, CharlanProfessorSocial: influence processes; decision making and creativity in small groups; managing innovation in organizations; psychology of creative scientists, artists and entrepreneurs
    Peng, KaipingAssociate ProfessorSocial: cultural psychology, culture and cognition, reasoning and judgment across cultures and domains, and cross-cultural understandings
    Zedeck, SheldonProfessorIndustrial/organizational/social psychology/personnel; cross-cultural work values; decision-making research; work and family issues; statistics and research methodology


    Affiliated SP Faculty
    Block, JackEmeritus
    Craik, KennethEmeritus
    Glaser, JackAffiliated ProfessorPrejudice, Stereotyping, and Discrimination; Intergroup Conflict and Hate Crime; Unconscious Affect and Cognition; Political Decision Making and Behavior; Political Ideology; Criminal Justice Decision Making.
    Gough, HarrisonEmeritusPersonality assessment, cross-cultural testing, creativity
    Helson, RavennaAdjunct Professor EmeritaPersonality and adult development, psychology of women, creativity
    Kihlstrom, JohnProfessorCognition in personal and social contexts; unconscious mental processes; memory; hypnosis; social cognition; personality; experimental psychopathology; health cognition and behavior
    Kring, Ann ProfessorPsychopathology. Emotional features of schizophrenia, the linkage between emotion and other cognitive and social deficits in schizophrenia, emotion, social interaction, and social anxiety, emotion, and depression. Emotion: individual differences in emotional expression, gender and emotion, the relationship between social context, personality, and emotion.
    Levenson, RobertProfessorEmotion. 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.
    MacCoun, RobertAffiliated Professor
    Runyan, William McKinley (Mac)Affiliated Professor
    Tetlock, PhilipAffiliated Professor


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    This Page Last Updated 12/1/08