Psychology
SOCIAL - PERSONALITY
Area Head:
- Graduate Program Overview
- Community
- Core Faculty
- Related Faculty
- Visiting Faculty, Research Faculty and Postdocs
- Brown Bag Calendar
The goal of graduate training in Social/Personality Psychology at UC Davis is to produce researchers and teachers of the highest caliber.
Highlights of the program include:
- Large, active and diverse faculty with particular strengths in....
- Close collaboration between faculty and doctoral students
- Students have the opportunity to work with multiple faculty members
- Students individually tailor their training plans in relation to their interests
- Interdisciplinary research is encouraged and boundaries between areas are fluid
- Funding typically for 5 years (in the form of teaching assistantships, research assistantships, and/or fellowships)
- Many current students are supported by fellowships from NSF and NIH.
- Students receiving NSF fellowships are granted an additional year of funding from the UC Davis Graduate Division.
- Four 3-year fellowships are available through an NIH-Funded multi-university training program in Affective Science (administered with Stanford, UC Berkeley, and UC San Francisco).
- Diverse and extensive training in research methods and statistics
- Advanced statistical training
- Experimental methods
- Survey and questionnaire methods
- Neuroscience methods
- Longitudinal methods
- Student training is enhanced by our affiliations with several internationally renowned, interdisciplinary units
- The social-personality area hosts a weekly colloquium series.
The social-personality program at UC Davis is designed to provide students with intensive training in the psychological theories, methods, and principles that form the foundation of research in social-personality psychology. Our aim is to prepare students to be exceptional researchers and teachers who are highly competitive on the job market for the type of career that they seek.
Students become actively involved in a research project with a faculty member as soon as they arrive. Through this hands-on experience, as well as courses, brown bags, and lab meetings, students develop their understanding of social-personality psychology as a field and gain the methodological and statistical tools they need to take on a more primary role in the research process.
In their second year, students are encouraged to consider working with a second faculty member in order to broaden their exposure to different theoretical and methodological approaches. After completing the majority of required courses by the end of their second year, students work with their advisors to develop a reading list for a written examination (typically scheduled for the first week of the third year) designed to flexibly balance depth of knowledge in a student’s particular area of interest with a broad foundation in social-personality psychology.
In their third, fourth, and fifth years, students focus primarily on research activities in collaboration with one or more faculty members. Student-faculty collaborations typically result in co-authored articles in top-tier journals and books, as well as presentations at national and international conferences.
As students progress through the program, they identify their particular area or areas of interest and develop a line of research that culminates in their doctoral dissertation. Throughout their doctoral training, students are expected to maintain an active and productive research program and to proactively shape their education, learning the skills and seeking out the experiences they need to become independent scholars.
Davis (pop. 65,000) is a university town that offers a wealth of intellectual, cultural, and recreational opportunities. It has beautiful parks, miles of bicycle paths, and a friendly neighborhood atmosphere. The University sponsors a number of cultural events, including world-class performances, distinguished speakers, free summer concerts, and a number of galleries and museums. The campus is 15 minutes from Sacramento (the state capital); 45 minutes from the Napa and Sonoma wine country; 60 minutes from Berkeley and San Francisco; and a couple of hours from the Pacific Ocean, Lake Tahoe, and Yosemite National Park.
Core Faculty
-
- (Professor, Ph.D., University of Illinois, 1986)
Personality and religion, goals and motivation, gratitude and well-being -
- (Professor, Ph.D., University of California, Davis; 1983)
Stigma and prejudice; lesbian/gay and sexual minority issues; AIDS stigma; antigay violence -
- (Professor, Ph.D., Harvard University, 1981)
Social cognition, causal and legal reasoning -
- (Assistant Professor, Ph.D., New York University, 2008)
Attitudes, social influence, social cognition, intergroup conflict -
- (Associate Professor, Ph.D., Ohio State University, 1999)
self and social identity, social cognition, social exclusion -
- (Professor, Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, 1995)
Personality and self esteem development, self and emotion, interpersonal perception -
- (Distinguished Professor, Ph.D., University of Michigan, 1970)
Close relationships, attachment theory, emotion -
- (Professor, Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara, 1994)
Social cognition; stereotyping and prejudice, impression formation, self-perception -
- (Distinguished Professor, Ph.D., Harvard University, 1975)
Genius, creativity, leadership, talent, esthetics, historiometrics -
- (Distinguished Professor, Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles, 1971 )
Cross-cultural and ethnic psychology; community psychology -
- (Professor, Ph.D., University of Washington, 1987)
Treatment processes and outcomes, ethnic minority psychology, addictive behaviors
Related Faculty
-
*
- (Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Center for Neuroscience. Ph.D., University of Rochester, 1977)
Neurobiology of memory, hippocampal function -
- (Research Psychologist, Ph.D., University of California, Davis, 1982)
Primate social relationships and personality, psychoneuroimmunology -
*
- (Professor, Ph.D., University of Washington, 1976)
Social and economic stress; Life course development; Family interaction processes; Family research methods -
- (Associate Professor, Ph.D., University of Virginia, 2002)
Longitudinal data analysis techniques, conceptualizing developmental processes, motivational development -
- (Associate Professor, Ph.D., University of Michigan, 1999)
Children's knowledge about thinking and emotion, early psychological understanding -
*
- (Professor, M.D., UC Davis, School of Medicine, 1982)
Emotion-cognition interactions, emotional memory, emotional disorders -
- (Associate Adjunct Professor, Ph.D., McMaster University, 1996)
Psychosocial issues in donor-assisted family formation; mate choice and reproductive relationships -
- (Professor, Ph.D., University of Michigan 1981)
Early social and personality development; relational influences on emotion understanding, conscience development, emotional regulation, and self-understanding; developmental science and public policy
*Faculty members affiliated with the Social-Personality area who have primary appointments in other departments.
Visiting Faculty, Research Faculty, and Postdocs
- Ja Gyong Koo
- (Visiting Professor, Seoul National University, Korea, 1998; Assistant Professor at Pyeongtaek University, Korea)
Counseling psychology, adolescent development, family -
Regina Krieglmeyer
- (Postdoctoral Researcher, )
-
Nuray Sakalli Ugurlu
- (Visiting Professor, Middle East Technical University)