Department of Psychology

Goal 1: Foundational Knowledge

Fundamental Psychological Concepts Related to Human Development

Four overarching themes characterize the program of graduate study in human development:
• The conceptual foundations of the discipline;
• Theoretical and empirical issues relevant to social and emotional development across the lifespan;
• Theoretical and empirical issues relevant to cognitive and neural development across the lifespan;
• The ecological context of human development;

1. Conceptual foundations of the discipline
Our goal is to educate and encourage our students to:
a. Understand the historical and philosophical roots of psychology and their development up to the present time.
b. Be familiar with the “edges” of current knowledge within the field and thus be able to recognize promising directions for the future development of the discipline
c. Relate Psychology to other academic disciplines (e.g., biology, linguistics, philosophy, economics, law, policy)
d. Appreciate the global context in which Psychology has developed and continues to develop as a discipline.

2. Social and emotional development across the lifespan
Our goal is to educate and encourage our students to:
a. Understand the theories, empirical findings and current directions and issues that illuminate current thinking about the social and emotional dimensions of human development from infancy through old age;
b. Understand current thinking about the interaction between heredity and environment as these dynamics affect social and emotional development across the lifespan.
c. Understand the role of individual differences in social and emotional development as they are manifested across the spectrum of typical and atypical development.
d. Understand aspects of the social and emotional dimensions of human development that are shared across or may differ according to cultural, ethnic, gender, geographic, or other boundaries.
e. Understand the opportunities and limitations that characterize science-based  interventions aimed at fostering healthy social and emotional development.
f. Understand interactions between social-emotional development and neuro-cognitive development as they manifest themselves across the lifespan.

3. Cognitive and neural development across the lifespan
Our goal is to educate and encourage our students to:
a. Understand the theories, empirical findings, and current directions  and issues that illuminate current thinking about functional and structural brain outcomes from infancy through old age;
b. Understand current thinking about the interaction between heredity and environment as these dynamics affect functional and structural brain outcomes across the lifespan.
c. Understand the role and biological sources of individual differences in functional and structural brain outcomes as they are manifested across the spectrum of typical and atypical development.
d. Understand aspects of functional and structural brain outcomes that are shared across or may differ according to cultural, ethnic, gender, geographic, or other boundaries.
e. Understand the opportunities and limitations that characterize science-based  interventions aimed at fostering healthy cognitive and neuropsychological development.

4. The ecological context of human development
Our goal is to educate and encourage our students to:
a. Understand the major theories and empirical findings that inform current thinking about the ways in which human development is affected by relationships with and among peers and groups.
b. Understand the theories and empirical findings that inform current thinking about the effects of family life on human development.
c. Understand how culture affects the norms regarding the expression of thought, emotions, and behavior,
d. Understand the theories and empirical findings that inform current thinking about the influences on human development and behavior that derive from neighborhoods and communities, societal institutions (e.g., schools, worksites), social-cultural structures (e.g., social-economic status), and legal/political systems.
e. Understand the opportunities and limitations that characterize science-based interventions aimed at fostering healthy social and emotional development;
f. Understand the limits and possibilities regarding how psychological principles and evidence can contribute to informing, and can be informed by, social and policy issues, as well as their contributions to a range of civic, social, and global responsibilities in both the developed and developing nations.
g. Develop awareness of the relationship between globalization and psychological processes, such as those concerning self, values, gender roles, group and inter-group dynamics, and identity.

Goal 2: Epistemological Foundations

Understanding the foundational theories, concepts, and findings of Psychology requires a familiarity with and appreciation for the assets and limitations of different methods of knowing. That is, students must be exposed to epistemological inquiry so that they develop a firm grasp of the significance of research findings and their own creative use of knowledge.

1. Appreciate the use of different tools of inquiry
Our goal is to educate and encourage our students to understand the strengths and limitations of [a,b,c,d] as they bear on specific areas of inquiry:
a. quantitative methods and analysis
b. experimental design and inference
c. qualitative methods and analysis
d. mixed research methods

2. Use different tools of inquiry
Our goal is to educate and encourage our students to:
a. use probability and statistical analysis to evaluate and interpret data;
b. create and interpret graphic representations of data;
c. use qualitative analysis to evaluate and interpret data.
d. be familiar with the range of approaches available to operationalize and assess psychological constructs and aspects of the ecology of human development, and equipped to select appropriate measures and methods for one’s own area of inquiry.

3. Engage with psychological inquiry
Our goal is to educate and encourage our students to:
a. evaluate the theoretical, empirical and applied significance of an area of study;
b. gain the in-depth understanding of an area of scientific inquiry that is required to identify, develop and implement the next steps of a program of research.
c. design and conduct studies that will advance understanding of a given area of inquiry
d. interpret data and evaluate hypotheses and to place findings into the larger context of the scientific area in question.

Goal 4: Professional Preparation in Psychology

Obtaining and sustaining a professional research-related career in psychology requires attention to the developmental of three essential practical skills: Teaching/mentoring, grant-writing, and communication of scientific evidence. These skills, which may be considered as part of the craft of becoming an effective psychologist, are intimately related to the effective application of psychology in the classroom, the scientific community, and the broader society. As such, our goal is to educate and encourage our students to:

a. Be effective classroom teachers and research mentors;
b. Be proficient at finding grant opportunities;
c. Prepare, revise, and administer grants;
d. Present ideas that are grounded in evidence in a logical and coherent manner in writing and in formal and informal presentations;
e. Communicate with academic as well as more general audiences.

Goal 5: Values in Psychology

The preservation and production of knowledge in Psychology entails the ability to weigh evidence critically, to embrace, understand, work with and learn from ambiguity, and to recognize and apply ethical practices that include respect for human and other forms of life. Specifically, our goal is to educate and encourage our students to:

a. Appreciate and assimilate the positive roles of curiosity, healthy skepticism and doubt in scientific inquiry;
b. Understand the limits of applicability (e.g., generalizability, cross-cultural translation; application to social policy) and the hazards of premature or uncritical application of psychological principles and evidence.
c. Evaluate psychological explanations and recognize that such explanations are inherently complex and must take into account variability along the continuum of human and animal life;
d. Recognize the evolving and cumulative nature of psychological explanations;
e. Understand and articulate the tentative nature (i.e., available evidence continuously modified by new evidence) of psychological knowledge and limits of its methods;
f. Recognize and respect the numerous manifestations of diversity, as well as the common universals in thought and action, that characterize human development;
g. Understand that the methods that guide psychological science must reflect, in Bronowski's words, independence of mind, originality, and dissent in the search for truth. They likewise must eliminate the untoward influence of personal gain and related desires, because the values of science are "...the inescapable conditions for it's practice”;
h. Follow the APA Ethics Code in the treatment of human and nonhuman participants in the design, data collection, interpretation and reporting of psychological research;
i. Recognize that ethically complex situations can develop in the application of psychological principles;
j. Recognize the necessity of ethical behavior in all aspects of the science and practice of Psychology.