Ph.D. Program in Developmental Psychology

Our developmental psychology graduate study program is intended to prepare students for a life-course in research, teaching, and scholarly activity. It strives to impart both theoretical sophistication and competence in diverse methodological approaches with regard to developmental issues. We emphasize ways of representing and examining all life phenomena, through in-depth study with particular populations and in specific areas bridging social, cognitive, and language development. Distinctive features of the program include a strong interest in theoretical perspectives, concern with the relationship between problems and methods of inquiry, and an attempt to place questions in their historical and cross-disciplinary contexts. Faculty interests intersect around topics in the development of psychological processes in societal and cultural contexts, specifically in how modes of thinking are developed on the basis of social experience, in the study of social relations and interpersonal interactions, in the development of languages, symbolization, and communication, and in the study of the relation of environmental conditions to functioning.