Ph.D. Program in Social Psychology

This program integrates social and cultural perspectives to link basic affective processes with socially crucial issues in human lives, both domestically and internationally. The social psychological perspective examines human interactions from the point of view of the experiences of self and the emotional feelings and actions of the participants. At Clark, it includes the study of group dynamics, inter-group relations, and societal peace and conflict. The cultural psychological perspective examines how presuppositions arising from language, culture, and social and political ideology interact with our basic natures to produce human experience and behavior. The cultural psychology perspective also builds bridges with evolutionary theorizing in contemporary social sciences. Students and faculty in the program are concerned with how the understanding of basic developmental, social, and political processes, and the knowledge of a wide variety of quantitative and qualitative methods –experimental, survey, field, phenomenological, and semiotic-can be used to investigate and address pressing social issues in health, culture, ethnopolitical conflict, and peace. The program encourages interdisciplinary research, as well as novel theoretical projects and research-action paradigms. Faculty and students work together to design courses. For further information, contact Dr. Joseph de Rivera at jderivera@clarku.edu .

Course of Study

The Program makes use of the resources of the Department, the University, and other Consortium Institutions to prepare students for academic careers in social and/or cultural psychology. For us, such preparation requires a student to become familiar with multiple methods and begin a systematic program of research that will sustain them through the early stages of a career. Along the way, we provide opportunities to practice and perfect the skills of an academic. These include:

• designing and conducting research projects with multiple methods,
• assisting in and teaching courses,
• applying for and receiving grants,
• presenting posters and papers at conferences and departmental colloquia, and
• publishing collaborative and individual work in the scholarly journals of the field.

Social graduate students are encouraged to work closely with one another, with advanced undergraduate students, and with faculty colleagues in developing their research programs. However, they have a good deal of freedom in choosing their research topics and methodologies. The number of required courses is minimal. The program does not emphasize courses as such, except as they are related to the specific career development needs of its members. Students can select from an array of occasional graduate courses, advanced undergraduate courses, courses at neighboring institutions, and courses developed for their needs with the social faculty. We would particularly like to call attention to courses offered in individual and family development offered by members of our Clinical and Developmental Programs.

The principle training settings of the program are the Department's research groups, forums, and lab meetings. These are groupings of faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students drawn together regularly by common theoretical concerns, research interests, or training needs. The number, focus, and constitution of these groups changes from year to year, but there will always be several that are active at any time. Groups are initiated both by faculty and by graduate students.

For the purposes of meeting the University's formal course and residency requirements, the Department arranges for participation in these meetings to fulfill course requirements.

Currently Active Groups of Particular Interest to Social Students are listed below, along with their Social Psychology Program faculty and graduate participants

Social forum
This is a forum on research and theory in Social and Cultural Psychology in which members discuss theoretical and methodological issues, plan new research, and share updates on ongoing projects. (Bibace, de Rivera, Laird, Rudolph, Valsiner, Vollhardt, all social graduate students, joined by several graduate students from the developmental program)

Peace Psychology Group
Associated with Clark's Peace Studies Program, this group discusses research and conducts studies on the social conditions that relate to the cognitive construals, emotional processes, social and political identity, as well as political action involved in intergroup relations and international relations. (Bouzeineddine, Campbell, de Rivera, LaCasse, Mahoney, Phillips, Twose, Vollhardt)

Self-Perception Lab
This group examines emotions through the lens of self-perception theory. Recent projects include a qualitative analysis of emotion experience and research re-examining cognitive dissonance. Current research foci are on individual differences in the role of autonomic arousal in emotional experience, and on the factors that generate pain experiences. (Laird)

The "Kitchen" Seminar
The Kitchen Group is an international research network that entails weekly videoconferencing with research groups in Colombia, Portugal, and Pennsylvania. It is the intellectual center of conceptual innovations in psychology that cut across disciplinary boundaries. (Adriani, Bamberg, Beckstead, Bibace, Kharlamov, Rudolph, Valsiner)

Social Psychology Faculty

Joseph de Rivera, Ph.D.
The structure and function of different emotions; the relationships between emotion and action; the social psychology of non-violent action for peace and justice

James D. Laird, Ph.D.
Emotional experience; self-perception; attributions to others; structures of person awareness; world hypotheses as personality variables

Jaan Valsiner, Ph.D.
Cultural psychology; evolutionary and epigenetic perspectives in psychology; history of ideas; methodology

Johanna Ray Vollhardt, Ph.D.
Intergroup relations (in particular between minority groups); the social psychology of ethnopolitical conflict and cooperation; group-based victim consciousness; altruism and prosocial behavior; attributions in intergroup contexts; conceptual and methodological relations between social psychology and peace psychology

Visiting Faculty

Caitlin Mahoney, Ph.D.
Emotions and motivation surrounding political behaviors; Peace and Conflict; Positive psychology; compassion; pro-social behaviors; virtue; psychical distance & interpersonal closeness; authenticity

Affiliated Faculty

Michael Bamberg, Ph.D.
Narrative and discourse analysis

Roger Bibace, Ph.D.
Psychology and religion; morality, values, and grading; risk governance; gender differences; changing behaviors

James Cordova, Ph.D.
Development and maintenance of intimacy and acceptance; the role of emotion skills in relationships; motivating the adoption of relationship healthy practices

Lee Rudolph, Ph.D.
Qualitative mathematics in the social sciences

SEC Graduate Students

Cristina Adriani

Cristina is the Robert Weil Fellow of Graduate studies in Psychology of Genocide, an interdisciplinary PhD track between the Psychology Department and the Holocaust and Genocide Studies Department. Cristina’s current research interests are in the mutual impact of Holocaust trauma and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on Jewish-Israeli understanding and experience of past and present. Two key questions she seeks to answer are: How does past Holocaust trauma affect Jewish-Israelis current understanding and experience of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict? And, how does the experience of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict affect Jewish-Israeli Holocaust memory?

Recent Publications:
Andriani, C. & Manning, J. (in press) “Negotiating With the Dead”: On the Past of Auschwitz and the Present of Oswiecim. Psychology & Society.

Chaitin, J., Awwad, E., & Andriani, C. (2009). Belonging to the Conflict: Collective Identities among Israeli and Palestinian émigrés to the United States. Social Identities: Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture, 15, 207-225.

Recent Presentations:
"Jewish-Israeli Sense of Belonging: An Exploration of Life Stories Interview Themes within the Context of Trauma, Memory, and the Holocaust," Holocaust Memory in Israel, First International Graduate Students’ Conference on Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Clark University, April 2009.

Zachary Beckstead

Zachary’s general theoretical and research interest has been oriented to developing a psychology of pilgrimages or how people relate to the holistic structure of shrines, memorials, and other symbolic places and objects.  This work has explored 1) how pilgrimage experiences become woven into one's life course and modify a persons' value system, 2) the holistic organization of memorial or shrine complexes (e.g., both material and social organization of these places) in relation to meaning-making processes and 3) how do the episodic moments of affective relevance evoked in these visits become generated and generalized by the person.  He is also interested in the history and philosophy underlying the theoretical foundations and praxis of psychology and investigating the relationship between the researcher and research-participant. 

Sandra Begic

 

Margaret Campbell

Maggie has a wide range of research interests.  Currently, she is especially interested in ideas regarding the endorsement of redemptive violence, political media and decision making, moral reasoning, religion, and worldviews conducive to building cultures of peace. She is a member of Psi Chi, APA Division 48 Peace Psychology, and the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.

Nikita Kharlamov

Nikita A. Kharlamov's research interests focus on urban everyday life and history of urban research. His current research is on everyday meaning-making in the process of moving through urban environment, an on the structure and genesis of the concept of marginality. He holds a BA degree from Higher School of Economics (Moscow, Russia) and an MA degree from the University of Manchester (UK), both in Sociology. He is now working with Dr. Jaan Valsiner. Nikita is
affiliated with Center for Fundamental Sociology at the Higher School of Economics, and is a member of the International Sociological Association (RC21: Sociology of Urban and Regional Development).

Kaitlin Lacasse

Katie’s research spans a variety of topics including prosocial behaviors through the lens of terror
management theory, peace journalism and its presentation of common humanity, and individual attitudes and behaviors related to environmental issues and climate change.  She is currently involved with Worcester Climate Change Community Outreach program, and a member of the APA Division 48 Peace Psychology.

Stefanie Toise

 

Gabe Twose

Gabe is interested in the utility of post-conflict societal reconciliation events, particularly truth commissions.  Often assumed to further reconciliation, these bodies re-expose a history of conflict and violence, a potentially dangerous endeavor that may actually negatively impact intergroup relations. His dissertation aims to address these risks in the Liberian context, examining the conditions that may reduce the potentially harmful impact of truth commissions, while strengthening the positive outcomes. Before starting at Clark, Gabe worked at the Public Interest Directorate of the American Psychological Association (APA), and interned at the Center for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation and Psychologists for Social Responsibility. Gabe currently
serves as the Student and Early Career Chair of APA's Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict, and Violence.

Partnerships and Collaborations within Clark

Faculty members of this program are also affiliated with the following departments and programs at Clark: Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Communication and Culture Program, Peace Studies Program.

Partnerships and Links outside of Clark

The faculty is actively involved with a number of professional associations, non-governmental organizations, and academic journals:

Professional Associations:

• International Society of Dialogical Science
• International Society for Research on Emotion
• Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict, and Violence (Div. 48 of the APA)

 

NGOs:

• Radio La Benevolencija
• Center for Non-Violent Solutions

 

Academic Journals:

• Culture and Psychology
• Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science
• International Journal of Dialogical Science
• Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Social Psychology
• Journal of Social Issues

Program Costs

Tuition and Fees:  Students supported on an assistantship or fellowship can expect to have their tuition waived. Tuition rates can be found at: http://www.clarku.edu/admissions/financialaid/tuition.cfm  The remaining costs not covered by the waiver include activity fees ($15/semester) and optional health insurance ($1257/year).

Assistantships and fellowships:  Teaching assistantships currently pay a stipend of $16,700 for the academic year. Research assistantships pay at least as much as a teaching assistantship, often more, and often continue through the summer. Additional financial assistance information can be found through the Office of Financial Aid at: http://www.clarku.edu/admissions/financialaid/apply/graduate/grad_index.cfm