Doctoral Program
The Ph.D. Program is designed to train all students in the fundamental areas of psychology. The department extends this training with five concentrations in (1) Behavioral Neuroscience, (2) Bilingualism, Language and Cognition, (3) Health Psychology, (4) Legal Psychology, and (5) Social Psychology. Students with a Behavioral Neuroscience concentration have an opportunity to conduct research in areas such as addiction, drugs of abuse and behavioral regulation. Students with a Bilingualism, Language and Cognition concentration have an opportunity to conduct research in areas such as (bilingual) language processing (including lexical and syntactic processing), bilingual memory, reading and dialogue, as well as event cognition, time perception, attention and cognitive aging. Students with a Health concentration have an opportunity to conduct research in areas such as adaptation to chronic illness; food and fluid intake; judgment and decision making; risk taking; smoking prevention and cessation; and underage drinking and driving. Students with a Legal concentration have an opportunity to conduct research in areas such as detection of deception; facial recognition and eyewitness identification/memory; interviewing and interrogation; jury decision making; and suggestibility in legal cases. Students with a Social concentration have an opportunity to conduct research in areas such as social neuroscience, social perception, prejudice and stereotyping. Ph.D. candidates are required to complete 78 semester hours.
Because the program emphasizes research, students are required to engage actively in research projects throughout their training period. To develop a range of expertise, students are encouraged to work with more than one faculty member during their training period.
All Ph.D. students are required to take a basic core curriculum that consists largely of quantitative, research method and breadth courses. The curriculum allows considerable flexibility so students can tailor their coursework to suit their career goals.
