Applied Social Psychology Program

Program Overview

Welcome to the Applied Social Psychology PhD Program homepage. The goal of our Applied Social Psychology PhD training program is to train students to be strong researchers, teachers, and mentors. To accomplish these important goals, our training program offers scaffolded experiences that culminates in students gaining skills—scholarly and teaching—that will allow them to apply their teaching, mentoring and research skills at an institution of higher education or in an applied setting.

The first three years in the PhD program, students will focus on their training through coursework, research and teaching assistantships, and working on their master’s thesis and candidacy exam. During this time, students are exposed to social psychology theory, acquire familiarity with a wide range of research designs, evaluation skills, methodological techniques, and statistical analyses. These types of technical skills are not only essential for research practice, but they also represent training outcomes that are the best recognized and highly valued by non-academic employers.

The 4^th and final years in the program, students will receive hands on experience teaching their own course, conducting applied research through an internship (for students interested in working in an applied setting), learning to publish in social psychology and related interdisciplinary journals and work on their dissertation.

Part of the program's foundation includes our commitment to education that values diversity, equity, and belonging with respect to racial identity, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual identity, age, religion, and other important identities people possess. This commitment is reflected in the diversity of our faculty and students, and the types of teaching and research topics undertaken by faculty and students in the program. These features are supported by university-wide initiatives to foster inclusive excellence, and by the diversity of people who live in the Chicagoland area.

Academic Knowledge

Our program seeks to train students for careers in research in both applied and academic settings. We seek to train professionals who can identify significant social problems, design and implement changes intended to alleviate those problems, and empirically evaluate these changes. We provide students with strong methodological, statistical, theoretical knowledge, and teaching/mentoring skills that they can take with them into applied and academic settings to address important research questions.

Some of the areas that our program focuses on include:

Affect and Cognition
Attitudes
Effects of Discriminatory experiences
Gender/sex and Sexual Diversity
Inter-group relations
Interpersonal Relationships
Mentoring and educational experiences
Motivations and impressions
Political Psychology
Self and Identity
Social Cognition

Practical Skills

The program also seeks to equip students with important methodological and statistical skills required for research in both academic and applied settings. Through coursework and research, students acquire familiarity with an unusually wide range of research designs, evaluation skills, methodological techniques, and statistical analyses that are highly valued by academic and non-academic employers.

Further, the program offers training and experiences designed to develop a student's oral and written communication skills to help prepare students for their role as applied social psychologists. Through the course of the program students will have ample opportunities to hone these skills through their research, coursework, our social psychology and professional development series, and teaching opportunities through TA duties and part-time instructorships.

Applications to our graduate program are due at 5:00 pm CST on December 15. If you have additional questions about the program please contact Dr. Tracy DeHart (Graduate Program Director).

Download the Applied Social Psychology Program Handbook here.