Department of Psychology

The Psychology department offers a program in Psychology leading to the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree. The program offers two areas including an area in Clinical Psychology and an area in Experimental Psychology. The Clinical Psychology area is accredited by the American Psychological Association. Specific subareas in the Clinical Psychology area include clinical child, clinical health psychology, clinical geropsychology, and psychology-law. Specific subareas in the Experimental Psychology area include cognitive, social, and developmental science. The developmental science subarea sometimes collaborates with the Department of Human Development and Family Studies.

Areas of current faculty research interest include child and adolescent behavior and peer relationships, youth violence, forensic psychology, behavioral intervention, memory, chronic pain, depression, public health psychology, cultural diversity, health disparities, sleep, neuropsychology, visual-spatial cognition, emotion, autism, conduct disorder, persuasion, unconscious cognition, risk assessment, personality, reading processes, social cognition, health attitudes, dehumanization, perception, cognitive aging, cognitive neuroscience, and intellectual abilities.

The department operates a fully staffed psychology clinic offering psychological assessment and intervention services to university students, children, and adults. These facilities are also used in the training of clinical graduate students as professional psychologists. Each candidate for the PhD degree in the Clinical Psychology area takes practicum courses in the psychological clinic and must also complete a one-year internship in an accredited facility. The internship is taken after completion of coursework and passing of the doctoral preliminary exam and is a degree requirement.

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