Program in Social Psychology: Ph.D. Degree Requirements

In addition, there is a burgeoning interest and presence in Social Neuroscience. In this growing field, research within the Program examines: the neural mechanisms underlying activation and control of racial bias; interactions with hormones and health (David Amodio); social effects on neural processes of fear learning (Elizabeth Phelps, in the Program in Cognition and Perception). Several other faculty in the Program collaborate on various other social neuroscience projects, and the Psychology Department hosts a Social Neuroscience Speaker Series. The Psychology Building houses facilities for fMRI, EEG/ERP, TMS, eye-tracking, and other psychophysiological methods.

Graduate studies in the Social Psychology Program at NYU means being part of a highly active research group. We share a fully computerized laboratory, and our philosophy is an 'open door' relationship between professors and students. While students typically work primarily in one professor's laboratory, we encourage and in fact require that each student work with more than one faculty member, to enable a breadth of training in a variety of methodological approaches and research issues. Our goal is to prepare students to be highly competitive in the job market for the type of career they seek, and we are proud of the steady success of our students over the past 15 years in obtaining academic positions at the best research universities.

What is best about our program is the high level of research activity and enthusiasm within a supportive intellectual community, resulting in the end in excellent academic jobs for students. In addition, our program has a special communal, cooperative spirit, with very high morale among the students. Finally, students can broaden their training by participating in the strong quantitative, developmental, community, neuroscience, and cognitive psychology programs to supplement the core curriculum in social psychology.

Academic Requirements

A total of 72 credits are required for the PhD degree. Credits are earned through coursework, research seminars and independent study. Typically, students register for 9-12 credits each semester, and mixture of coursework and research credits, with the central coursework in the first 2 years of study.

All students have a faculty advisor. This is the faculty member who is the primary research mentor for the student. All students are required to work in more than one lab during their graduate career, i.e., with at least one other faculty member in a research collaboration. Students are also encouraged to seek advice from the program coordinator about courses and degree requirements.

Course Requirements

Curriculum

There is no single prescribed program for the PhD in social psychology. Each student’s program is designed to fit his or her interests, needs and background. However, there are a number of required courses, covering material in both the substantive and methodological aspects of our field, all taken early in the student’s matriculation.

Required Courses

There is a requirement of twelve courses, all of which are to be completed in the first two years of study.

Students are required to take one course offering from each of the four core areas of the program: (1) social cognition; (2) motivation and self-regulation; (3) relationships, personality and social development; and (4) organizational processes. Students are also required to take two additional courses of their choice in any of these areas, reflecting their interests, and these need not be in the same area. (A list of the social psychology course offerings is presented below.)

To ensure a broad exposure to psychology and other related fields, students are also required to take two courses outside of the program. These courses can be in another area within the psychology department (Developmental, Quantitative, or Cognition and Perception); in another Department, such as Economics, Sociology, Philosophy, Political Science, or Neural Science in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, or at the Stern School of Business (e.g., in Organizational Behavior) or the Steinhardt School of Education (e.g., in Applied Psychology); or elsewhere. The two courses need not be taken in the same area of study.

Students are also required to take a four-course methods and statistics sequence including Research Methods I, and the Statistics courses of Intermediate Statistics, Advanced Statistics (either ANOVA or Regression), and one other Statistics course, that is, either ANOVA or Regression (whichever not yet taken) or Multivariate Statistics, Psychometrics, Structural Equation Modeling, or Analysis of Change. Research Methods II often offered does not replace a 3rd Statistics course.

Further Study

After completing the required courses, each student’s program is individually tailored to take maximum advantage of course offerings in areas relevant to his or her selected areas of interest. While a minimum of twelve courses are required, many students take additional courses in social psychology. Some also choose to minor in another subfield of psychology, such as developmental, quantitative, or cognition and perception. Arrangements can additionally be made for students to take courses in other universities that participate in the New York City Inter-University Consortium, including Columbia, Princeton, and CUNY. Each student’s program of study must receive the approval of his/her advisor each semester.

Research Requirements

Research Training

Graduate studies in the social psychology program at NYU means being part of a highly active research group. We share a fully computerized laboratory, and our philosophy is an 'open door' relationship between professors and students. While students may choose to work primarily in one professor's laboratory, they are expected to work with more than one faculty member to encourage a breadth of training in a variety of methodological approaches and research issues. Our goal is to prepare students to be highly competitive in the job market for the type of career they seek, and we are proud of the steady success of our students in obtaining academic positions at the leading research universities.

Brown Bag Seminar

All members of the program are expected to participate in a weekly Brown Bag seminar. The seminar meets informally, over lunch, and is a forum for presenting current student and faculty research. Each student is required to present his or her research once a year. The seminar is a key component of student training over the five years of doctoral study.

Second Year Paper

All students complete a Second Year Paper consisting of a formal write-up of the primary research project in which they have been engaged during their first two years in the doctoral program. When approved, this paper satisfies the requirements for the Masters Degree. Although filing the paperwork for the Masters Degree is not required, completing the Second Year Paper is a program requirement. The Second Year Paper is due at the end of the Summer of the 2nd year, as the student’s 3rd year is about to begin. This project is done in collaboration with one or more faculty members and the write up of the project is done in conjunction with the student’s research advisor.

Third Year Paper

The Third Year Paper is a theoretically motivated, integrative literature review that is guided by a coherent set of theoretical purposes or questions. It covers at least two relevant research literatures and is organized along the lines of an article in Psychological Bulletin or Personality and Social Psychology Review. The paper extends well beyond the scope of the two or three lines of research in which the student is engaged and is on a topic of the student's choosing. It can be started as soon as soon as the student formulates and writes a proposal for the paper’s content and substance (developed in conjunction with one or more faculty in the program), which is then approved by a Third Year Paper Committee in the program. The proposal is due at the end of Fall of the 3rd Year. The proposal is a one-page single-spaced abstract that states the theoretical purposes of the work and the empirical literatures the student intends to review. The proposal will be evaluated in terms of whether or not it (a) is guided by a theoretical purpose that is coherently laid out; (b) is integrative in nature, by bringing together two or more different literatures; and (c) has scholarly merit. The Third Year Paper itself is 35-45 text pages (not including references). The completed paper is due May 31st of the 3rd Year. It is independent of the Second Year Paper, although the papers can be in related domains, if desired, and they can be supervised by the same research advisor, if desired. Neither is necessary. This requirement serves the function of a comprehensive examination.

The Third Year Paper Committee: (a) is appointed by the program; (b) implements this program requirement; (c) evaluates and approves or disapproves paper proposals; (c) assigns a readers for each completed paper based on faculty expertise (one of whom may be the student’s research advisor).

Doctoral Dissertation

In consultation with a faculty advisor, students select a dissertation topic, develop it, and prepare a dissertation proposal. The proposal should provide a rationale for the importance of the research problem or issue, provide an overview of the literature in which the contribution of the research would be situated, present the theoretical rationale, purposes, and hypotheses of the research, and provide a detailed description of the methods and analyses of the proposed dissertation studies, as well as its likely implications. The proposal must be approved by a three-member dissertation committee in a formal proposal hearing. Students are advised to start thinking about prospective dissertation topics early in the doctoral training. Students should plan to complete their dissertation proposal and defend that proposal by the end of the fourth year of study, if not earlier.

Students should bear in mind that the dissertation is expected to be a major piece of independent research by the candidate and, although interaction between the candidate and his/her dissertation committee is expected and desirable, the student takes the lead on this research and the committee serves mainly in an advisory and evaluative capacity. The dissertation should be submitted by the end of the 5th Year. After the dissertation has been completed, it must be defended in an oral examination before the three-member dissertation committee supplemented by two additional committee members designated as readers. Students typically register for two semesters (6 points) of dissertation credit during their fifth year of doctoral study while conducting their dissertation research and writing their dissertation.

Training Sequence

In their first two years, students focus on mentored research projects and coursework. Over this period they complete their twelve required courses. With the exception of research methods and two statistics courses, all of which must be taken in the first two semesters, students are free to fulfill their course requirements in any order they wish, typically enrolling in three courses a semester. Within the first two years students also are required to complete the research for their Master’s research project.

Students report on their research in a full-length manuscript (described above), due at the end of the summer of their 2nd year, in the Second Year Paper.

Students spend their third, fourth and fifth years taking some additional coursework, as desired, and focusing primarily on their research activities, culminating in their doctoral dissertation research.

At the end of the first semester of their third year, they also propose their Third Year Paper (an integrative literature review that combines differing literatures and addresses a coherent set of theoretical questions), which is then due in full form by May 31st of their 3rd year.

Student should aim to prepare and defend their dissertation proposal not later that the end of their 4th year, and to complete their dissertation toward the end of their 5th year.

Students are guaranteed full financial support for five years of doctoral study.

In the case of a student joining our program with graduate credit from elsewhere, the student in consultation with his or her advisor should go over the transcript and discuss possible substitutes. In the case of a core course, the substitute must be approved by the instructor of the course. The advisor should send a memo proposing any possible substitutions to the program coordinator for approval. It should be noted that a minimum of 32 credits (of the 72 required for the doctorate) must be taken in residence at New York University, putting a natural limit on the maximum number of transfer credits accepted. Further, if more than 21 credits are transferred, there is a risk that the student's MacCracken Fellowship support will be cut one year (from 5 to 4 years). It is expected that students will fulfill the course requirements, complete the doctoral research and defend the thesis within five years.

Courses

Areas of Concentration:

Social Cognition and Attitudes