Introduction
The psychology program offers three areas of specialization leading to the doctoral degree: cognitive, developmental, and social psychology. The program prepares students for research, teaching, and administrative positions in colleges and universities as well as for positions in schools, government, and other public and private institutions. Each student is primarily associated with one of the three research areas and participates in the courses and research forums sponsored by the faculty in that area. The program requires full-time enrollment as a graduate student. Although applicants for a master’s degree are not accepted, students in the doctor of philosophy (Ph.D.) program may obtain a master of science (M.S.) degree by fulfilling specific requirements. Note that the program does not offer courses, training, or supervision in clinical psychology.
The cognitive psychology graduate program focuses on research of "Minds, Brains, and Beyond," offering a blend of traditional topics and new directions in cognitive science. With core strengths in language and interaction, memory and learning, and perception and performance, we are exploring topics such as: reading, speaking, psycholinguistics, discourse processing; language production and comprehension; bilingualism and multilingualism; remembering and forgetting; metacognition in learning and memory; creative cognition; cognitive offloading and transactive memory; socially distributed remembering and collective memory; human performance, information processing, and computational cognitive modeling; working memory and executive control; visual psychophysics; face perception; sensory integration; perception in virtual reality; cognitive and computational neuroscience; perceptual decision-making, attention, and awareness. Our graduates find careers in academia, tech industries, and more.
The developmental psychology graduate program focuses on research that integrates cultural, interpersonal, and individual aspects of human development. We focus especially on issues of diversity in relation to culture, ethnicity, race, gender, sexuality, and social economic opportunity as people engage across contexts of family, peers, school, community, technology, and media. Our programs of research include moral and emotional development; neurodiversity; language and cognitive development; learning through observation and social interaction; children and playable media; personal and social identities; family and peer relationships; communication technologies; prejudice and discrimination; gender development; adolescent development; the transition to adulthood; school climate and motivation; and diversity issues in university outreach programs. Several of our faculty carry out research in cultural communities outside the U.S. and collaborate with faculty in the U.S. and other nations. At UC Santa Cruz, our interdisciplinary collaborations with other programs (such as computer engineering, computational media, education, Latin American and Latino studies, linguistics, and philosophy) help nurture students’ research and prepare them for a wide variety of careers. Graduates of our program have accepted positions in academia, research institutes, and community and non-profit organizations.
The social psychology graduate program at UC Santa Cruz has a unique mission and focus. We use Kurt Lewin’s model of “full-cycle” social psychology (theory-application-action) to study a broad range of topics related to social justice. In this way, knowledge gained in action-oriented research leads, in turn, to the development of new theory. Accordingly, our students learn to apply psychological theories and data to the analysis and solution of a wide range of social problems. Our students are trained to use a variety of research methods (e.g., survey, participatory action research, ethnography, lab or field experiments), to examine justice-related issues in different cultural, political, and policy contexts. They are also encouraged to attend to issues of race, class, sexuality, ethnicity, gender, and physical ableness; and, in addition to traditional social psychological approaches, are steeped in critical theoretical perspectives such as feminist theory, critical race theory, and intersectionality. Our graduates go on to successful careers in academia as well as in community, government, and non-profit settings. Our approach to research and training, combined with the quality and competencies of our faculty, make our program among the nation’s best for the psychological study of social justice issues. Current faculty research interests include: aggression and trauma; educational equity, access, and servingness; feminisms; institutional analysis; intersectionality; narrative and identity; race as a social process; social identities and stigmatization of immigrant-origin students; poverty and economic justice; power and oppression; psychology and law; sexual and gender diversity; sexuality; social identity; social policy analysis; and structural inequality.
Graduate students in psychology may obtain a designated emphasis on the psychology Ph.D. diploma indicating that they have obtained additional training in another discipline such as critical race and ethnic studies, data science, feminist studies, Latin American and Latino studies, or sociology. For the full list of programs that offer a designated emphasis, see the Academic Programs section of the catalog. For specific requirements for a designated emphasis in a program, please refer to the program statement for that department.
Details on the policies for admission to graduate standing and requirements for the Ph.D. degree, as well as the online application can be found on the Division of Graduate Studies website. The department’s graduate program brochure, and faculty research are available on the department website.
Advancement to Candidacy
Course Requirements
First-Year and Second-Year Project:
Students enrolled in the psychology graduate program will complete a first-year and second-year research project. All students must enroll and participate in the colloquium series in their graduate program each quarter that they are in residence.
| PSYC 230 | Research in Cognitive Psychology Seminar | 5 |
| PSYC 231 | Research in Social Psychology Seminar | 5 |
| PSYC 242 | Research in Developmental Psychology Seminar | 5 |
Statistics
First-year students must take two courses in statistics:
Plus a Two-Quarter Proseminar Sequence During Fall and Winter Quarters
For Cognitive
Additional requirements for the cognitive area include: three advanced cognitive graduate courses, a graduate course in developmental psychology, a graduate course in social psychology, and a substantive advanced course in a discipline other than psychology.
For Developmental
| PSYC 244A | Proseminar I: Cognitive and Language Development | 5 |
| PSYC 244B | Proseminar II: Social and Personality Development | 5 |
Additional Requirements for the Developmental Area
| PSYC 225A | Introduction to Developmental Research I | 3 |
| PSYC 225B | Introduction to Developmental Research II | 3 |
| PSYC 225C | Introduction to Developmental Research III | 5 |
| PSYC 246 | Cultural Diversity in Human Development | 5 |
Plus one other advanced developmental graduate seminar course, a graduate course in cognitive psychology, a graduate course in social psychology, and a substantive advanced course in a discipline other than psychology. Developmental graduate students are also required to complete a professional practicum between the end of their second year and end of their third year.
For Social
| PSYC 211A | Proseminar: Social Justice and the Individual | 5 |
| PSYC 211B | Social Justice, Society, and Policy | 5 |
| PSYC 211C | Communicating in Social Psychology | 3 |
Additional Requirements for the Social Area
Both of these courses
Plus four additional courses
One other advanced social graduate seminar; a graduate course in cognitive psychology; a graduate course in developmental psychology; and a substantive advanced course in a discipline other than psychology.
Plus one of the following
| PSYC 249 | Field Methodologies and Social Ethnography | 5 |
| PSYC 255 | Qualitative Inquiry in Psychology | 5 |
| PSYC 261 | Participatory Action Research | 5 |
Letter Grade
Students are required to take their graduate courses as satisfactory/unsatisfactory.
Teaching Requirements
Students are required to serve as a teaching assistant for at least two courses during their graduate career (one of which must be PSYC 10 for developmental and any social psychology course numbered PSYC 40 or PSYC 140-PSYC 158 for social).
Qualifying Examination
After satisfying the formal course and research requirements, psychology graduate students must take an oral examination to qualify as a candidate for the Ph.D., ideally by the end of their third year. The qualifying examination is intended to assess a student’s knowledge of psychology and competence to conduct the dissertation research. For the qualifying examination, students prepare a list of readings representative of their expertise in three areas of psychology, write a major paper that reflects a conceptual analysis of their main research area, and satisfactorily complete an oral qualifying examination.