In addition, our program has a special communal, cooperative spirit, with very high morale among the students . Advanced seminars are also offered each year in more specialized topics, focusing on the faculty member's major research focus. Students begin research projects in their first year, and by the end of their second year have completed a Master's degree thesis, reporting an original research program performed in collaboration with one or more faculty. Students in their third and fourth years are focusing primarily on their research activities, culminating in their doctoral dissertation research. All students accepted into our graduate program are fully funded, with either a graduate fellowship, a research assistantship, or a teaching assistantship.
Support consists of a stipend plus full tuition.
We guarantee four years of support, and have consistently been able to support students through their fifth year if needed. The basic philosophy of the program is to provide students with a broad scholarly background in social and personality psychology, plus a minor area of concentration of their choosing, such as developmental, quantitative, or community psychology. When a student leaves our program, they are able to work and succeed on their own, because they are given the experience and responsibilities in our graduate program of teaching and running research projects on their own. We are very proud of the graduates of our program and their achievements. All of those who went on to academic positions earned tenure at a major research university.