Training Areas - Department of Psychology

Personality and Social Psychology

What We Do

How does a person’s social environment influence his/her attitudes and behaviors? How are personality constructs and other individual differences related and how do they influence behavior? How are interpersonal relationships developed and maintained? How do people make judgments and decisions about themselves, other people, and possible future events? How do qualities of children's temperament and their relationships influence early social-emotional development? These are but a few of the research questions of interest to the faculty and students within the Personality and Social Psychology Program (PSP) at the University of Iowa.

PSP Program Faculty

Alan Christensen

Personality and health, person x situation determinants of patient adherence

Jason Clark

Attitudes & persuasion, impression formation, stereotyping & prejudice

Lee Anna Clark

Personality disorders and assessment

Grazyna Kochanska

Social emotional development, development of conscience, parent-child relationships, temperament

Erika Lawrence

Longitudinal assessment of the developmental course of conflict behavior, physical aggression, and marital dysfunction in intimate relationships

Irwin Levin

Judgment and decision-making, framing effects, choice narrowing strategies, individual differences in consumer, health, and children's decision-making

Jerry Suls

Social influence, self-evaluation, social comparison, stress and coping with illness, perceptions of social norms

David Watson

Mood, temperament, anxiety, personality assessment

Paul Windschitl

Social judgment and cognition, decision-making, likelihood judgment, comparative judgment about self and others, egocentrism

Joint Faculty

Steven Duck (Comm. Studies)

Interpersonal communication

René Martin (Nursing)

Gender and stereotyping, social comparison

Related Faculty

Below are faculty in other departments who have research interests within or closely related to personality and social psychology.

Leslie Baxter (Communication Studies)--Communication in friendship, romantic, marital, and kin relationships

Alison Bianchi (Sociology)--Social psychology, group processes, nomothetic theory construction

Terry Boles (Management and Organizations)--Negotiation, conflict management, behavioral decision making, organizational behavior

Kenneth Brown (Management and Organizations)--Motivation and self-regulation, training design and evaluation
e-Learning

Steven Hitlin (Sociology)--Social psychology, self and identity, values, morality, social theory, and gender

Michael Lovaglia (Sociology)--Social psychology, power and status processes, theory construction, alcoholism and addiction

Michael Mount (Management and Organizations)--Personnel selection and staffing, personality and job performance

Dhananjay Nayakankuppam (Marketing)--Evaluative processes, social cognition and judgment, decision making

Johnmarshall Reeve (Psychological and Quantitative Foundations)--Motivation and emotion, interpersonal motivating styles, autonomy and autonomy support, competition

Frank Schmidt (Management and Organizations)--Cognitive ability and workplace performance, group vs. individual decision making and performance

Greg Stewart (Management and Organizations)--Human resource management, personality and job performance

Specializations Within the Program

The PSP Program is comprised of faculty and students with a diverse array of interests. The program has three specializations: 1) Personality, 2) Social, and 3) Social Development. These specializations are interconnected in terms of people and research foci. Each specialization has its own webpage detailing its current faculty, research strengths, connections to other units on campus, and recommended courses for students. The requirements for course credits, comprehensive exams, and other program issues are the same across all specializations in the program, although students’ choices of coursework and research naturally differ among the specializations.

For Prospective Students (All Specializations)

The PSP Program is designed to train students in conducting and communicating high-quality psychological research. All students in the program must complete a minimum number of graduate courses selected from our curriculum. However, the bulk of a student’s education in this program comes from hands-on experience in designing, conducting, and communicating research. During the first two years in the program, a student is involved in both coursework and research. Within his/her third year in the program, the major course requirements are usually completed, giving the student more time to focus on his/her independent research (e.g., dissertation and other individual projects) and collaborative research (e.g., research with a faculty advisor, other faculty, or other students). All students who are admitted to this program are given five years of financial support in the form of teaching assistantships, research assistantships, or in some cases, fellowships.

When a student is admitted to the program, he/she is typically linked to a particular faculty member, who will serve as a major advisor. However, students are expected to develop research relationships with at least one additional faculty member within the first three years in the program. On occasion, students establish ongoing advisee relationships with two faculty co-advisors, or they switch advisors after some time in the program..

The research that a student engages in will naturally depend in part on the expertise of the faculty members with whom he/she is working. This is particularly true for the first two years of the program but becomes less relevant as the student’s independent lines of research develop. Hence, students who are considering applying to the program are encouraged to examine the websites of the individual faculty members. By examining these websites, prospective students can get at least a rough indication of whether their interests match and/or make connections with the expertise and ongoing research of faculty members.

The graduate training in this program is primarily designed for preparing students for careers in research and teaching in psychology. In addition to the experiences gained within the PSP Program and the Psychology Department, students can also take advantage of experiences and coursework in related programs at the University of Iowa (e.g., in the Department of Sociology, College of Business Administration, Department of Communication Studies, Department of Statistics and Actuarial Sciences). These optional experiences can broaden a student’s training, research opportunities, and employment prospects. Faculty members in these related programs who have interests and expertise relevant to personality or social psychology are listed on the right side of this webpage

Additional Information for Prospective Students and Others

Click here for additional information about applying for the Personality and Social Psychology PhD Program.

Click here to see the Department's Graduate Student Handbook, which contains detailed information about requirements and other aspects of graduate work in the Psychology Department.

Click here for a description of Iowa City.