TRAINING PROGRAM IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

Ohio State University, Columbus OH

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Abstract

The social psychology graduate training program at Ohio State has been providing the nation with new Ph.D.'s for over 30 years. It is guided by a group of eight (and soon to be ten) fulltime faculty whose primary affiliation is with the program. Societal problems derive more and more from the dilemmas and temptations faced by typical people in typical settings. Drug use, employee absenteeism, domestic violence, poor diet choices, smoking, and drinking and driving all illustrate the kinds of concerns addressed by theory and research in social psychology. The social program at Ohio State offers its students research training enabling them to tackle such problems throughout their research careers. The program has four features that distinguish it from other training centers in social psychology. First, the program adopts a multi-level integrative approach toward graduate training. Problems in society are multiply determined, and their solutions must be based on that recognition. Pre- and postdoctoral training components are designed to equip students with the conceptual and methodological tools required to examine social psychological phenomena from multiple levels of analysis. Second, the program is organized around five core principles: scientific competence, scholarship and scientific integrity, personal responsibility, priority setting, and the sovereignty of each student. These principles are operationalized through the structure of coursework, research activities, and mentoring in the program. Third, the program provides an integrated and synergistic relationship between training in basic and applied research. Through their research involvement, students learn both that there is nothing so practical as a good theory and that nothing fosters a good theory more than a perplexing practical problem. Fourth, and finally, the program is distinguished by the quality and collegiality of both students and faculty. Faculty and students are high visibility, seminal contributors to the field. A training grant (that supports both predoctoral and postdoctoral trainees) for the social psychology training program will substantially facilitate the program's ability to contribute scholars to the field with the multi-level analytic skills needed to address the practical problems faced by individuals in today's society.