Psychology

273 Social Sciences 2 Building
https://psychology.ucsc.edu/

Programs Offered

Undergraduate Programs

The Psychology Department offers undergraduate programs in psychology (B.A.) and cognitive science (B.S.)

Psychology B.A.

Psychology majors at UC Santa Cruz are introduced to theory and scientific research in the field. Students begin with lower-division courses (course numbers 1-99) that include introductory psychology, precalculus, statistics, introduction to developmental psychology, and cognition: fundamental theories/introduction to cognitive psychology. In addition, majors take upper-division courses (course numbers 100-199) in research methods and several areas of psychology.

The department offers coursework in cognitive, social, developmental, and clinical-personality psychology.

The cognitive psychology program investigates human perception, memory, and language using a combination of behavioral, neuroscience, and computational modeling approaches. Our faculty consider basic scientific questions in these areas as well as real-world implications (e.g. techniques for learning better in the classroom), cross-disciplinary connections (e.g. with biologists, computer scientists), and clinical applications (e.g. misophonia and other perceptual and cognitive disorders).

The social psychology program involves the study of persons embedded within social contexts and communities. Social psychology courses at UC Santa Cruz are organized around themes of social justice and focus on a wide range of social issues. Our faculty, therefore, focus on issues of race, class, sexuality, ethnicity, citizenship, gender, and ability, and are steeped in critical theoretical and applied perspectives.

The developmental psychology program studies processes that integrate individual, interpersonal and cultural aspects of human development. Our faculty uses qualitative and quantitative mixed methodologies to study children and youth’s lived experiences from a strengths-based perspective in diverse communities and contexts including families, friends, peers, neighborhoods, schools, children’s museums, and other institutions.

Clinical-personality psychology focuses on issues of individual traits, psychological distress, well-being, and adjustment.

The Psychology Department offers a general psychology major and an intensive major. The intensive psychology major requires additional coursework in research methods as well as additional thesis, research, or field study credits. See program descriptions below for details.

The B.A. programs in psychology provide a foundation for a career in psychological research, clinical practice, industry, or non-profits. Some careers in psychology require master’s or doctoral degrees, for instance focused on research or clinical practice. Students primarily interested in clinical and counseling psychology should realize that training in these areas does not occur at the undergraduate level but requires professional training through an advanced degree. UC Santa Cruz does not offer advanced degrees in clinical or counseling psychology.

Cognitive Science B.S.

Cognitive science focuses on achieving a scientific understanding of how human cognition works. Its subject matter encompasses cognitive functions (such as memory and perception), the structure and use of human language, the evolution of the mind, artificial intelligence, and more.

The cognitive science degree provides a strong grounding in the principles of cognition through courses in cognitive psychology, and, in addition, provides breadth in the interdisciplinary aspects of cognitive science such as anthropology, linguistics, biology, philosophy, and computer science. Graduates will be well prepared for advanced training in research fields of cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience, technology industries such as human-computer interaction, and health fields, such as the treatment of brain disorders.

The cognitive science major is intended for students wishing to enter graduate programs in cognitive fields or health science fields, or students seeking jobs in industry in fields such as human-computer interaction or user experience research

Graduate Program

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 requirements listed in the department's Graduate Student Handbook. Note that the program does not offer courses, training, or supervision in clinical psychology.

The cognitive psychology graduate program focuses on foundational cognitive processes and how they function in the real world. We investigate three interconnected areas that form the core of cognitive psychology: perception and performance, learning and memory, and language and interaction. Using a combination of human behavior, neuroscience, and computational modeling to characterize human cognitive processes, we are exploring topics such as reading, speaking, and 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; music perception; perception in virtual reality; cognitive and computational neuroscience; perceptual decision-making, attention, and awareness. Beyond addressing basic scientific questions in these areas, our faculty also consider real-world implications (e.g., techniques for learning better in the classroom), cross-disciplinary connections (e.g., with biologists, computer scientists, and linguists), and clinical applications (e.g., misophonia, schizophrenia, and other cognitive disorders). Our Ph.D. graduates go on to successful careers in both academia — as postdoctoral fellows and tenure-track faculty at teaching and research institutions across the country — and industry — with some of our recent graduates leading user experience (UX) and data science teams.

The developmental psychology graduate program focuses on research that integrates cultural, interpersonal, and individual aspects of human development. We emphasize understanding the lived experience of children, youth, and young adults in their cultural communities and social-structural contexts. 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, schools, museums, community, technology, and media. Our programs of research include language and cognitive development; social development; personal and social identities; gender development; political development; neurodiversity; learning through observation and social interaction; children and playable media; communication technologies; stress and well-being; prejudice and discrimination; STEM learning; school climate, belonging, and motivation; the transition to adulthood; 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 countries. At UC Santa Cruz, our interdisciplinary collaborations with other programs (such as education, computer engineering, computational media, biology, 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 hold 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, in turn, leads 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) and 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 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; critical carceral studies; psychology and law; political psychology; 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.