Research at the Division of Psychology is divided into five major areas:
1) Cultural Processes
Our area of research examines the dynamic relation between culture and individual psychological processes. Examples of research conducted in the division are the role of culture in the construction of self, the influence of cultural values on psychological resilience, and the role of shared representations of culture and cultural value endorsement in cultural identification processes.
2) Social Cognition
This area of research examines human thought processes in social contexts. The relevant social contexts could be the perceived presence of social others, situations of interpersonal interaction, and the presence of social groups. Examples of research conducted in the division are the influence of cognitive processes such as categorization and framing on social behavior and group decision making, knowledge estimation and its role in interpersonal communication, and mathematical models of individual and collective decision making.
3) Personality & Motive Assessment
Our area of research deals with both theoretical and applied aspects of personality and motive assessment. Examples of research conducted in the division are the development and validation of questionnaire and non-questionnaire measures of achievement motivation, examination of culturally-specific factors in assessment of personality, and the establishment of "best practices" for using standard motive-assessment measures.
4) Developmental Child and Adolescent Psychopathology
Faculties in this area deal with a variety of issues including internalizing disorders and conditions such as depression, anxiety, hopelessness and stress, as well as externalizing disorders and conditions such as aggression, conduct problems and juvenile delinquency, and the inter-relationship among them using both cross-sectional and longitudinal methods. Besides, faculties are actively engaging in the development and evaluation of effective interventions for aggressive children and adolescents.
5) Cognitive Neuroscience
Our area of research examines the neural basis of cognitive processes, with focus on memory use during sentence processing, representation in visual working memory, and types of manipulation used in verbal working memory. Additionally, it examines the use of semantic long-term memory to supplement verbal short-term memory and the relation between working memory, practice, and intelligence. Faculties are also active to develop new methodological tools to analyze and extract meaningful pattern from high dimensional brain imaging data.