Psychological Sciences and Human Development

Field Description

Psychology is one of the most exciting disciplines in higher education. It is one of the rare sciences to combine deep theory, sophisticated experimental methods, and powerful modeling techniques with an immense range of applications to human welfare. Indeed, Psychology is a far reaching “hub science” that connects many areas of scholarship (including cognitive science, human development, and neuroscience). Psychology is also interdisciplinary, with scholarship that blends ranging foci within Psychology with each other and with areas outside of Psychology, like biology, economics, medicine, philosophy, and sociology. 

The Graduate Field associated with the Department of Psychology at Cornell is the Field of Psychological Sciences and Human Development (PSYHD). Graduate study in the PSYHD Field aims to train the next generation of leaders by preparing students for productive research careers or careers in related areas. Graduate study is focused on four broadly defined core areas of special interest for which the Department has dominant strengths:

• Cognition
• Development
• Neuroscience
• Social Psychology

The PSYHD field includes faculty members from within the Department of Psychology and faculty members from other departments that have complimentary research interests and expertise related to these four areas.

Research training in all areas of graduate training in the PSYHD field is lab-driven, and it is closely directed by faculty supervisors and an advisory committee. This model trains students in the background knowledge and research skills that are necessary for future careers in academic departments of psychology, and for positions in a range of other institutions in which psychological research is central, including state and federal agencies, foundations, and corporations. Ultimately, the goal of the PSYHD Field is to educate students to become researchers, teachers, and scholars who will contribute to the future of psychology as a scientific discipline in academic, research-oriented, or translational science settings.

Degrees offered.

The PSYHD Field offers two MA degrees and three PhD degrees:

• MA: Developmental Psychology
• MA: Human Development & Family Studies

• PhD: Developmental Psychology
• PhD: Human Development & Family Studies
• PhD: Psychology

Expectations for the PhD Graduate Program.

Doctoral graduate students are expected to: i) demonstrate mastery of knowledge within the sub-discipline in one of the Psychological Sciences and Human Development PhD programs that are offered, ii) contribute significant, original research to our understanding of within the sub-discipline, and iii) make an ongoing and substantial contribution to the discipline. Students will demonstrate accomplishments in research, by advancing their research skills through strong design, mastery of techniques, and proficiency of statistical methods. Students will demonstrate a clear understanding of ethics and responsible conduct of research, exhibit good citizenship in the academic community, and embrace teaching service and leadership.

For more information and details, please visit the PhD program website.

Expectations for the MA Graduate Program.

The Masters (MA) degrees offered in PSYHD are each a one-year program. The goal of the one-year master’s program is to provide an opportunity for qualified students to gain additional research experience and increase credentials for application to a PhD or other advanced degree program where knowledge of Human Development may be helpful.

Contact Information

Website: https://psychology.cornell.edu/graduate
Email: pac34@cornell.edu; ma84@cornell.edu
Phone: Uris Hall 607-255-3834; MVR 607-255-4661

Data and Statistics

• Research Master's Program Statistics
• Doctoral Program Statistics

Subject and Degrees

Developmental Psychology

• Developmental Psychology (M.A.) (Ithaca)
• Developmental Psychology (Ph.D.) (Ithaca)

Human Development

• Human Development (M.A.) (Ithaca)

Human Development and Family Studies

• Human Development and Family Studies (Ph.D.) (Ithaca)

Psychology

• Psychology (Ph.D.) (Ithaca)

Concentrations by Subject

Developmental Psychology

• aging and health
• cognitive development
• developmental psychopathology
• ecology of human development
• law, psychology and human development
• social and personality development

Human Development

• aging and health
• ecology of human development
• family studies and the life course

Human Development and Family Studies

• aging and health
• ecology of human development
• family studies and the life course

Psychology

• behavioral and evolutionary neuroscience
• perception cognition and development
• social and personality psychology

Faculty

Adam Keith Anderson

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Developmental Psychology: aging and health; cognitive development; social and personality development; Human Development and Family Studies: aging and health; Psychology: perception cognition and development
• Research Interests: emotion-cognition interactions, facial and peripheral/central physiological expression of emotions

Vanessa Kimberly Bohns

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Psychology: social and personality psychology
• Research Interests: personality and social psychology

Charles Brainerd

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Developmental Psychology: aging and health; cognitive development; law, psychology and human development; social and personality development; Human Development and Family Studies: aging and health; Psychology: perception cognition and development
• Research Interests: cognitive development; social and personality development; cognitive neuroscience; memory and cognitive development; mathematical modeling; psychology and law; cognitive neuroscience; memory and cognitive development; mathematical modeling; psychology and law

Anthony Burrow

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Developmental Psychology: ecology of human development; social and personality development; Human Development and Family Studies: ecology of human development; Psychology: social and personality psychology
• Research Interests: ethnic minority psychology; identity processes; development and function of purpose among youth; daily-and momentary-processes methodologies

Daniel Casasanto

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Developmental Psychology: cognitive development; Psychology: perception cognition and development

Marianella Casasola

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Developmental Psychology: cognitive development; Psychology: perception cognition and development
• Research Interests: infant cognitive development and early word learning; interaction between cognition and early language learning; developmental psychology; cognitive development; word learning, spatial cognition, and the relation between language and thought in infants

Stephen John Ceci

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Developmental Psychology: cognitive development; developmental psychopathology; law, psychology and human development; Psychology: perception cognition and development
• Research Interests: theories of intelligence; cognitive development; children and the law; children's testimonial competence; ecological model of intelligence; intellectual development; children and the law; forensic psychology; gender differences; viewpoint diversity

Morten H Christiansen

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Psychology: perception cognition and development
• Research Interests: language of acquisition and processing; neural network models of language and statistical learning; neurophysiological (ERP) measures of statistical learning; language evolution

Thomas A. Cleland

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Psychology: behavioral and evolutionary neuroscience
• Research Interests: olfactory perception as a complex system; coordinating behavioral; physiological, pharmacological, and computational studies of sensory sampling; learning and memory; biological neural networks

Audun Dahl

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Developmental Psychology: cognitive development; ecology of human development; law, psychology and human development; social and personality development; Human Development and Family Studies: ecology of human development
• Research Interests: development of morality across the lifespan; norms; moral reasoning; moral emotions; prosocial and antisocial behaviors

Eve DeRosa

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Developmental Psychology: aging and health; cognitive development; Human Development and Family Studies: aging and health
• Research Interests: Attention and Learning, Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience

Timothy John Devoogd

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Psychology: behavioral and evolutionary neuroscience
• Research Interests: neural basis of female bird song discrimination; interplay between the hippocampus and other brain areas in spatial memory; behavior and brain evolution

Rachel E Dunifon

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Human Development and Family Studies: ecology of human development
• Research Interests: child and family policy; family structure and child well-being; parent-child interactions

Shimon Edelman

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Psychology: perception cognition and development
• Research Interests: evolution, consciousness computational social science, climate justice

Gary William Evans

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Developmental Psychology: aging and health; developmental psychopathology; ecology of human development; social and personality development; Human Development and Family Studies: aging and health; ecology of human development
• Research Interests: children's environments; environmental stress; the environment of poverty

David James Field

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Psychology: perception cognition and development
• Research Interests: theories and models of sensory coding and visual processing; visual perception; relations between the structure of the natural environment and the representation of that environment by sensory systems

Thomas Dashiff Gilovich

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Psychology: social and personality psychology
• Research Interests: everyday judgment and decision making; critical thinking and belief; egocentrism, optimism, pessimism, satisfaction and regret; gratitude and resentment

Jesse H. Goldberg

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Psychology: behavioral and evolutionary neuroscience
• Research Interests: Neuroscience

Michael H. Goldstein

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Psychology: behavioral and evolutionary neuroscience; perception cognition and development; Developmental Psychology: cognitive development; ecology of human development
• Research Interests: comparative approaches to the development and evolution of communication, vocal learning and development in songbirds and human infants, infant developmental psychology, social and statistical mechanisms of speech and language acquisition learning, parent-offspring interactions, developmental psychobiology, mechanisms of developmental change

Marlen Z Gonzalez

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Human Development and Family Studies: aging and health; ecology of human development; Developmental Psychology: developmental psychopathology; social and personality development; Psychology: perception cognition and development
• Research Interests: affective and social neuroscience, life span development, development context, mental health

Valerie Hans

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Developmental Psychology: law, psychology and human development; Psychology: social and personality psychology
• Research Interests: psychology and law; judgement and decision-making; jury decision-making

Cynthia Hazan

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Developmental Psychology: social and personality development; Psychology: social and personality psychology
• Research Interests: development and function of emotional bonds between adult sexual/romantic partners; human mating from an attachment theory and evolutionary perspective; affiliative bonding; attachment, parenting, and mating behavior; normative and individual difference processes in human social behavior

Will Hobbs

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Developmental Psychology: ecology of human development; social and personality development; Human Development and Family Studies: ecology of human development; family studies and the life course; Psychology: social and personality psychology
• Research Interests: quantitative methods, quantitative text analysis, social networks, health and well-being, attitudes and attitude change, politics, social media

Adam J. Hoffman

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Developmental Psychology: ecology of human development; social and personality development; Human Development and Family Studies: ecology of human development; family studies and the life course; Psychology: perception cognition and development
• Research Interests: Perception Cognition and Development; development of social identities across adolescent development, quantitative psychology, ethnic-racial and gender academic achievement gaps

Misha N. Inniss-Thompson

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Developmental Psychology: aging and health; ecology of human development; social and personality development; Human Development and Family Studies: family studies and the life course; Psychology: social and personality psychology
• Research Interests: Black girls' lived experiences in 1) positive mental health and well-being; 2) coping processes and cultural assets; 3) disparities in education policy and practice.

Nori Jacoby

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Developmental Psychology: cognitive development; Psychology: perception cognition and development
• Research Interests: computational auditory perception; cognitive science, machine learning, cross-cultural perception, music cognition

Amy R. Krosch

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Psychology: social and personality psychology

Neil Anthony Lewis

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Psychology: social and personality psychology

Christiane Linster

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Psychology: behavioral and evolutionary neuroscience
• Research Interests: neural basis of sensory information processing

Corinna E. Loeckenhoff

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Developmental Psychology: aging and health; cognitive development; social and personality development; Human Development and Family Studies: aging and health; Psychology: perception cognition and development; social and personality psychology
• Research Interests: life-span trajectories of cognition, motivation, emotion and personality; social cognition; health related decision-making and behaviors

Barbara Catherine Lust

• Campus: Ithaca - (Graduate School Professor)
• Concentrations: Developmental Psychology: cognitive development
• Research Interests: first-language acquisition in various languages; universals in syntax acquisition; cognitive science

Jane Mendle

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Developmental Psychology: developmental psychopathology; ecology of human development; social and personality development; Human Development and Family Studies: ecology of human development; Psychology: perception cognition and development; social and personality psychology
• Research Interests: developmental psychopathology; puberty; adolescence

Shaun B. Nichols

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Psychology: social and personality psychology
• Research Interests: Social & Personality

Laura Niemi

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Psychology: social and personality psychology

Anthony D. Ong

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Developmental Psychology: aging and health; social and personality development; Human Development and Family Studies: aging and health
• Research Interests: stress and emotions; resilience and life course development; ethnic minority mental health

Alexander Ophir

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Psychology: behavioral and evolutionary neuroscience

Gordon Pennycook

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Psychology: perception cognition and development; social and personality psychology
• Research Interests: reasoning: judgment and decision making, cognitive biases, intuition, metacognition, overconfidence, beliefs, misinformation, moral psychology, social media, conspiracy theories, artificial intelligence

Karl Andrew Pillemer

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Human Development and Family Studies: aging and health; ecology of human development; family studies and the life course
• Research Interests: sociology of family, aging, and the life course; social networks; family care provision to disabled elders; family conflict and abuse

David A. Pizarro

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Psychology: social and personality psychology
• Research Interests: moral judgment; especially judgment of moral character, responsibility, blame and praise. The role of emotions in judgements and decisions (especially the emotion of disgust)

Nora H. Prior

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Psychology: behavioral and evolutionary neuroscience
• Research Interests: Behavioral Evolutionary Neuroscience

Jeffrey John Rachlinski

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Developmental Psychology: law, psychology and human development
• Research Interests: psychology and law; civil procedure; environmental law

Manney C. Reid

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Human Development and Family Studies: aging and health; ecology of human development; family studies and the life course
• Research Interests: social science and gerontology; experimental intervention research

Valerie Reyna

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Developmental Psychology: aging and health; cognitive development; law, psychology and human development; social and personality development; Human Development and Family Studies: aging and health; Psychology: perception cognition and development
• Research Interests: cognitive development; social and personality development; memory; judgment; and decision making

Steven S Robertson

• Campus: Ithaca - (Graduate School Professor)
• Concentrations: Developmental Psychology: cognitive development
• Research Interests: fetal and infant development; early behavioral mechanisms and adaptive functions; developmental psychobiology; attention, thought, and action

Jonathan A. Rottenberg

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Developmental Psychology: developmental psychopathology; ecology of human development; social and personality development; Human Development and Family Studies: ecology of human development; Psychology: perception cognition and development; social and personality psychology
• Research Interests: emotion & psychopathology; emotion in major depressive disorder; long-term course of depression; well-being; population mental health

Sharon L. Sassler

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Human Development and Family Studies: family studies and the life course
• Research Interests: social demography; union formation (marriage, cohabitation); immigrant adaptation; racial and ethnic differentiation; young adult transitions

Dawn Ellen Schrader

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Developmental Psychology: cognitive development; social and personality development
• Research Interests: moral psychology; metacognition; social and epistemological development; lifespan (especially adolescent) psychology; educational psychology; relational aggression

Harry G. Segal

• Campus: Ithaca - (Minor Member)
• Concentrations: Psychology: social and personality psychology
• Research Interests: personality and social development

David M. Smith

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Psychology: behavioral and evolutionary neuroscience
• Research Interests: learning and memory; context processing; episodic memory; spatial navigation; attention

Robert J. Sternberg

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Developmental Psychology: aging and health; cognitive development; ecology of human development; social and personality development; Human Development and Family Studies: aging and health; ecology of human development; Psychology: perception cognition and development
• Research Interests: development of intelligence, creativity, wisdom, styles of learning and thinking, leadership, love, hate; teaching and learning; university education

Khena Swallow

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Psychology: perception cognition and development
• Research Interests: Perception, Cognition and Development

Felix Thoemmes

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Developmental Psychology: cognitive development; Psychology: perception cognition and development
• Research Interests: Quantitative methods; causal inference; propensity scores; missing data; structural equation modeling

Katherine Anne Tschida

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Psychology: behavioral and evolutionary neuroscience
• Research Interests: vocal communication, social behavior, motor control

Qi Wang

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Developmental Psychology: cognitive development; ecology of human development; social and personality development; Human Development and Family Studies: ecology of human development
• Research Interests: autobiographical memory and self-concept in children and adults; emotion knowledge; cross-cultural research

Jenna Wells

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Developmental Psychology: aging and health; developmental psychopathology; Human Development and Family Studies: aging and health; family studies and the life course; Psychology: social and personality psychology
• Research Interests: emotion; close relationships, dementia, family caregiving; positive interpersonal processes; health and well-being

Nancy M. Wells

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Developmental Psychology: ecology of human development; Human Development and Family Studies: ecology of human development
• Research Interests: effects of environmental on health and concentration; well-being through the life course; environmental influences on diet, physical activity and obesity; influence of the natural environment on cognitive functioning and psychological well-being

Elaine Wethington

• Campus: Ithaca - (Graduate School Professor)
• Concentrations: Human Development and Family Studies: aging and health; ecology of human development; family studies and the life course
• Research Interests: epidemiology of mental health and illness; gender, stress, and health

Wendy Williams

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Developmental Psychology: cognitive development; ecology of human development; law, psychology and human development; social and personality development; Human Development and Family Studies: ecology of human development; Psychology: social and personality psychology
• Research Interests: development, assessment, training and societal implications of intelligence and related abilities in children and adults; women in science; interrelationship of science and policy; ecology of the modern university

Vivian Zayas

• Campus: Ithaca
• Concentrations: Psychology: social and personality psychology
• Research Interests: social and personality psychology

Emily Zitek

• Campus: Ithaca - (Minor Member)
• Concentrations: Psychology: social and personality psychology