Overview
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Chair Professors Assistant Professors Faculty Associates |
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Chair Professors Assistant Professors Faculty Associates |
The Department of Comparative Human Development was originally named the Department on Child Development and then in 1940 the name was changed to Human Development. Ralph Tyler (education) was named chairman of the new department; Robert J. Havighurst (sociologist) and W. Lloyd Warner (anthropologist) added interdisciplinary dimensions to the program. At the end of WW II, Carl Rogers (psychologist), joined the faculty. In October of 1991, the committee celebrated its 50th anniversary of the department as a Ph.D. training program and interdisciplinary research undertaking, making it the oldest unit of its type. The department offers programs of research and graduate study in life course development (including child and adolescent development, adult development and aging, and philosophy of development), personality, emotions and psychopathology, cross cultural studies (including psychological anthropology and cultural psychology), biosocial psychology (including behavioral biology and social neuroscience), language, cognition and clinical psychology. The research interests of the faculty represent various disciplines within the social sciences. The primary objectives of the department are to provide education for innovative careers in research and teaching and to contribute to the interdisciplinary understanding of human behavior. Students in the department pursue careers in anthropology, human development, psychology, and sociology.
The program stresses the integration of theoretical interpretations and empirical findings bearing upon human development: the elaboration of the biological potential of the individual during growth; maturity and aging; socialization and adjustment to temporal and environmental changes; psychological change; personality development and psychological functioning in various cultural settings; and reflective consideration of the assumptions of social science theory and research. Emphasis is upon the interrelations of biological, psychological, and sociocultural forces at different points in the life cycle.
Applicants should be prepared to work on the critical edge of thought and research in the social sciences.
PROGRAMS
Students in consultation with faculty advisors develop an area of specialization (program) appropriate to their professional goals and research interests. Some of the department s central areas of specialization are described below.
Comparative Life Course. The Department of Comparative Human Development has long had a focus on development throughout the life span. Indeed, one of the unifying principles that cuts across the department is that there is a deep interest, not merely in charting change over time, but in understanding the mechanisms and principles that underlie that change at all levels. Faculty and students in the department conduct developmental research in a wide variety of domains (cognitive, social, emotional, physical) and species (humans, primates, rodents). Ongoing projects include: ethnological studies of biosocial development from infancy though adulthood and aging; effects of psychosocial deprivation on psychological state and risk for disease; parent child relationships across the life course; risk and resilience in development; social emotional development in early childhood; social class and ethnic differences in socialization; genetic and developmental factors in psychosocial development; naturalistic studies of children in school environments; language development as a creative process; studies of how children and adults understand and tell narratives; the role of nonverbal behavior in learning and cognitive development; the role of the linguistic and cultural environment in the child’s acquisition of language; language socialization; the role of sociocultural context in cognitive development.
Clinical Ethnography and Mental Health. This program is designed for students interested in combining normative social science inquiry with focused study in the area of mental health, as preparation for a career of research and teaching. This course of study involves multidisciplinary inquiry into the processes and determinants of personality, social and cognitive development throughout the life course, and the comparative study of suffering and healing systems. Program faculty are presently involved with mental health research in three interrelated fields: (1) The study of psychopathology, vulnerability and resilience across the life course; (2) the study of psychotherapy and comparable systems of personal change; (3) the study of health and optimal functioning, coping strategies and creativity. Research in the personality area encompasses both traditional perspectives on the study of persons and social life and emerging perspectives focusing on such areas as the interplay of cognition and emotion in personal life and in culture, and language and discourse as relevant in understanding personality and social life. The program includes faculty working from the disciplinary perspectives of personality, social and clinical psychology, anthropology, political science, and biology. Relevant faculty and resources of the University outside the Department of Comparative Human Development will also be available to students.
Cultural Psychology and Psychological Anthropology. The Department of Comparative Human Development is a leading center for training in psychological anthropology, cultural psychology, the study of culture and mental health, and the cross cultural study of human development. The aim of the program is to document and explain ethnic and cultural sources of diversity in emotional and somatic functioning, self organization, moral evaluation, social cognition and human development. Ethnographic field work both in the United States and abroad is an important component of this program, although multiple methods (qualitative and quantitative, observational, clinical and experimental) are applied to the study of similarities and differences in psychological functioning across human populations.
Members of the faculty and students have conducted field studies of child socialization practices in the nations of the Pacific; of culture specific and universal structures in cognitive development; identity and self concept of Native American youth; of moral development, conceptions of the life course, and explanations of suffering in India and the United States; of modes of thought and their relationship to linguistic structures in contemporary Mayan communities in Mexico, and among various ethnic groups in the city of Chicago. The program encourages comparative study of psychological functioning ( mentalities ) in various high civilizations, including India, Japan, China, and the Middle East, as well as research on psychological topics in local communities around the world.
Comparative Behavioral Biology. This program investigates behavioral processes at the social, psychological and biological levels of organization in both humans and nonhuman animals. Current research is concentrated in three main areas. In the area of behavioral and reproductive endocrinology, research conducted with rodents and humans investigates the social and behavioral control of fertility and reproduction and the role of hormone behavior interactions in development throughout the life span. Specific topics of interest include mechanisms and function of estrous and menstrual synchrony, facultative adjustment of sex ratios, pheromonal communication, reproductive senescence, psychosomatics in obstetrics and gynecology, and the behavioral modulation of the immune function. In the area of comparative development, we use nonhuman primate models of parenting and development to investigate social, emotional, and endocrine aspects of mother infant attachment and infant development, with particular emphasis on interindividual variability both within and outside the normal range. Other topics of interest include affiliative and aggressive behavior, mating strategies, nonverbal communication and social cognition in primates and humans. In the area of social neuroscience, one topic of interest is evaluative processes, e.g., affective, attitudinal, or emotional operations by which individuals discriminate hostile from hospitable environments. Of interest as well is in the role of social and autonomic factors in individuals endocrine and cellular immune response to stress and illness vulnerability. Throughout, the research approach is characterized by the integration of social and biological levels of analysis.
Language, Communication and Cognition. This program area supports research and training on how language and other forms of communication relate to cognition. Particular emphases are on the role of language in thinking and the use of comparative perspectives to address this issue. Among the more important comparisons are those across different languages, institutional settings, cultures, ages, and species drawing in each case on the relevant disciplines concerned with those areas.
Professional education in clinical psychology. (option that can be taken with any of the current five programs). The professional education in clinical psychology provides an opportunity for students following one of the five substantive CHD programs to take the additional courses as part of the process necessary for licensure as a clinical psychologist. Students electing this option notify Dr. Bertram Cohler of their intention to participate in this program. Ideally, students are able to integrate their clinical psychology education into their scholarly work in the other areas of human development and culture. Students who anticipate seeking clinical psychology licensure after graduation should plan to take four core courses which overlap with the CHD requirements: biological basis of behavior, cognitive affective basis of behavior, individual (psychological) differences, and social basis of behavior. In addition, students should take a course in each of the following areas: psychological assessment, psychological intervention, and ethics of psychological practice.
Students should plan to have two part time (20 hours a week) practicum experiences (psychological assessment and psychological intervention). Further, students will need to have a year s full time internship in professional psychology. However, since practicum and, particularly, internship placements are difficult to obtain, we provide a year long course in psychological assessment (Wechsler scales, Rorschach, TAT) which is what internship sites expect of students. Further, we urge students to take two intervention courses (psychodynamic and cognitive behavioral therapy), and an additional course in structured diagnosis founded on the DSM IV. Students often elect to have three practicum experiences prior to applying for their pre doctoral internship. Completion of this course of study is presently recognized by many states as the necessary background for taking the licensure examination when accompanied by an additional year of post doctoral internship participation. The professional education in clinical psychology option is not an approved professional psychology training program by the American Psychological Association.
WORKSHOPS
The Department of Comparative Human Development sponsors faculty student workshops, currently the Culture, Life Course, and Mental Health Workshop, a Clinical Ethnography Workshop, and a Center on Culture and Mental Health.
ADMISSION
Students are eligible for admission if they have received a Bachelor of Arts or Science degree or have completed an undergraduate program equivalent to such a degree. Admission depends upon strength in the general undergraduate record, scores on the Graduate Record Examination, letters of recommendation, personal statement and interests, and relevant research experiences.
HOW TO APPLY
The application process for admission and financial aid for all Social Sciences graduate programs is administered through the divisional Office of the Dean of Students. The Application for Admission and Financial Aid, with instructions, deadlines and department specific information is available online at: https://grad-application.uchicago.edu/intro/ssd/intro1.cfm
Questions pertaining to admissions and aid should be directed to ssd-admissions@uchicago.edu or (773) 702 8415. All correspondence and materials sent in support of applications should be mailed to:
The University of Chicago
Division of the Social Sciences
Admissions Office, Foster 105
1130 East 59th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
Foreign students must provide evidence of English proficiency by submitting scores from either the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) or the International English Language Testing System (IELTS).
For additional information about the Human Development program, please see humdev.uchicago.edu.
REQUIREMENTS
Courses
Every student is required to take the following courses for a quality grade:
Human Development Concepts
Five HD area courses: the area clusters are defined as
Comparative Behavioral Biology
Comparative Life Course
Cultural Psychology and Psychology Anthropology
Clinical Ethnography and Mental Health
Language, Communication and Cognition
Intermediate Statistics
One additional methods courses (not introductory statistics)
Two trial research seminars (may be taken pass/fail)
Two additional HD courses in area of specialization
Students are not required to complete all these requirements by the end of their second year. However, they must have five quality grades toward these requirements by the spring of their first year, and ten quality grades by the end of the second year. On average a graduate student should take at least two courses from the required list for quality grades in each quarter of their first two years.
In addition, students will participate in elective courses and workshops in the department, and the University in consultation with their advisors. The HD Concepts course will introduce students to the history, theoretical bases, and concepts of the field of human development, and to the major areas of inquiry in the Department of Comparative Human Development. This is taken during the fall quarter of the first or second year.
The trial research seminars will launch students into their research projects and will guide them from the beginning to the completion of those projects. The trial research seminar is taken in the spring quarter of the first year and the fall quarter of the second year. Trial research papers are due by spring quarter of the second year.
Trial Research
All students are required to enroll in a Trial Research Seminar in the spring quarter of the first year and the autumn quarter of the second year. The trial research project must be completed and formally approved by the faculty during the spring quarter of the student’s second year. Students are expected to report regularly on the progress of their research to the Trial Research Seminars. The trial research is carried out under the direction of the research advisor and is read by two other faculty members.
EVALUATIONS
All students are evaluated each year in the program. To be considered in good standing and for continuation of financial aid, first and second year students must have earned at minimum five quality grades (B or better) over autumn and winter quarters by the time of the spring review, with satisfactory spring grades expected to follow. The evaluation at the end of the second year is particularly important, as it determines whether a student will be permitted to conduct dissertation research.
ADVISORS
Each student is assigned a faculty member at the beginning of the first year of study to serve as a research advisor. Students may change research advisors as their needs and interests evolve, but students are expected to be affiliated with one or more research advisors throughout their graduate careers.
Courses
This is a representative list of courses offered.
30004. Statistical Methods of Research
Staff
30401. Intensive Study of a Culture: Lowland Maya History and Ethnography
Lucy
30700. Developmental Psychology
Levine
30901. Biopsychology of Sex Differences
Mateo
3l000. Cultural Psychology
Shweder
31300. Freud: Human Development and Personality
Orlinsky
31603. Language Development
Goldin Meadow
3l800. Modern Psychotherapies
Orlinsky
31900. Language, Culture, and Thought
Lucy
32201. Youth: An Ethnographic & Historical Approach
Cole
32800. Advanced Psychoanalytic Theory
Fisher
33400. Research Methods in Language Acquisition
Goldin Meadow
33500. Fourth World Religions
Fogelson
34100. Freud and the Interpretation of Dreams
Cohler
34300. Primate Behavior
Maestripieri
34501 Anthropology of Museums
Fogeslon
34600. Sexual Identity, Life Course and Life Story
Cohler
34800. Complex Language Acquisition & School of Well-Being
Stein
34800. Kinship and Social Systems
Mateo
34900. Biopsychology of Attachment
Maestripieri
35201 Communiciaton in Humans and Non-humans
Mateo, Regier
35202. Demography of Aging and the Life Course.
Cagney
35700. Urban Field Research
Taub
36400. Theories of Emotion and the Psychology of Well Being
Stein
36900. Family and Life Course
Cohler
37400. Personality: Community, Culture and Life Course
Orlinsky
37500. Research Seminar in Animal Behavior
Maestripieri, Mateo
37800. Evolutionary Social Psychology
Maestripieri
37801. If Someone Asserts It Deny It: Critical Reason and Political Correctness in Social Sciences
Shweder
38000, 38100, 38200. Mind and Biology Proseminar I, II, III
Maestripieri, McClintock, Mateo
38500.Freud and Psychoanalysis: The Lectures and Case Studies
Cohler
38701. Social and Cultural Foundations of Mental Health
Orlinsky
39300. Qualitative Methods in the Social Sciences
Cohler
40000. HD Concepts
Cohler
40303 Research Methods: Exploration of Small N and Casual-comparative Research
Keels
40650. Social Psychology
Goldstein
40801 Memory Practices
Cole
40900 Behavioral Ecology
Mateo
41601. Language Development
Goldin-Meadow
41603. Learning and Creating Language
Goldin-Meadow, Lucy
41900. Adv. Topics in Language, Culture and Thought
Lucy
42200. Seminar: Research in Behavioral Endocrinology
McClintock
42201.Developmental Biopsychology
McClintock
42213 Culture and Power, Subjectivities
Cole
42214. Ethnographic Writing
Cole
42215 Global Intimacies
Cole
42350. Development over the Life Course
Hans
42401. Trial Research 1
Shweder
42402. Trial Research 11
Taub
42700. Theories of the Self
Lucy
43240 Animan Behavior
Mateo
43248 Research Methods in Behavior and Development
Mateo
43799. Gesture Over Threee Timespans
Goldin-Meadow, McNeil
44700. Seminar: Topics in Judgment and Decision Making
Goldstein
45400. Seminar: Research on Psychotherapists
Orlinsky
45500. Entrepreneurship
Taub
45600. When Cultures Collide: Norm Conflict in Multicultural Societies
Shweder
45601 Moral Development and Comparative Ethics
Shweder
47903. Yucatec Maya
Lucy
48412. Publications, Grants, and the Academic Job Market
Maestripieri
50036. Honor
Taub