Social-Evolutionary-Cultural (SEC) Psychology Program

This program integrates social, evolutionary, and cultural perspectives. The social psychological perspective examines human interactions from the point of view of the experiences of self and the emotional feelings and actions of the participants. At Clark, it includes the study of group dynamics, inter-group relations and societal peace and conflict. The biological-evolutionary perspective examines humans' interactions against the background of their evolutionary history, seeking enduring themes that persist in contemporary human social behavior. The cultural psychological perspective examines how presuppositions arising from language, culture, and social and political ideology interact with our basic natures to produce human experience and behavior. The program encourages interdisciplinary research, as well as novel projects and research-action paradigms. Faculty and students work together to design courses. For further information, contact Dr. Joseph de Rivera at jderivera@clarku.edu .

Course of Study

The Program makes use of the resources of the Department, the University, and other Consortium Institutions to prepare students for academic careers in social psychology. For us, such preparation requires a student

• to develop a perspective on the field,
• to identify a research literature made salient by that perspective,
• to pick out a family of empirical problems related to that literature,
• to become fully competent in the research methods necessary to solving those problems, and
• to begin a systematic program of research that will sustain them through the early stages of a career.

Along the way, we provide opportunities to practice and perfect the skills of an academic. These inlclude:

• assisting in and teaching courses,
• applying for and receiving grants,
• presenting posters and papers at conferences, and
• publishing collaborative and individual work in the scholarly journals of the field.

SEC graduate students are encouraged to work closely with one another, with advanced undergraduate students, and with faculty colleagues in developing their research programs. The SEC program does not emphasize courses as such, except as they are related to the specific career development needs of its members. When the taking of specific courses is indicated, SEC members can select from an array of occasional graduate courses, advanced undergraduate courses, courses at neighboring institutions, and courses developed for their needs with SEC faculty. Courses currently initiated by students include Paleoanthropology and Current Perspectives in Social and Evolutionary Psychology. We would particularly like to call attention to courses offered in individual and family development offered by members of our Clinical and Developmental Programs.

The principle training settings of the program are the Department's research groups, forums, and lab meetings. These are groupings of faculty, graduate and undergraduate students drawn together regularly by common theoretical concerns, research interests, or training needs. The number, focus, and constitution of these groups changes from year to year, but there will always be several that are active at any time. Groups are initiated both by faculty and by graduate students.

For the purposes of meeting the University's formal course and residency requirements, the Department arranges for participation in these meetings to constitute "course taking."

Currently Active Groups of Particular Interest to SEC Students

We list these below, along with their SEC faculty and graduate participants.

Departmental Integrative Forum ("Progress in Psychology" Lectures)
In this group, department members interact with outside visitors, update the Department at large on developments in the research groups, and discuss theoretical and methodological issues that cross-cut the Department's Clinical, Developmental, and SEC programs. In spring 2004, the Forum is dedicated to examining 28 papers that Departmental Faculty have identified as key to their development as psychologists. (Departmental Faculty and Graduate Students)

SEC forum
This is a forum on research and theory in Social Evolutionary and Cultural Psychology in which SEC members discuss theoretical and methodological problems, plan new research and share updates on ongoing projects. The SEC forum is also the home of the E-motion Project which explores computer projected minimal social phenomena such as the Heider Films. (DeRivera, Laird, Stevens, Thompson, Valsiner, Rudolph [Mathematics], Clegg, Dirawaechter, Mahoney, Strout, Thapa, Nick Thompson, Jaan Valsiner)

Peace Studies Group
Associated with Clark's Peace Studies Program, this group conducts studies on the social and emotional conditions that relate to political identity and political action related to international relations. This group is currently examining group conflict in Colombia, Ireland, and Nepal, conducting surveys and interviews on emotional climates and cultures of peace, and experimentally investigating factors that influence human security and social responsibility. (deRivera, Mahoney)

Human Emotional Sounds Lab
Begun a decade ago as the Baby Cry Group, this group has recently focused on two closely related classes of sounds, whines and adult infant directed speech. ( Thompson, Stevens)

Self-Perception Lab
This group examines emotions through the lens of self-perception theory. Recent projects include a qualitative analysis of emotion experience and research re-examining cognitive dissonance. Ongoing work in this lab includes a paper using evolutionary psychological perspectives to explain self-perception theory. (Laird, Strout)

Jealousy Group
This group continues research on sex differences in jealousy through and evolutionary perspective. Currently under discussion is a theoretical paper discussing the benefits of integrating social psychological perspectives and evolutionary perspectives on jealousy. (Laird, Thompson, Strout)

Evolution and Development
This is a formal reading group of faculty, graduate and undergraduate students dedicated to understanding the degree to which the biological history of humans places constraints on how we may understand their development. (Thompson, Strout)

"Kitchen" Meeting
The most wide-ranging and free-wheeling of the Department's interest groups, the Kitchen group is currently exploring how individuals live at the nexus of biological, cognitive and semiotic imperatives. (Valsiner, Thompson, Dirawaechter)

Cognitive Hour
This group focuses on the role of representations in human development. (Wiser, Reese, Hendriks [Philosophy], Thompson)

Narrative Development Group
This is a meeting of students and professors from Psychology and other Departments, that approach social phenomena as experiential and cultural phenomena through the lens of personal experience.

Social, Evolutionary and Cultural Psychology Faculty

Joseph deRivera, Ph.D.
The structure and function of different emotions, the relationships between emotion and action, the social psychology of non-violent action for peace and justice

James D. Laird, Ph.D.
Emotional experience, self-perception, attributions to others, structures of person awareness, world hypotheses as personality variables

David A. Stevens, Ph.D.
Taste and smell, psychophysics, research methods and analyses

Nicholas S. Thompson, Ph.D.
Evolutionary psychology

Jaan Valsiner, Ph.D.
Cultural psychology, history of ideas