19 minute read
Psychology
from 2020 NSSR Viewbook
I. OVERVIEW
II. DIALOGUES
Psychology Overview
Contribute to a tradition of psychological scholarship sensitive to social, cultural, and political concerns. The Department of Psychology was founded as part of the University in Exile by the pioneering Gestalt psychologist Max Wertheimer. Over the years, its distinguished faculty has included Leon Festinger, Jerome Bruner, Hans Wallach, Irving Rock, Kurt Goldstein, Serge Moscovici, Solomon Asch, Sándor Ferenczi, and Erich Fromm.
At the master’s level, the department offers a program in general psychology that provides students with in-depth training in all the major fields of psychology. After students complete their master’s degree, they can apply to two doctoral programs through a separate application process: the PhD in Cognitive, Social, and Developmental Psychology (CSD) and the PhD in Clinical Psychology. Every attempt is made to promote an interdisciplinary approach to psychological issues and foster interaction between the CSD and Clinical Psychology programs. PhD students are free to work with faculty from either area. While in the program, master’s and doctoral students also have the option of taking classes offered through the Concentration in Mental Health and Substance Abuse Counseling1 to gain additional training in working with substance use in clinical settings. In addition, MA students can focus on the Global Mental Health subject area.
Degrees Offered
The Department of Psychology offers MA and PhD degrees. All psychology students at The New School for Social Research (NSSR) enter through the master’s program. Students matriculated in the psychology master’s program must formally apply to continue study in either the Cognitive, Social, and Developmental PhD program or the Clinical PhD program.
There are two MA tracks. The General Psychology MA provides a comprehensive view of the field. This graduate program offers qualified students the option of an intensive research experience, allowing them to work closely with a faculty member on an empirical research project, write an MA thesis based on this project, and defend the thesis in an oral examination.
Students with MA degrees from other universities may be eligible for Advanced Standing in the MA program. Advanced Standing is not automatically granted; it is awarded at the discretion of the admission committee and is reserved for students who have sufficient transferable credit and who have achieved excellence in their studies. Eligible students, including those who complete the MA at NSSR and those awarded Advanced Standing, may apply to the Clinical PhD program or the Cognitive, Social, and Developmental Psychology PhD program after at least one semester of study at The New School for Social Research.
The Cognitive, Social, and Developmental Psychology doctoral program emphasizes cultural psychology as a framework within which to understand basic psychological theories and promotes an approach to psychology that is sensitive to sociocultural diversity both within the United States and internationally. Considerable attention is also given to cognitive neuroscience as well as other biologically based perspectives for explaining cognitive and social processes. Overall, the research conducted in the program reflects a broad-based perspective that supports diverse methodological approaches and that encourages interdisciplinary work.
The graduate program is based on an apprenticeship model in which students work closely with individual faculty both on collaborative research projects and on their dissertation research. Students concentrate in cognitive, social, or developmental psychology but are welcome to bridge these concentrations with courses, research, and work with faculty.
Clinical Psychology PhD
The Clinical Psychology doctoral program follows the scientist-practitioner model of clinical training and is accredited by the American Psychological Association (APA)1. It combines a psychoanalytic emphasis with cognitive behavioral approaches while emphasizing the importance of pursuing and maintaining integration between scholarship and real-world concerns. The program encourages respect for and understanding of cultural and individual diversity. It also recognizes the importance of understanding the roles of culture and context (both social and historical) in mediating healthy psychological development, psychopathology, and psychotherapeutic change. In its clinical training, the program is pluralistic, with an emphasis on psychoanalytically informed practice.
The Safran Center for Psychological Services and the first-year external practicum provide a solid foundation for students’ clinical experience. From the first year to the end of the program, the practicums are designed to develop competencies and meet training goals. The amount, intensity, and breadth of experience gained each year in the program go well beyond what can be expected from most internship sites.
Recent Courses
Social Psychology Clinical Application of Attachment Theory and Research Development and Psychopathology Cognitive Psychology Evidence-Based Treatment Advanced Issues in Substance Abuse Child and Adolescent Global Mental Health Visual Perception and Cognition Field Work in Political and Social Psychology Ethnicity in Clinical Theory and Practice
Recent Outcomes
Psychology MA
PhD student, The New School for Social Research User experience researcher, JPMorgan Chase & Co. PhD student, New York University Lifeline counselor, The Trevor Project PhD student, University of Michigan Clinical research project manager, New York Medical College Program supervisor, Guild for Exceptional Children Family advocate, Center for Family Representation
Psychology PhD—Clinical
Postdoctoral fellow, Lenox Hill Hospital Postdoctoral psychologist, Williamsburg Therapy Group Supervising psychologist, Institute for Family Health Psychology fellow, Rennicke & Associates Postdoctoral fellow, Pratt Institute Counseling Center Psychologist, New York City Police Department
Clinical psychologist, North Central Bronx Hospital Pediatric psychology fellow, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Staff psychologist, University of Portland Health and Counseling Center Psychologist, NYU Langone Assistant professor, Icahn School of Medicine
Many alumni go on to work in academia, government, policy, and business, at institutions including:
Princeton University Columbia University Business School Sarah Lawrence College Washington University Mount Sinai Health System New York City Mayor’s Office The U.S. Census Bureau RAND Corporation
Transforming Memory Research Through Interdisciplinary Exchange
William Hirst Malcolm B. Smith Professor of Psychology
Professor William Hirst explores the opaque folds of the mind. Focusing mainly on human memory, his research offers insights into how people comprehend the world and what cognitive elements shape both individual and collective identity.
Hirst studied under Ulric Neisser and George Miller, two giants of cognitive psychology. His early research centered on language and the biological underpinnings of memory. At the heart of his inquiry was an investigation of how the individual mind functions in isolation. Looking back, Hirst admits that this methodology itself was isolated— involving little to no discourse with disciplines beyond cognitive psychology.
It was not until he came to NSSR that Hirst began to actively engage with scholars of the humanities and other social sciences. “From an intellectual point of view,” he explains, “The New School was a transformative place in that it allowed me to really think in an interdisciplinary way.” This transformation led Hirst to realize that memory cannot be understood in isolation. Slowly moving away from studying the biology of the brain, he became more interested in the effects of social interaction and context on memory.
According to Hirst, remembering is a form of communication. While many of us imagine that the mind “ends at the surface of the skin,” as he puts it, it is more accurate to say that the mind extends outward into the larger world. Unlike a computer, which stores memory in a static way, human recollection is dynamic and social, simultaneously drawing from and influencing its environment. Understanding this process is important because it is through collective remembering and forgetting that individual and cultural identities are formed and history determined.
Seeing how intellectual exchange across disciplines reinvigorated his research, Hirst is an eager proponent of that kind of dialogue. He says that NSSR’s Psychology program in particular has embraced the approach. In the study of cognitive, social, and developmental psychology, the department intentionally recruits scholars whose interests reach beyond the academic setting to encompass larger social issues. “We bring together individuals who are deeply and profoundly engaged in the way in which living in a social world shapes our cognitions.”
Tackling the Escalation and De-escalation of Conflict with Jeremy Ginges
Jeremy Ginges Associate Professor of Psychology
[00:00:00] Interviewer: What are the research topics that interest you? How did you become interested in those topics? Where do you see your research going in the future?
[00:00:30] Jeremy Ginges: I have two core interests, which function as two sides of the same coin. I study acute conflicts that lead to political violence, like conflicts in the Middle East. I’m interested in the psychology of conflict escalation and what makes some conflicts really difficult to solve. For example, what is it about how we reason and think about intergroup conflicts and intergroup disputes that make them difficult to resolve?
I’m also interested in the other side, de-escalating conflict. I think in some ways one side feeds into the other. If I can begin to understand why those conflicts are difficult to resolve, I can then design interventions that might make resolution easier.
[00:01:39] IN: Can you give some examples?
[00:01:47] JG: For a while I’ve been doing research on the specific types of values people assign to disputed issues in intergroup conflicts. Let’s say there’s a dispute over land, and one side regards that land as being holy. I’ve examined how a spiritual context affects both parties’ reasoning. Through my work, I’ve found in a negotiation over land, people who think of the land as an ordinary material resource are more likely to compromise if offered something like money. However, if that land is perceived as holy and has spiritual connotations, offering material compensation can backfire, leading to more opposition to compromise. In other words, better deals can yield worse results. Inappropriate compensation can actually escalate a conflict.
My work has also examined how one group responds when the opposing side offers a dramatic symbolic concession that does not have tangible real-world value, that is not money or resources, but instead an apology. I have found that can work.
Another area of my research examines how we understand the motives for aggression and violence. In work I recently published, we researched ideological conflicts between liberals and conservatives in the United States and violent conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians in the Middle East. Both sides think that their own side’s aggression—violence, in the Middle Eastern case—is motivated by their affection for their own group, while the other side is motivated by hate. These beliefs are incredibly important. The more I believe the other side is motivated by hate for me, the more likely I am to think the conflict is unresolvable, and I am going to reject compromise solutions. An entire series of downstream consequences of this bias exists. In a study we conducted in the United States, we created an intervention where we encouraged people to think more accurately about the opposing side’s motives, and offered people financial prizes for their success. If we can get people to be more accurate about what motivates the other side, even in their awful, despicable behaviors, we can create opportunities for conflict resolution.
[00:05:32] IN: NSSR has a history of heterodox, interdisciplinary education. With your research on conflict, do you find yourself interacting with people in the sociology or politics department? And if so, how does that influence both your research and your teaching?
[00:07:06] JG: The research that we do in our lab is really collaborative, and I often interact with people from different disciplines. I work closely with an anthropologist, and I also collaborate quite frequently with political scientists and neuroscientists. Most of the interdisciplinary influences of NSSR on the work we do in our lab tend to come from students taking courses outside of psychology and bringing those experiences and scholarship into the lab.
[00:08:34] IN: How do you approach working with graduate students? Do you co-author papers with them? Do you help them with their research process?
[00:08:57] JG: The way we work here is that it’s really a collaborative process. When first-year master’s students come into my lab, they learn about the different studies that we’re running and begin working on one study with me or with a more senior graduate student. Over time, those students will come up with their own ideas. But in psychology, even when students enter the doctoral phase, everything is going to be collaborative. One of the things that I like about working with graduate students is that I sometimes find myself working on a study I would not have conceived of on my own. You develop this collaborative understanding of one another’s interests, and that combination leads to something new.
[00:09:58] IN: What would you tell prospective students about the school as a whole and the Psychology program specifically? What would you tell them about working with you?
[00:10:29] JG: We’re a small department, but every single member of this department does research that is really interesting, relevant to mainstream psychology, and cutting edge. We find innovative solutions to problems and publish in major journals. If you join my lab, you will be working with me to develop theoretically innovative work that tackles some of the most important practical problems in the world today. We examine a problem like intractable conflict or opposition to resettlement of refugees. To address practical problems, we ask theoretical questions—for example, What don’t we understand about human nature that might help us to address this problem? We attempt to solve real-world problems. We’re not simply working on abstract ideas. I was recently elected a fellow in the Association of Psychological Science in recognition of sustained outstanding contribution for the work we’re doing in the lab.
[00:12:30] IN: And in your attempt to solve real-world problems, has your research resulted in any type of policy change—be it big or small?
[00:12:51] JG: Different members of my team of collaborators have presented our research and results to places like the National Security Council, the White House, and the House of Lords in the United Kingdom, and in briefings with different leaders around the world. We’ve published op-eds about our work in places like the New York Times. Other writers have also featured our work in the New York Times and Newsweek. We’re influencing the discourse. The depth of the effect is difficult to discern. But in the sense of influencing public discourse about the problems, I think we’re having an effect.
The Link Between Clinical Research and Social Good
Miriam Steele Professor of Psychology
Dedicated to research that extends beyond the confines of a lab to reshape our society for the better, Miriam Steele is interested as much in influencing public policy as she is in helping patients and developing knowledge. Steele focuses on both the macro and the micro effects of complex phenomena like childhood trauma and maltreatment and women’s negative attitudes toward their bodies, with the aim of ending cycles of abuse in families and the ripple effects of that abuse throughout society.
Steele’s largest research project, called the Group Attachment Based Intervention (GABI), is designed to prevent child maltreatment among socially isolated families living in poverty with children ages zero to three. Conducted in partnership with Montefiore Hospital, the group meets three times a week. The group setting of the intervention is integral to the therapeutic process, as it gives the family members—many of whom have experienced trauma in their past, including physical, sexual, and emotional abuse— the opportunity to interact with likeminded peers in similar circumstances.
Built on more than 26 years of research on intergenerational patterns of attachment, GABI has demonstrated that it can help end cycles of child maltreatment. Since the team at Montefiore works so closely with Steele’s lab, students have the rare opportunity to become involved in the clinical work. By collecting assessments of the families, students refine interviewing and observational skills that are relevant to pursuing a career either within or outside academia after graduate school. Another facet of Steele’s research focuses on body representation and attachment, specifically mothers’ feelings about their bodies and the way in which they transmit these feelings to their toddler daughters. Her research has shown that mothers with a history of secure attachment are able to give more coherent and reflective responses about their bodies than mothers who have insecure attachment states of mind. Steele also found that the toddler girls’ responses to the sight of their own bodies in a mirror were predicted by their mothers’ history of secure attachment. She hopes the findings from the study will reach policymakers and begin to influence the way girls are portrayed in the media, particularly within the mother-child relationship.
Steele uses her lab, which she co-directs with Professor Howard Steele, to get students involved in all levels of research. She often has PhD students supervise master’s students, and master’s students supervise undergraduate students, so that the exchange of knowledge isn’t solely from professor to student but from peer to peer as well. Steele notes that the theoretically driven nature of the psychology department is best suited to students who want to challenge themselves to think beyond typical evidence-based clinical psychology to understand concepts at a deeper level.
The Complex Treatment of Trauma: A Conversation with Wendy D’Andrea
Wendy D’Andrea Associate Professor of Psychology
[00:00:00] Interviewer: What are your research interests? What are you researching now, and what do you see yourself covering in the future? What led you to be interested in those topics?
[00:00:20] Wendy D’Andrea: My area of expertise focuses on how early-life adversity, mostly child maltreatment, relates to changes in a variety of domains of functioning, often cognition, attention, social perception, emotions, and emotional awareness, as well as how those changes are facilitated by changes within the nervous system, mostly the autonomic nervous system, including heart rate, sweat gland responses, and the processes that are related to a very fundamental regulation of bodily arousal.
Right now the area where I direct most of my focus is within the scenery of discussing trauma. Most of the research in this area concerns people who have extreme agitation, high arousal, high heart rate, hypervigilant presentation. Or it concerns the large portion of people who are completely numb, completely distant, shut down, and unresponsive.
I’m very interested in the physiological processes that may facilitate that kind of presentation. If someone experiences a tremendous amount of emotional numbing, what does that mean and what are the effects? The other aspect of this research that interests me connects the emotional side of numbing to bodily numbing, that is, exploring people not having a good sense of their bodies’ reactivity, their body boundaries, and how the emotional and physical sides are connected.
Lately I have spent more time examining how these cognitive, emotional, social, and physiological effects change as a result of therapy—specifically, what therapy processes are related to the changes. Since the field historically has not measured outcome by symptom self-report, I’m looking at these more concrete, objective changes. I’m trying to use other ways of measuring outcome beyond just self-report.
[00:03:31] IN: In your work measuring the different outcomes, do you ever propose other therapeutic methods or treatments, or are you solely measuring what happens? Did you ever take a step back and say, “We can see that X has been effective. We should do that with these types of patients more”?
[00:03:43] WD: Yes, absolutely. That’s the part of the work that focuses on treatment process, or different techniques that seem to be associated with affecting outcomes. Another facet of this work examines a patient type and investigates what treatment to prescribe to a patient with hyperarousal versus a patient with hypoarousal. The treatment plan may need to be adjusted according to what someone is bringing in terms of his or her cognition and physiology.
[00:05:25] IN: How do you approach working with graduate students? I would imagine that graduate students play a big role in your research studies.
[00:05:39] WD: I work hard from the beginning of the master’s program to give students for whom I’m their primary advisor the experience that they would have as a PhD student continuing directly from the master’s program and forward. I am generally pretty cautious about being sure that anyone I take in to advise as a master’s student is a good academic fit, and is prepared to be
serious about the work. I also try not to take more students into my lab at the master’s level than I can support continuing into the PhD. Right now, everyone who wanted to pursue a PhD has gotten either into our PhD program or another PhD program from our master’s program.
In my work, we have lab meetings—that’s our intellectual church—where we all present our ideas, read about other ideas, and also workshop our papers that we’re trying to produce. Then, we have weekly individual meetings with the grad students. In master’s students’ first year, they work on group projects. Then in their second year in the master’s program, and moving forward into the PhD, students develop their own projects that they have intellectually spearheaded and designed.
We have one rule in the lab: Everyone has to present his or her work in a conference at least twice a year. We also try to get each student to co-author a paper by the end of his or her first year in the lab.
[00:07:03] IN: NSSR has historically been a school with a heterodox approach to academics. Can you talk a little bit about how that approach filters into both your teaching and your research here?
[00:07:24] WD: Our department is one of the most heterodox in its approach to studying and teaching psychology. In my lab, we’re a combination of heterodox in philosophy and orthodox in method. We do very strict quantitative research that is fairly connected to a positivist tradition. We conduct it in a way that is attentive to deconstructing some of the assumptions around who can be included in research and what conclusions can be drawn from research. For example, in understanding the role of biology and behavior, we’re very, very cautious about saying something is caused by the brain or being overly deterministic. A lot of our work is pretty attentive to issues of representation and research and whose voice gets heard. [00:09:47] IN: What would you tell prospective students about the Clinical Psychology program and NSSR?
[00:09:59] WD: The Clinical Psychology program in particular and NSSR as a whole are really an interesting balance between innovation and a connection to history. In my graduate training, we had a complete disconnection from a lot of what was done before us. At The New School, one area where we excel is our intellectual history and knowing our trajectory. Here we talk about the same idea from multiple perspectives. I work with trauma. There are people in sociology and anthropology and politics and philosophy who are all doing work with trauma. Yet at another university, I wouldn’t know any of them. Our approach is pretty unusual. Additionally, I think most of the faculty here are very open to student ideas and to being shaped by their students. I mentioned earlier that I study cognition, emotion, social behavior, and physiology. That covers a whole lot of territory. That, in part, is because my students’ interests are broad. Most of the faculty here do a lot of integrating across disciplines that otherwise might be disparate. Things that are often not talked about together—politics and cognition or emotion and combat, for example— get brought together here.
