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Since Peter Minuit "bought" the island of Manhattan on May 24, 1626, Manhattan has emerged as a unique world center, both for commerce and for psychological science. Yet we find little published information today on the remarkable history of industrial-organizational psychology in Manhattan (Woroschinski & Takooshian, 2017).

Since 1939, the Metropolitan New York Association of Applied Psychologists (METRO) has thrived in New York City (Shapiro, Erickson, & Farmer, 2016). In 2017, METRO hosted a forum on " I-O Psychology in NYC: Its Fascinating History and Future." This segued into an expanded forum hosted by the Manhattan Psychological Association in 2018, where five experts with a combined 180 years of experience shared their impressions and unpublished information. This multiauthored essay shares our insights on developments in I-O psychology in New York City over past decades.

One important point that emerged from this forum was the unpublished but valuable information that becomes lost with time. For example, Virginia Schein (below) described her experiences in the 1970s, when executives were surprisingly resistant to her team's proposals for now-common practices like flex time and employee attitude surveys. To the extent that there are local I-O groups like METRO in over 30 cities around the USA, it may be eye opening for each group to invite a few elders to recall their now-forgotten experiences with younger colleagues and students, orally if not in writing, and perhaps share these with readers of TIP .

Melissa W. Search: The city of New York holds a rich history of experts and research in the field of I-O psychology, spawning renowned work that has influenced generations of students, psychologists, educators, and major corporations. However, these contributions were only discovered after years of challenging archival research, as information is scarce on these early influences in New York City. When I began doing my Honors research in 2016 on the history of I-O psychology in New York City, I found that there are at least six excellent histories of I-O psychology (three of them by New Yorkers). Yet there was no published article on this topic—not even a simple list of noted New York I-O practitioners or institutions, which I took it upon myself to develop. Moreover, I created a 20-item quiz as an exercise before my presentations at universities and professional groups in New York to stimulate discussion and see what students and colleagues already knew about I-O history (Woroschinski & Takooshian, 2017). Along with my archival research, I have had the honor of gaining first-hand knowledge by speaking with local I-O psychologists, who shared valuable but unpublished information—including the three esteemed I-O experts below.

Walter Reichman: Inside the AT+T Longitudinal Study. I have always been in awe of those psychologists who committed themselves to longitudinal research to study human behavior over time. I have been fortunate enough to be a part of two such landmark pieces of research, The Career Pattern Study conducted by Donald Super at Teachers College of Columbia University, and the Management Progress Study conducted by Douglas Bray and Ann Howard at AT &T. Both studies followed subjects for 20 years and I was lucky enough to be involved in the final year. If I were not a born, bred, and educated New Yorker who chose to continue living and working here, I would have missed this opportunity.

I was a research assistant on the Career Pattern Study at Teachers College. I was the same age as the 140 boys from Middletown, New York who were being followed, and I wrote my dissertation based on this data. Because the research was conducted at Teachers College, the results were almost always implemented in the educational processes of the country. One of the results of the study was the recognition that boys at age 15 are not ready to make career decisions, and this led to the abandonment of high schools dedicated to training boys for specific jobs and promoted general academic education in the high schools.

Dr. Super had been supported by government grants for 19 of the 20 years. In the 20 th year, his funding was not renewed. All the many graduate students reached out to collect data on the last year of the study. I had the opportunity to meet four of the “boys,” now age 35, and review their vocational history since they were 15. It was a fascinating learning experience on the process of vocational development. Two of them stand out to this day. Barely articulate at 15, one was a pilot on Air Force One and the other was a high-ranking FBI agent. The other two had good jobs and successful lives but not ones I can recall.

The Management Progress Study was conducted at AT&T on 240 young men who were entering management training programs. Two-thirds were college graduates and one-third had been designated as high potentials from within AT&T. They were given 3 and a half days of psychological testing, including personality, interests, cognitive, projective tests, and interviews. For this study, Doug Bray developed the Assessment Center, which was a major contribution to selection and promotion of managers. After the data were collected, the research team made predictions on the managerial level the men would achieve. The first predictions were found to be about 60% accurate. There were follow- up studies at 8, 15, and 20 years. I was involved in the 20th year follow-up, which was conducted at the luxurious Essex House Hotel on Central Park South in NYC. As part of the last follow-up, we showed the men their scores and assessments across the years and asked them to describe what was going on in their work and personal lives that influenced the change in their test scores. I heard interesting and meaningful life stories of the reciprocal influences of life, family, and career. At the risk of an oversimplification of the data, it seems that the greatest predictor of managerial success was the continuity of a high need for achievement. One interesting analysis were the scores on the Achievement and Affiliation scales of the Edwards Personal Preference Inventory. For those who were at the lower management levels, as the need for affiliation increased over the years, the need for achievement declined. For those at the higher ranks the needs for achievement and affiliation remained high and at (?) the expense of other needs.

Virginia E. Schein: Personnel Research Tales from the 1970s in New York City. I want to share with you a few tales about I-O personnel research in the 1970s in New York City. In those days, most I-O practitioners were in-house psychologists; that is we worked for large business organizations. There were I-O psychologists at J.C. Penney, Merrill Lynch, Equitable Life, Prudential, MetLife, IBM, and AT&T among others. After graduate school at NYU, I worked first at the American Management Association, then at the Life Office Management Association, and finally as director of personnel research at Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.

• Attitude surveys. Compared to now, most managers were very resistant to attitude surveys. It was an uphill climb to implement an attitude survey program. The Mayflower Group was founded in 1971 so that we could share data and have normative data to present to management. The first Mayflower Group companies were like Noah's Ark, two from each industry. There were I-O representatives from MetLife and State Farm, Xerox and IBM, Ford and General Motors, and so on. One of the most significant tasks for the 12 or so of us who were founding members was to develop and agree on 20 core items that we would all use in our surveys. It was a lengthy and frustrating experience, but we did it, and those items are still being used today.
• Flex time. MetLife was the first company in New York City to implement flexible working hours. That too was an uphill battle. Although it was popular in Europe, managers in the US were resistant to something like flexible working hours. At MetLife, employees worked from 9 to 5. If you were late, even 10 minutes, your pay could be docked. Supervisors would say, “If I don't watch my employees, they won't work.” I convinced senior management to test flexible working hours for 4 months in five different work units. My staff and I used a quasi experimental research design to measure the effects of flex time on productivity. Based upon the finding that flex time had no adverse effects on productivity, we were given the go ahead to implement flex time in the entire company.
• The law. In the 1970s, implementation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was an important focus of personnel research activities. For example, the 1971 Griggs v. Duke Power Co. Supreme Court case shined a bright light on minority populations and test validation, an I-O area of expertise. The 1973, the AT&T consent decree was also very significant. The EEOC charged AT&T with discrimination against minorities and women. In particular, this was one of the first cases that focused on women in management or the lack thereof. A settlement was reached in January of 1973. I do believe that almost every CEO in New York City was waiting by the phone to find out what that outcome would be. AT&T agreed to pay $15 million in back pay, mainly to women, and something like $23 million for future efforts to improve the situation. This decision, in particular the financial teeth behind it, spurred companies to implement programs to enhance the status of women in management, such as MetLife’s and IBM’s awareness programs.
• Gender . In the 1970s there were very few female I-O practitioners in the New York City area. In additional to myself, there was Pat Dyer at IBM and Mary Tenopyr and Virginia Boehm at AT&T and perhaps one or two others. I was the first woman to receive a degree in industrial psychology from NYU and the first female I-O president of METRO.

Looking back, it was an exciting time to be a practicing I-O psychologist in New York City. We were a collegial group and all doing interesting and for the time, cutting-edge research in our companies.

Allen I. Kraut: Why I belong to METRO. METRO (The New York Metropolitan Association for Applied Psychology) is the largest “local” organization of I-O (mostly) psychologists in the USA. It currently has about 215 active, paid members and a mailing list of 2,200. METRO meets monthly, about 10 times a year with a guest speaker, refreshments, and time to mingle.

I have belonged to METRO for more than 40 years. I kept showing up at meetings through my many years working at IBM and later while teaching at Baruch College, CUNY, and I am still a member. Once in a while, people ask me why. That is a fair question and one that deserves a thoughtful answer.

Some recent studies (Farmer, Shapiro, Sylvan, Zugec, and Whelan, 2015) show that the major reasons most people belong to local I-O groups (like METRO) are networking, professional development, fellowship and, of course, the particular topic (or person) being presented.

These same reasons account for me showing up at METRO meetings. I enjoy networking and the fellowship of my friends, and there has rarely been a meeting where I did not learn something useful.

When I first joined, METRO met in the Harvard Club, courtesy of a former METRO President, Henry Morgan of the Psychological Corporation. The club exuded classiness and old money. I loved the atmosphere. After Morgan passed away, we met in the Grand Hyatt and then at the Helmsley Hotel until their fees became unreasonable. Now we are comfortably at an NYU location; these changes testify to METRO's adaptability (and mine).

George Hollenbeck, a former METRO president who worked at Merrill Lynch much of his career, refreshed my memory of the early days with the following comments:

NYC had a big chunk of applied psychology in those days… including one of the early consulting firms, Richardson Bellows and Henry, and companies were using psychology...like IBM, GE, ATT, J C Penney, Metropolitan Life, Prudential in Newark, Equitable Life, ITT… The concentration of people in Manhattan meant that getting to meetings was easy.

Back in the 1970s, someone suggested that we have a sit-down dinner, with a speaker, on Groundhog Day. This became a tradition that lasted about 3 decades. Two guest speakers stand out in my memory:

The famed anthropologist Margaret Mead, whose work covered the sexual mores of tribes in the South Pacific, was a fabulous and entertaining speaker and left me with an important message. Namely, that much of social science reinvents the wheel because the researchers have not looked back in the literature to studies that have already shed light on what we are interested to know. That is a useful fact to remember.

At another meeting, soon after Arthur Jensen published some controversial articles on Black–White differences in intelligence, he was invited to speak at METRO. He started by apologizing for reading his talk, but said he wanted to say exactly what he intended to say.

As soon as he finished, several members of the audience attacked him for his statements, which they said were anti-Black. Each time he calmly answered, “I did not say that. Let me repeat what I said” and then he read from his paper exactly what he did say, which was often quite different from the accusation.

Those exchanges showed that controversial research can get very heated, and it is best to be prepared for follow-up discussions!

Many other meetings have been informative and gave members a great chance to meet old friends and make new friends. Exchanging news and professional gossip are also worthwhile activities.

Of course, our membership has changed somewhat, with a much smaller proportion from industry than in the past, and more people coming from consulting practices and academia. METRO’s vitality has survived many changes. It continues to adapt and to create experiences that are satisfying, thought provoking and helpful for professional growth, and I keep showing up.

Farmer, W. L., Shapiro, T., Sylvan, D. L., Zugec, L., Whelan, V. B., (2015). Have you joined a local industrial-organizational psychology group? If not, you may be missing out!  The Industrial-Organizational Psychologist, 53 (2), 148-157 .

Shapiro, T., Erickson, A. R., & Farmer, W. L. (2016). METRO: The Metropolitan New York Association for Applied Psychology: 76 years and still going strong!  The Industrial-Organizational Psychologist, 53 (3). www.siop.org/tip/jan16/pdf/metro.pdf

Woroschinski, M., & Takooshian, H. (2017, Winter). I-O psychology in New York City: Its global impact. International Psychology Bulletin, 21 (1), 42-46

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Psychology (BA)

Program description, honors program.

The Department of Psychology at NYU approaches the study of mind and behavior from many perspectives. Cognitive psychologists focus on perception, memory, attention, language, and thinking. Social and personality psychologists determine how social beliefs, attitudes, and decisions are formed and maintained. Cognitive neuroscientists study features and functions in the brain as they relate to certain mental processes. Developmental psychologists seek to understand factors that affect and influence individuals across various ages. These many perspectives are reflected in undergraduate course offerings, all of which emphasize the scientific basis of psychology.

In addition to its course offerings, the department encourages advanced undergraduates to become involved in faculty research through the Research Experiences and Methods course and the honors program. Highly qualified students are admitted to the honors program in their sophomore or junior year, take honors seminars, participate in primary research, and write an honors research thesis under close faculty supervision.

NYU psychology majors graduate with an excellent academic foundation in psychology and are well-prepared for graduate study in the field. Graduates are accepted by top programs throughout the country. Others go on to careers in law, business, medicine, and education.

The honors program provides students majoring in psychology an opportunity to engage in closely supervised yet independent research and scholarship. Honors prepares students for graduate-level work in psychology or such related professional fields as business, law, or medicine. The year-long program provides students with experiences and skills that may help them attain their career objectives. Students apply for admission to the honors program in their sophomore or junior year, with occasional exceptions for late transfer students. Admission is based on a minimum overall and major GPA of 3.65 and the ability to benefit from a program that emphasizes independent research projects and research seminars.

Honors students take the Honors Seminar sequence in either their junior or senior year: PSYCH-UA 200 Honors Seminar in the fall and PSYCH-UA 201 Honors Seminar II in the spring. An honors research thesis, usually an expansion of an ongoing research project in a faculty laboratory, is submitted for faculty approval near the end of the junior or senior year. Details and application forms are available from the department.

New York University's Office of Undergraduate Admissions supports the application process for all undergraduate programs at NYU.  For additional information about undergraduate admissions, including application requirements, see How to Apply . 

Program Requirements

General recommendations, graduate courses open to undergraduates.

The program requires the completion of 128 credits, including 40 credits of major requirements which must be completed with a grade of C or higher.

Note: Students who matriculated in and before Summer 2022 should follow the requirements listed on this website . See Major in Psychology (for Students Matriculating in and before Summer 2022) .

The foreign language requirement is satisfied upon successful completion through the Intermediate level of a language. This may be accomplished in fewer than 16 credits, but those credits must then be completed as elective credit.

Neither PSYCH-UA 10 Statistics for The Behavioral Sciences or PSYCH-UA 11 Statistics and Data Analysis for Research in Psychology can count for more than one major requirement.

Other quantitative advanced electives may be added to this list; please regularly check this Bulletin section online, and/or the website of the Department of Psychology, for new options. Quantitative advanced electives, if taken, do not count toward the general advanced elective requirement.

Quantitative advanced electives, if taken, do not count toward this requirement.

Note: The major must always be completed with ten courses (advanced standing credit may be applied to both or either of PSYCH-UA 1 Intro to Psychology and PSYCH-UA 10 Statistics for The Behavioral Sciences ). One course cannot be used to satisfy two major requirements (for example, both as a quantitative advanced elective and a regular advanced elective).

PSYCH-UA 1 Intro to Psychology  is taken first, preferably in the freshman year.  PSYCH-UA 8 Data Literacy for Psychology  or  PSYCH-UA 10 Statistics for The Behavioral Sciences  or  PSYCH-UA 11 Statistics and Data Analysis for Research in Psychology  should be taken next, as these courses lay the methodological groundwork for the research discussed in core courses; one of them must be among the first four psychology courses taken. Core A and B courses of greatest interest to the student should be taken as soon as possible as preparation for the related Core C laboratory course. Advanced electives would typically be taken last. It is advised that students complete Core C before taking advanced courses, preferably by the spring of the junior year.

Students interested in graduate training in psychology should become involved in research.  PSYCH-UA 996 Research Experience In Psychology  offers the opportunity to participate in faculty research, providing a supervised research experience as well as training in research presentation and criticism. This course can help students in deciding about career directions and can result in a faculty letter of recommendation for graduate school applications. While this course provides an opportunity to obtain course credit for participating in a faculty-led lab, it's not necessary to apply for the course to work in a faculty-led lab. Students can benefit from experience working in a faculty lab with or without concurrent course credit. Students interested in graduate school that involves research (e.g. a doctoral program) are recommended to obtain research experience in a faculty lab. In addition, students planning for graduate training and/or a career that requires strong quantitative skills may benefit from taking  PSYCH-UA 11 Statistics and Data Analysis for Research in Psychology  and one of the quantitative advanced electives.

Pursuing an interest in clinical psychology:  Students interested in graduate work in clinical psychology should consider some combination of  PSYCH-UA 30 Personality ,  PSYCH-UA 51 Abnormal Psychology , and  PSYCH-UA 81 Clinical Psychology  among their course selections.  PSYCH-UA 34 Developmental Psychology  is also an appropriate choice. The department provides special advisement for these students; contact the undergraduate program office for details.

Pursuing an interest in experimental psychology or industrial and organizational psychology:  If a student plans to pursue a research career (particularly in Core A areas), then in addition to the relevant courses in the major, courses in mathematics, chemistry, biology, physics, and computer science may be beneficial. If a career in business or organizational psychology is the goal, then in addition to  PSYCH-UA 32 Social Psychology  and Industrial and  PSYCH-UA 62 Industrial Organizat'L Psychology , courses in economics, sociology, and mathematics may be useful.

Certain courses in the Graduate School of Arts and Science are open to junior or senior psychology majors who have (1) permission of their undergraduate psychology adviser, (2) permission of the Department of Psychology (graduate division), (3) the additional specific prerequisites listed for each course, and (4) permission of the instructor. For further information, please consult the department and the Graduate School of Arts and Science Bulletin.

Sample Plan of Study

Neither course can count for more than one major requirement.

Chosen from a list of approved courses.

Chosen from a list of approved courses. Quantitative advanced electives, if taken, do not count toward this requirement.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of program requirements, students are expected to have acquired:

• An overview of the field of psychology with detailed exposure to a selected and balanced representation of quantitative, theoretical, and factual topics. 
• The academic foundations required for critical analysis and independent thinking.
• The ability to understand and communicate scientific and quantitative information.
• An understanding of and ability to apply the scientific method as related to psychological research, including quantitative tools, techniques and analyses, comprehending the content of primary journal articles, and research methodology.
• An understanding of psychology as both a theoretical and empirical science.

General Policies

Advanced placement in psychology and statistics, nyu policies, college of arts and science policies.

• To declare a major in psychology, students must first earn a grade of C or better in Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1).
• Developmental Psychology (PSYCH-UA 34) and Social Neuroscience (PSYCH-UA 35) can be selected by a student to count as either a Core A or Core B requirement (but not both).
• Credit toward the major is not granted for courses completed with a grade of less than C, or for courses taken on a Pass/Fail basis.

Entering students with a score of 4 or 5 on the AP exam in psychology receive credit for Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1) and may count it as one of the ten courses required for the major. The same policy applies to students with International Baccalaureate credit (a score of 6 or 7, HL only) or A-Level credit (a grade of B or higher) in psychology.

Entering students with a score of 4 or 5 on the AP exam in statistics receive credit for Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences (PSYCH-UA 10) and may count this toward the major's statistics requirement.

University-wide policies can be found on the New York University Policy pages .

A full list of relevant academic policies can be found on the CAS Academic Policies page . 

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Psychology (2022 - 2024).

Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1) or the equivalent is a prerequisite for all courses in psychology, except for Data Literacy for Psychology (PSYCH-UA 8), Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences (PSYCH-UA 10), and Advanced Psychological Statistics (PSYCH-UA 11). Some courses carry additional prerequisites, as noted below.

Introductory and Data Literacy/Statistics Courses

Introduction to Psychology PSYCH-UA 1 No prerequisite. Offered every semester. Cimpian, Knowles, Reed, Rhodes, Van Bavel. 4 points. Fundamental principles, with emphasis on basic research and applications in psychology’s major theoretical areas of study: thought, memory, learning, perception, personality, social processes, development, and physiological bases of psychology. Includes direct observation of methods of investigation through laboratory demonstrations and student participation in current research projects.

Data Literacy for Psychology PSYCH-UA 8  No prerequisite. Offered every year. Ma. 4 points. Equips students with a critical understanding of how behavioral data, statistics, and the results of psychological research are used and misused. Topics: lying with data, cognitive biases, Bayesian reasoning, coincidences, opinion polling, pseudoscience, the scientific process, academic publishing, navigating the scientific literature, types of data, experimental design, variables, the concept of a p-value, and the replication crisis.

Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences PSYCH-UA 10 No prerequisite. PSYCH-UA 10 and 11 may be taken in either order. Offered every semester. Bauer. 4 points. Focuses on computation and the application of statistical tools and techniques for evaluating data and interpreting results from psychological studies. Data description, significance tests, confidence intervals, linear regression, analysis of variance, and other topics. Utilizes both randomized experiments and correlational studies.

Advanced Psychological Statistics PSYCH-UA 11 No prerequisite. PSYCH-UA 10 and 11 may be taken in either order. Offered every semester. 4 points. A more theoretical approach that provides a deeper understanding of the aim and use of various behavioral statistical analyses and procedures. Focuses on the use of statistical tests, software used to analyze data, data visualization, and empirical methodologies .

Core A: Psychology as a Natural Science

Two Core A courses must be taken for the major, one for the minor. Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1) is the prerequisite for all Core A courses.

Perception PSYCH-UA 22 Prerequisite: Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1). Offered every semester. Landy, Maloney, Winawer. 4 points. Survey of basic facts, theories, and methods of studying sensation and perception. Emphasis is on vision and audition, although other modalities may be covered. Topics include: receptor function and physiology; color; motion; depth; psychophysics of detection, discrimination, and appearance; perceptual constancies; adaptation, pattern recognition, and the interaction of knowledge and perception.

Cognitive Neuroscience PSYCH-UA 25 Prerequisite: Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1). Offered every semester. Curtis. 4 points. Provides a broad understanding of the foundations of cognitive neuroscience, including dominant theories of the neural underpinnings of a variety of cognitive processes and the research that has led to those theories. Covers the goals of cognitive neuroscience research and the methods that are being employed to reach these goals.

Cognition PSYCH-UA 29 Prerequisite: Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1). Offered every semester. Hilford, Rehder. 4 points. Introduction to theories and research in some major areas of cognitive psychology, including human memory, attention, language production and comprehension, thinking, and reasoning.

Developmental Psychology PSYCH-UA 34 Prerequisite: Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1). Counts as a Core A or Core B but not both. Offered every semester. Adolph, Cimpian, Dillon. 4 points. Introduction of relevant theoretical issues and selected research. Focuses on infancy through adolescence. Lectures interweave theory, methods, and findings about how we develop as perceiving, thinking, and feeling beings.

Social Neuroscience PSYCH-UA 35 Prerequisite: Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1). Counts as a Core A or Core B but not both. Offered every semester. 4 points. Reviews theories and methods guiding social neuroscience and research examining the brain basis of social processes, including snap judgments; theory of mind; empathy; emotion; perceiving faces, bodies, and voices; morality; among others.

Core B: Psychology as a Social Science

Two Core B courses must be taken for the major, one for the minor. Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1) is the prerequisite for all Core B courses.

Personality PSYCH-UA 30 Prerequisite: Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1). Offered every semester. Andersen. 4 points. Introduction to research in personality, including such topics as the self-concept; unconscious processes; how we relate to others; and stress, anxiety, and depression.

Social Psychology PSYCH-UA 32 Prerequisite: Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1). Offered every semester. West. 4 points. Theories and research about the social behavior of individuals: perception of others and the self, attraction, affiliation, altruism and helping, aggression, moral thought and action, conformity, social exchange and bargaining, group decision making, leadership and power, and environmental psychology.

Developmental Psychology PSYCH-UA 34 Prerequisite: Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1). Counts as a Core A or Core B but not both. Offered every semester. Adolph, Cimpian, Dillon. 4 points. Introduction and overview of relevant theoretical issues and selected research. Focuses on infancy through adolescence. Lectures interweave theory, methods, and findings about how we develop as perceiving, thinking, and feeling beings.

Social Neuroscience PSYCH-UA 35 Prerequisite: Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1). Counts as a Core A or Core B but not both. Offered every semester. 4 points. Reviews theories and methods guiding social neuroscience and research examining the brain basis of social processes, including snap judgments; theory of mind; empathy; emotion; perceiving faces, bodies, and voices; morality.

Core C: Laboratory Courses 

One Core C course is required for the major. Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1) and either Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences (PSYCH-UA 10) or Advanced Psychological Statistics (PSYCH-UA 11) are prerequisites for all Core C courses. These courses have additional prerequisites as noted below.

Laboratory in Social and Organizational Psychology PSYCH-UA 38 Prerequisite: Personality (PSYCH-UA 30), or Social Psychology (PSYCH-UA 32), or Industrial and Organizational Psychology (PSYCH-UA 62). Offered in the fall. Heilman. 4 points. Acquaints students with research methodology in organizational psychology. They perform an original study, such as a laboratory experiment or research survey, in one of these areas.

Laboratory in Personality and Social Psychology PSYCH-UA 39 Prerequisite: Personality (PSYCH-UA 30), or Social Psychology (PSYCH-UA 32), or Abnormal Psychology (PSYCH-UA 51), or Industrial and Organizational Psychology (PSYCH-UA 62). Offered every semester. Balcetis, Gollwitzer, Knowles. 4 points. Methodology and procedures of research and exercises in data analysis and research design. Statistical concepts such as reliability and validity, methods of constructing personality measures, merits and limitations of correlational and experimental research designs, and empirical evaluation of theories. Student teams conduct research projects.

Laboratory in Developmental Psychology PSYCH-UA 40 Prerequisite: Developmental Psychology (PSYCH-UA 34). 4 points. Review of observational and experimental techniques for studying children. Requires a short-term study in a field or laboratory setting. Two presentations requiring a literature review and a proposed experimental design, with a report of the results of the study due at end of term.

Laboratory in Infancy Research PSYCH-UA 42 Prerequisite: Developmental Psychology (PSYCH-UA 34), and/or to be taken with a second semester of Tutorial in Infant Research (PSYCH-UA 992). Permission of the instructor required. Offered every semester. Adolph. 4 points. Part of a year-long research training program. General methods for studying infant development and specific methods for examining infants’ perceptual-motor development. Students design and conduct laboratory research projects, code and analyze data, and prepare results for presentation and publication (grant proposals, conference submissions, and journal submissions).

Laboratory in Cognition and Perception PSYCH-UA 46 Formerly PSYCH-UA 28. Prerequisite: Perception (PSYCH-UA 22), or Cognitive Neuroscience (PSYCH-UA 25), or Cognition (PSYCH-UA 29). Offered every semester. Gureckis, Hilford, McElree. 4 points. Experience and knowledge of empirically-based investigations into cognition and perception is provided. Students engage in class-designed experiments and carry out research projects. Students learn to formulate experimental questions, design and conduct an experiment, complete statistical analyses, write research papers and present a short research talk.

Psychological Science and Society PSYCH-UA 53 Formerly PSYCH-UA 300. Prerequisite: Perception (PSYCH-UA 22), or Cognitive Neuroscience (PSYCH-UA 25), or Cognition (PSYCH-UA 29), or Personality (PSYCH-UA 30), or Social Psychology (PSYCH-UA 32), or Developmental Psychology (PSYCH-UA 34), or Social Neuroscience (PSYCH-UA 35). Offered every semester. 4 points. Provides an understanding of the research process in psychology, starting with empirical investigations and proceeding to the communication of the research (e.g. through primary journal articles and popular media). Emphasizes critical review and analyses of methods, statistical examinations, descriptions, and claims and interpretations of scientific research.

Advanced Elective Courses

Two advanced electives are required for the major, one for the minor. All have prerequisites in addition to Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1), as noted below. A student who takes a quantitative advanced elective (identified in the course descriptions below) for the major requirement of "one additional quantitative course" cannot double-count the course as a general advanced elective.

Teaching in Psychology PSYCH-UA 2 Prerequisite: admittance by application only. Offered every semester. Hilford. 2 points. Students attend a weekly seminar on teaching psychology, as well as the Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1) lecture. Students put their training to immediate use by teaching a weekly Introduction to Psychology recitation.

Language and Mind PSYCH-UA 27 Identical to LING-UA 3 (formerly LING-UA 28). Prerequisite: Cognition (PSYCH-UA 29). McElree, Pylkkänen. Offered in the spring. 4 points. Introduces the field of cognitive science through an examination of language behavior. Begins with interactive discussions of how best to characterize and study the mind. These principles are then illustrated through an examination of research and theories related to language representation and use. Draws from research in both formal linguistics and psycholinguistics.

Practicum in Clinical Psychology Research PSYCH-UA 43 Formerly Laboratory in Clinical Research. Prerequisite: Personality (PSYCH-UA 30), or Abnormal Psychology (PSYCH-UA 51), or Clinical Psychology (PSYCH-UA 81). Offered every semester. Westerman. 4 points. Students complete a set of hands-on research exercises. Methods include correlational and experimental designs and observational procedures. Topics include: psychotherapy process research; case formulation approaches to psychopathology and therapy; theoretical perspectives that are employed in both research and clinical practice .

Linguistics as Cognitive Science PSYCH-UA 48 Identical to LING-UA 48 and LING-GA 48. Prerequisite: Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1). Offered every other year. Marantz. 4 points. See linguistics for course description.

Abnormal Psychology PSYCH-UA 51 Prerequisite: any Core B course or permission of the instructor. Offered every semester. Reed, Westerman. 4 points. The kinds, dynamics, causes, and treatment of psychopathology. Topics: early concepts of abnormal behavior; affective disorders, anxiety disorders, psychosis, and personality disorders; the nature and effectiveness of traditional and modern methods of psychotherapy; viewpoints of major psychologists past and present.

Introduction to Psycholinguistics PSYCH-UA 56 Identical to LING-UA 5. Prerequisite: Language (LING-UA 1). Offered every other year. McElree. 4 points. Theories and research concerning the cognitive processes and linguistic representations that enable language comprehension and production. Topics: speech perception, visual processes during reading, word recognition, syntactic processing, and semantic/discourse processing.

First Language Acquisition PSYCH-UA 59 Identical to LING-UA 59. Prerequisite: Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1). Offered every year. Cournane. 4 points. See linguistics for course description.

From Illusions to Inference PSYCH-UA 60 Prerequisites: Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1), and either Advanced Psychological Statistics (PSYCH-UA 11) or Calculus I (MATH-UA 121) or equivalent. Counts as a quantitative advanced elective. Offered every other year. Ma. 4 points. Examines illusions (visual, auditory, tactile, vestibular, and multisensory) to understand the central concept of inference in perception: how the brain constantly forms hypotheses about the outside world and tries to figure out which is most probable.

Industrial and Organizational Psychology PSYCH-UA 62 Prerequisites: Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1); either Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences (PSYCH-UA 10) or Advanced Psychological Statistics (PSYCH-UA 11); and one Core B course chosen from Personality (PSYCH-UA 30), or Social Psychology (PSYCH-UA 32), or Developmental Psychology (PSYCH-UA 34). Offered every year. 4 points. Psychology applied to the workplace; human behavior from the perspective of employees and employers. Analyzes the individual, the team, and the organization as a whole. Topics include employee engagement, satisfaction, identity, esteem, and career interests, as well as hiring, firing, and motivating and rewarding staff to increase performance and productivity.

Motivation and Volition PSYCH-UA 74 Prerequisites: Cognition (PSYCH-UA 29) and Social Psychology (PSYCH-UA 32). Offered every year. Oettingen. 4 points. Major research, theories, and findings. Topics: willpower and its absence, the psychology of goal setting and implementation, self-regulation disorders. Cognitive-neuropsychological and economic approaches.

Political Psychology PSYCH-UA 75 Prerequisite: Social Psychology (PSYCH-UA 32). Offered every year. Jost. 4 points. Comprehensive survey of political psychology— a dynamic sub-discipline at the intersection of psychology and political science. Topics include: historical development of political psychology; role of values in social science; authoritarianism and mass politics; personality and political leadership; mass media and candidate perception; individual and group decision-making; social identification; racial and ethnic prejudice; protest and collective action; revolution and terrorism.

Experiments in Beauty PSYCH-UA 79  Offered every year. Pelli. 4 points. Beauty is famously hard to study scientifically, but students in this hands-on laboratory course will each week formulate beauty-related questions and design and implement experiments to answer them. We also read and discuss one article or chapter each week from authors including Kant, Woolf, Berlin, Donoghue, Kuhn, Quine, and Wittgenstein.

Clinical Psychology PSYCH-UA 81 Prerequisites: Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1) and Abnormal Psychology (PSYCH-UA 51). Offered every year. Reed, Westerman. 4 points. Provides a broad overview of the field. Topics include: assessment and treatment of psychological disorders. Attention is devoted to psychotherapy, but early intervention, psychopharmacology, and behavioral medicine also receive consideration. Combines theory, research, and practice; uses illustrative clinical examples; and discusses current controversies.

Special Topics in Psychology PSYCH-UA 300 Topics determine prerequisites. Offered every semester. 4 points. Advanced-level seminars. Topics vary. Some courses offered can count towards the quantitative advanced elective requirement (i.e. Computer Programming for the Psychological Sciences, Computational Neuroscience, Decision Making).

Special Courses

Supervised Reading PSYCH-UA 993 Prerequisite: permission of the department. May be repeated for credit. Counts only as elective credit toward the degree if taken for less than 4 points. If taken for 4 points, students may seek permission of the department to count toward the major as an advanced elective. Hilford. 1 to 4 points per term. Independent study, which may include research, readings, and written work. Supervised by a faculty member. May be used for internship or other practical training (academic work is required to earn credits; average of two hours a week at internship per point). Students may take no more than 12 points of independent study and/or internship; no more than 8 points may be taken in any one department.

Research Experience in Psychology PSYCH-UA 996 Prerequisites: Introduction to Psychology (PSYCH-UA 1), Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences (PSYCH-UA 10), and permission of the department. May be repeated twice (a total of three enrollments) up to a maximum of 6 points. Hilford. 2 points. Students identify a faculty member sponsor in the Department of Psychology and complete work in a research laboratory under the direct supervision of the faculty mentor. Provides critical preparation for graduate study and develops students' skills in research; data management, analysis, and visualization; statistics; computer programming; grant and paper writing.

Honors Courses

Open only to students who have been admitted to the psychology honors program. The Honors Seminars (PSYCH-UA 200 and PSYCH-UA 201) may be counted as the two advanced electives required for the major.

Honors Seminar I PSYCH-UA 200 Prerequisite: admission to the honors program. Offered in the fall. 4 points. Recent studies and classical papers related to current controversies in psychology. Discussion of theoretical and technical aspects of each student’s thesis project.

Honors Seminar II PSYCH-UA 201 Prerequisite: Honors Seminar I (PSYCH-UA 200). Offered in the spring. 4 points. Students present preliminary results of their thesis projects and interpret their findings.

Graduate Courses Open to Undergraduates

Certain courses in the Graduate School of Arts and Science are open to junior or senior psychology majors who have (1) permission of their undergraduate psychology adviser, (2) permission of the Department of Psychology (graduate division), (3) the additional specific prerequisites listed for each course, and (4) permission of the instructor. For further information, please consult the department and the Graduate School of Arts and Science Bulletin.

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Research Entities/Labs/Projects

Applied psychology.

Advocacy and Community-Based Trauma Studies (ACTS) Lab  

The ACTS Lab is directed by  Alisha Ali, Ph.D.  Our lab conducts research on treatments and interventions designed to help groups and individuals who have experienced trauma, violence, discrimination, and other forms of oppression. We are currently conducting a series of studies on the DE-CRUIT program which uses techniques from theatre and classical actor training in combination with elements from cognitive and narrative therapy modalities to treat trauma in military veterans. These studies are supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Military Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association, the Humanities Council of New York, and the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund.

Chicago School Readiness Project

Launched in 2003, CSRP is a federally-funded randomized control-trial intervention, which included low-income, preschool-aged children living in Chicago. The aim of CSRP is to improve preschool-aged children's chances of success in school. CSRP targets young children's emotional and behavioral adjustment through a comprehensive, classroom-based intervention in Head Start.

CSRP is currently following the children from the original sample through high school, offering a rich opportunity to model children’s trajectories of both their self-regulation and behavioral health from preschool through high school. The study is also exploring the impact of the intervention on college and career readiness.

Chinese Families Lab (CFL)

The project draws from both the Nanjing Adolescent and Nanjing MetroBaby study, which are longitudinal, mix-methods studies with over 1100 Chinese families and children starting at 7th grade for the adolescent study and birth for the MetroBaby study. The project is led by  Dr. Niobe Way,   Dr. Hirokazu Yoshikawa ,  Dr. Sumie Okazaki,  and  Dr. Sebastian Cherng  from NYU, and is a collaboration across NYU, NYU-Shanghai, NYU-Abu Dhabi, University of Pennsylvania, and Southeast University in China. We are interested in how the changing social, economic, and cultural context influences Chinese parents' parenting practices and children’s development. The project has finished a ten-year follow-up from the MetroBaby project in 2016. Ongoing research papers under development include examining Chinese mothers’ and fathers gender socialization, adolescents' gender beliefs and their academic achievements, gender beliefs and friendship quality, parents' workplace climate and families' mental health, etc. 

Strengthening Connections & Opportunities for Learning in and out of Schools

The  CONNECT  lab at NYU conducts research to understand and strengthen contexts for learning and mental health in low-income education settings. We study natural opportunities for academic, social, and emotional learning via productive relationships and quality interactions.

Using social network approaches, we investigate and enhance connections among children, between children and non-familial adults (educators, practitioners), and among adults who work with youth. We collaborate with school and community partners to activate internal resources to support children with and without behavioral difficulties.

The long-term goal is to increase the likelihood that more young people will have the connections and opportunities they need to succeed in school and life.

The CONNECT lab is led by  Dr. Elise Cappella , Associate Professor of Applied Psychology at NYU Steinhardt and Director of the Institute of Human Development and Social Change. 

The Culture, Emotion, and Health Lab (CEH)

CEH is directed by  William Tsai, Ph.D.  The lab studies how people regulate their emotions, cope with stress, and how these processes lead to health and well-being. We focus our research questions on how cultural tendencies and values can shape the development and use of these processes. Our work is interdisciplinary, spanning across social, clinical, and health psychology. Recently, we have begun a line of research with ethnic minority cancer survivors, which is a population that experiences significant cancer health disparities. We are interested in applying cultural psychology theories with psychosocial interventions to overcome cultural barriers to reduce the undue burden of cancer experienced by ethnic minority cancer survivors.

Culture, Families and Early Development (CFD) lab

CFD is directed by Dr. Gigliana Melzi . Our research focuses on family practices and the role these play in young children’s early learning and development. In our scholarship, we adopt a collaborative research stance, working in partnership with families from culturally and linguistically diverse communities. Our goal is to identify and understand the unique ways primary caregivers, especially those from Spanish-speaking and Spanish-English bilingual families, support their young children’s early learning at home and at school.

Through our research, we aim to contribute to the current body of knowledge by centering culturally and linguistically diverse families’ voices and perspectives. The priorities of the CFD lab stem from our commitment to address systemic inequities faced by children from minoritized and marginalized communities.  Our work focuses on three main areas: Family Literacy Practices, Family STEM Practices, and Family-School Connections.

Exploring People in Context

The E.P.I.C. Lab (Exploring People in Context) is directed by Selçuk Şirin Ph.D., Professor in the Applied Psychology Department at NYU Steinhardt.  The primary focus of the lab is to better understand and to enhance the lives of marginalized youth, including immigrant-origin children in New York, Muslim youth in the U.S, refugees in Turkey and Norway, and students at risk in U.S schools.  Using empirical methods with development in context as a general framework, our mission is to better understand children’s and families’ needs and to arm professionals and policymakers with this knowledge to better address the needs of the most vulnerable.

The Families and Children Experiencing Success (FACES) Lab

FACES is directed by  Anil Chacko, Ph.D . The lab was developed to serve the families of youth exhibiting disruptive behavior disorders such as Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Oppositional-Defiant Disorder, and other conduct disorders. Its research aims to understand how to develop the most effective prevention, intervention, and service models for youth with disruptive behavior disorders and related conditions, or those at high risk for developing them.

Global TIES for Children

NYU Global TIES for Children is an international research center embedded within NYU’s  Institute of Human Development and Social Change (IHDSC)  and supported by the  NYU Abu Dhabi Research Institute  and NYU New York. Established in 2014, Global TIES for Children was developed to lead efforts in generating rigorous evidence to support the best and most effective humanitarian and development aid. To date, Global TIES for Children has secured a position at the front lines of advances in methods and measures for assessing child development and for understanding variation in program impacts at multiple levels in low-income and crisis-affected contexts. 

The Homeplace Research Collective (Homeplace)

The Homeplace Research Collective (Homeplace), directed by Dr. Lauren Mims, studies the brilliance of Black children and their families through community-engaged, child-centered Black child development research. The Homeplace Research Collective’s name is inspired by a bell hooks essay, “Homeplace (a site of resistance).” In the essay, hooks explains that for African-American people, having a homeplace meant having a place “to restore to ourselves the dignity denied to us on the outside in the public world.

Homeplace in hooks’ articulation and our research collective is a space where Black children and Black families are prioritized, valued, and affirmed. Homeplace is resistance. Homeplace is liberation. Homeplace is “where we can heal our wounds and become whole.”

Home School Connections Research Team

Directed by Dr. Adina Schick , the Home School Connections Team broadly addresses the socio-cultural context of children’s early literacy development, focusing on children from culturally and/or linguistically diverse backgrounds. Our work spans two main areas: (1) ways in which classrooms can incorporate culturally grounded family practices to support children’s school-based learning, and (2) discourse and linguistic features of early literacy home and school interactions, in particular oral storytelling and book sharing between teachers and the children in their classes, as well as between caregivers and children. 

The Infant Studies of Language and Neurocognitive Development  (ISLAND)

The Infant Studies of Language and Neurocognitive Development, directed by  Dr. Natalie Brito  is a developmental psychology lab interested in the impact of the social and language environment on early neurocognitive development. The ultimate goal of the lab is to understand how to best support caregivers and create environments that foster optimal child development.

Mindful Education Lab

Housed within the Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools, the Mindful Education Lab oversees two parallel but connected programs - research and teacher training. Our Mindful Research Lab looks at the psychological and neurological effects of mindfulness on student learning, teacher effectiveness, and school and classroom climate. This work, in turn, informs our Mindful Teacher Program (MTP), which offers professional development to schools by training educators (teachers, principals, school staff) in techniques to improve their lives both in and out of school. We also train high school students in mindfulness as part of the College Prep Academy, which prepares urban youth for success in college.

Educational interventions developed by Aronson and colleagues have been successful in boosting student achievement, well being, tests scores, and learning, and have been inducted into the Department of Education’s exclusive “What Works Clearinghouse,” a collection of school interventions of carefully vetted practices deemed worthy of using in America’s schools. Dr. Hill is among the nation’s most well respected and influential statisticians and methodologists.

Play & Language Lab

The Play & Language Lab, directed by Catherine Tamis-LeMonda, Ph.D.  studies children’s learning and development across the first years of life, with a focus on how social and cultural contexts influence the skills that children acquire and how they engage with their physical and social environments. Our observations of children and parents in structured tasks and the natural setting of their home environments, provide us with rich video records for detailed coding of children, caregivers, and context.

The Project for the Advancement of our Common Humanity (PACH)

PACH is directed by  Niobe Way, Ph.D . PACH is an emerging think tank, funded by the NoVo Foundation and based at New York University, that is designed to engage researchers, policymakers, practitioners, activists, educators, artists, and journalists in a series of conversations focused on what we have learned from science and practice regarding what lies at the root of our crisis of connection and what we can do to create a more just and humane world. Presently, PACH entails a public lecture series and monthly conversations with 50 senior-level professionals.

The Purpose Learning Action Young Children Lab (playLab)

The playLab is directed by  Jennifer Astuto, Ph.D. Their research designed to engage in the rigorous and socially responsible scientific examination of play in young children’s lives. We utilize randomized control designs, multilevel modeling, interviews and ethnographic methods to explore the unique context of play in promoting school readiness, learning and civic engagement for children who are growing up in poverty and/or are from immigrant families. By cultivating strong partnerships with the communities we work in, we generate empirically-driven knowledge that is culturally relevant and socially just. The playLab strives to produce actionable research and develop collaborations that are used to empower and strengthen the lives of young children through education and policy.

The Researching Inequity in Society Ecologically (RISE)

RISE is directed by Erin Godfrey, Ph.D.,  and  Shabnam Javdani, Ph.D . The team’s research and activities serve traditionally marginalized populations, focusing on health and mental health disparities in women and youth who are involved, or at risk of involvement, with the justice system. As such, the RISE Team takes a contextual, multi-level and interdisciplinary approach to systems change and implementing evidence-based practices promoting health and well-being, working closely with community partners to bridge the gap between research and practice.

SAFE Spaces: Systems Aligning For Equity

Developed in partnership with the NYC Administration for Children’s Services (ACS), SAFE Spaces uses evidence-based principles to provide training and coaching support for frontline staff working in ACS Close to Home (CTH) non-secure and limited-secure placement facilities.

Through unique skills-based staff training activities and guidance from a trained coach, SAFE Spaces aims to increase the professional development, job satisfaction, retention, and well-being in CTH staff who work directly with youth. By focusing on these staff outcomes and the environment in which they work, we also help to promote and encourage a healthier environment for youth’s lives and promote their safety, well-being and positive development. The efficacy of SAFE Spaces is being assessed through a cluster-randomized control trial supported by the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH). 

SMART Beginnings

The SMART Beginnings project tests a comprehensive approach to the promotion of school readiness in low-income families, beginning shortly after the birth of the child, through enhancement of positive parenting practices (and when present, reduction of psychosocial stressors) within the pediatric primary care platform. We do so by integrating two evidence-based interventions: 1) a universal primary prevention strategy (Video Interaction Project [VIP]); and 2) a targeted secondary/tertiary prevention strategy (Family Check-up [FCU]) for families identified as having additional risks.  Drs. Pamela Morris-Perez (NYU) , Alan Mendelsohn (NYU School of Medicine), and Daniel Shaw (University of Pittsburgh) have received support and funding for this project from the National Institutes of Health.

Strengthening the Architecture for High Quality Universal Pre-K (NYU UPK)

Since 2014, senior leaders in education research and practice at both New York University and the NYC Department of Education Division of Early Childhood Education (DOE-DECE) have fostered a research-practice partnership to support roll out of universal pre-kindergarten through Pre-K For All improving the quality of its programming. The purpose of this partnership is to provide quantitative and capacity-building solutions to educational problems faced by the DOE-DECE.