REU Site: Developing Social Minds

This project is funded from the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Sites program in the SBE Directorate. It has both scientific and societal benefits, and integrates research and education. This REU Site provides an intensive summer research program for first-generation undergraduate students, racial and ethnic minorities, and veterans, who have had limited access to hands-on research experiences.

This program will support them financially, intellectually, and socially while they work on research projects aimed at understanding the developing social mind. Students will be involved in research that will have far-reaching implications—for instance, mitigating gender stereotypes in STEM, understanding the evolutionary origins of social learning, and increasing diversity and representation in psychological samples.

The program will provide a network of support for each student, through pairing each student with three mentors (peer, senior lab member, and faculty member). By involving students from diverse backgrounds, this REU Site program stands to benefit Psychology and other STEM fields: as science only stands to gain from drawing on a broader talent pool and increasing the diversity of ideas.

This REU site program includes four labs at Boston College. The program recruits students from across the country who are underrepresented in psychological research to participate in a 10-week intensive hands-on research program in social cognitive development. The program has three main goals: to provide students with (1) depth and breadth in developmental research; (2) a multi-tiered mentorship network; and (3) sustained support in academia and beyond.

Students will gain in-depth, hands-on experience in all aspects of developmental research while being exposed to the breadth of social cognitive research through interactions with other labs and outside speakers. Students will conduct cutting-edge research, involving infants, children, adults, and even nonhuman animals (dogs), that will greatly contribute to our broader knowledge of human development given the interdisciplinary nature of the work being done by the four labs.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.