The curriculum POP provides a training characterized by interdisciplinarity and advanced methodological research competence. The curriculum combines the study of the processes and structures of personality functioning and the study of contextual and organizational factors in explaining individuals behaviors during different phases of life-span or in different contexts/cultures. A special attention is also paid to the development and the evaluation of interventions promoting health and/or individual and organizational well-being in educational, organizational and healthcare contexts.
FEATURES AND AIMS OF THE POP CURRICULUM
The curriculum is aimed to provide advanced competence for the employability of practitioners in academic contexts or in public or private research centers. A special attention is paid to the study of psychological resources as important determinants of well being, adjustment and job performance.
The theoretical knowledge of experimental, quasi experimental, cross-sectional designs will be improved along with methodological competence concerning:
a) Longitudinal studies applied to individuals, families, educational, organizational and health contexts,
b) Evaluation of preventive intervention or intervention promoting well-being /adjustment in different contexts,
c) Cross-Cultural research.
Some of the main methodological issues addressed in the curriculum concern:
- Advanced longitudinal analysis applied to diary or panel studies,
- Multilevel Analysis in cross-sectional and longituinìdinal studies,
- Structural Equation models of cross-sectional, multi-level, multi-informant and longitudinal data,
- Cluster type Analysis (Cluster Analysis, Latent profile and Class analysis )
The main research lines of the curriculum are the following
a) Personality area
- Stability and change of personality across life-span
- Sef-Efficacy, emotion-related regulation and well - being
- Empathy, prosociality, and moral functioning
- Personality and scholastic/academic success
- Personality, family functioning and adjustment in adolescents and young adults
- Determinants of transgressive behaviors
- Promoting socio-emotional competence and prosocial behaviors in hyouths
- Prevention of risky behaviors in children and adolescents
- Promoting quality of life across life-span (elderly, pregnancy) and in ill people
b) Work and organizational area
- Personality and job performance
- Self-Esteem, personal and collective efficacy
- Engagement and burnout,
- Job insecurity, employability and job transitions
- Stress -job related and e safety climate,
- Organizational culture and emotional contagion
- Mindfulness and mindful organization.
- Psychological Capital
- Job Crafting and proactivity
- Self-Efficacy and moral disengagement in organizational contexts
Finally, across the different research lines, the POP curriculum aims:
• to train Ph.D. students to be future independent researchers by supporting their proactive role from writing scientific articles to grant hunting and grant writing
• to encourage inquisitive, creative and critical thinking through group interaction and cooperation
• to reinforce the interaction between partner laboratories by sharing knowledge and expertise and through researchers' mobility
The curriculum includes collaborations with other foreign universities that have signed exchange agreements with our PhD curriculum or our department or that collaborate on specific research lines. All PhD students will have to spend a period of research in one of the foreign universities that are partners of the agreement.
ADMISSION PROCEDURES
The admission test consists of two parts: 1) an evaluation of candidates’ cv and 2) an oral examination, in order to guarantee an adequate comparative evaluation of the candidates. Both the examinations will be held in English. The first part will concern the evaluation of candidates’ cv, publications, research experiences and a written research project on one of the following research topics described above. The oral examination will be an interview and it will be focused on previous research experiences and on the proposal of a research project on one of the research lines of the curriculum.
POP PHD CONTACT INFO: Any additional information concerning the POP Ph.D. curriculum and the application procedure can be obtained by contacting:
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Prof. Maria Gerbino - maria.gerbino@uniroma1.it (Coordinator curriculum POP)