Funds are requested for support of three predoctoral and two postdoctoral trainees in Cognitive Aging in a Social Context at Brandeis University. The core training faculty consists of nine faculty members in the Psychology Department who form the nucleus of the training program, supported by affiliated faculty. Additional off-site training opportunities are made possible by the rich environment of the greater Boston area and the university's commitment to training and research for the benefit of older Americans. The goal of the program is to provide strong, integrated training in the cognitive and social psychology of aging, within a life- span developmental perspective. The training program, however, is designed to go beyond a simple focus on cognitive or social aging. Rather, our program is predicated on a belief in the critical need for graduate and postdoctoral training that emphasizes the intersection of cognitive and socioemotional factors, and the increasingly recognized importance of stress reactivity and stress regulation to health and cognition in adulthood and later life. Predoctoral trainees will be admitted through either the existing graduate programs in Social and Developmental Psychology or in Cognitive Neuroscience. Predoctoral students' progress and performance will be biannually evaluated by the procedures of the program in which they are enrolled, and by the training program core faculty. Postdoctoral trainees will have free access to all courses offered in the university and will work closely with a primary plus a secondary preceptor to foster the integration of cognitive, social, and health perspectives in their training. Training will be carried out in the laboratories housed in the Psychology Department and Volen National Center for Complex Systems at Brandeis University. In addition to the core faculty's focus on socioemotional, cognitive aging and health processes, considerable expertise also exists within the department and the Volen Center in social and developmental psychology, statistics, research methods, computational modeling, neuropsychology and cognitive science. We are thus able to draw on the expertise of colleagues throughout Brandeis University as well as within the greater Boston area through established collaborative arrangements that provide additional training opportunities.
This training program is designed to meet the critical need for the training of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in the intersection of cognitive, socioemotional, and health factors in adult aging. Completion of this training program will produce a cadre of scientists with the skills necessary to teach, and to conduct research, at the university- level for the betterment of health and cognition in adulthood and late life.
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