University of Southern California
Adolescents need imagination to adaptively navigate their expanding social worlds and to build and enact identities and strategies that move them toward attaining their desired future self. Here we integrate the expertise of the PIs in social-affective neuroscience, culture-as-situated cognition, and identity-based motivation perspectives/methods to develop and validate a working measure of social-emotional imagination quotient (ImQ) for adolescents and to provide an initial test of its susceptibility to school-based intervention among youths from various race-ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds. The project leverages Immordino-Yang’s ongoing longitudinal, cross-cultural neuroimaging and psychosocial study of low-SES urban adolescents funded by the National Science Foundation, and Oyserman’s established school-based interventions.
Researchers
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang is Associate Professor of Education, Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Southern California (http://rossier.usc.edu/faculty-and-research/directories/a-z/profile/?id=47). An affective neuroscientist and human development psychologist, she studies the psychological, neural and psychophysiological bases of social emotion, self-awareness and culture and their implications for development and schools (http://books.wwnorton.com/books/Author.aspx?id=4294985312). She completed her doctorate at Harvard University in 2005 and has since received early career awards from the AERA, AAAS, APS, IMBES and FABBS, the Cozzarelli Prize, and commendations for service from the U.S. Army, Los Angeles County and ABC Unified School District. She was elected president of IMBES starting in 2016 and serves as associate editor for Mind, Brain and Education and AERA Open.
Daphna Oyserman
Daphna Oyserman is Dean’s Professor of Psychology, Professor of Education and Communication and co-founder of the USC Dornsife Mind and Society Center at the University of Southern California (http://dornsife.usc.edu/daphna-oyserman). She examines how small changes in context can shift mindsets and so the perceived meaning of behaviors and situations with downstream effects on judgment and behavior, translating these insights into intervention (Pathways to Success Through Identity-based Motivation). Studied effects of mindsets include when the future starts, what difficulty implies, and whether people automatically perceive connections, hierarchy, or a main point. Honors include the Humboldt Scientific Contribution Prize of the German Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and two Best Scholarly Contribution Awards (Society for Social Work Research). She was a W.T. Grant Faculty Scholar and is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and the Society for Experimental Social Psychology.