Master of Arts, Option in Psychological Research
The Master’s of Arts in Psychological Research (MAPR) program is designed to provide foundational graduate education in the content areas and research of general psychology to prepare for a master’s-level career or entrance into a doctoral program. All graduate seminar courses have an enrollment of 15 or fewer students which facilitates close communication and intellectual stimulation among participants. The program is designed to be completed in two years.
The Master of Arts in Psychology, Option in Psychological Research (MAPR) program is designed to provide graduate education in the content areas and research of general psychology in order to prepare students for doctoral work or for master’s-level careers. It is a two-year, full-time program.
The core seminars cover basic areas of psychology including cognition, learning, physiological/sensory psychology, social, personality, health, clinical, developmental psychology and quantitative methods. Students are required to complete a research thesis as their culminating experience.
Faculty work closely with students to provide training and hands-on cutting-edge research experience. This mentor/mentee relationship leads to co-authorships, conference presentations and laboratory experience that fully prepares you for either the doctorate or workforce route. See the “MAPR Faculty Mentors” tab for more details about their areas of research.
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IMPORTANT DATES FOR FALL 2023
- University and Department applications deadline: January 15, 2023
- Transcripts deadline: February 3, 2023
- Financial Aid CSULB Priority deadline: March 2, 2023
- First day of Fall 2022 Instruction: August 22, 2023
*Note: Due to COVID-19, the GRE General Test will not be required for the Fall 2023 application to all of the Psychology Department's master's programs. If applicants submit GRE scores, these will not be considered in our review of applications.
ADMISSIONS REQUIREMENTS
- You must have a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from a four-year accredited college or university, or a bachelor’s in another area and the equivalent of four lower division and eight upper division CSULB courses (please see Non-Psychology Bachelor’s Degree web page)
- Minimum undergraduate GPA of 2.5
- Prerequisite coursework must include the following CSULB courses (or equivalents, to be determined by Psychology Dept.):
PSY 310 (Intermediate Statistics; requires Introductory Statistics)
One of the following:
PSY 351 Social Psychology or
PSY 356 Personality or
PSY 361 Child and Adolescent Development or
PSY 363 Developmental Psychopathology or
PSY 365 Development: Emerging Adulthood to Aging
Two courses selected from the following. (Note that only one course may be counted from each section to fulfill the two-course requirement.):
Section 1
PSY 331 Sensation and Perception
PSY 332 Human Cognition
PSY 333 Learning
Section 2
PSY 336 Emotion (and/or Motivation)
PSY 337 Psychology of Happiness
PSY 378 Health Psychology
PSY 379 Psychology of Stress
Section 3
PSY 340 Physiology of Behavior
PSY 341 Neuropsychology
PSY 342 Psychopharmacology
APPLICATION
Download a MAPR Application Checklist
The following documents must be submitted via the CalState Apply website
*Attention Mac users: You must download Adobe Acrobat Reader to complete all fillable PDF forms for the application. Although Mac Preview appears to save the information correctly, the forms are blank when opened.
- University Application ($70 fee)
- MAPR Department Application for Admission
- (Note: MAPR Faculty Mentor List can be found below.)
- Essay
- MAPR Prerequisite List(Please refer to the MAPR Prerequisite Course Description page to fill out this form.)
- Last 60/90 Units GPA Computation Form
- Psychology GPA Computation Form
- Three Letters of Recommendations (Your recommenders will submit these letters. Instructions for submission are on the CalState Apply website)
- Unofficial transcripts from schools other than your Bachelor's degree-granting institution (see below) where you took Psychology courses. *Note: Applicants who took courses at CSULB must upload unofficial CSULB transcripts to their Cal State Apply application even if CSULB is the degree-granting institution.
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Submit official transcript from Bachelor's degree-granting institution:
Either by Mail:
Enrollment Services/Admissions
CSULB
1250 Bellflower Blvd.
Long Beach, CA 90840-0106
Or Electronically:
Official transcripts may be submitted electronically directly from a US college or university to ES-IDPTrans@csulb.edu
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*International Students: Please be sure to contact the International Education office for
university application procedures.
TUITION AND FEES
Please refer to the university’s webpage on Tuition and Fees. Tuition and fees will depend on each student’s residency status and semester unit load. Typically MAPR students take three courses (9 units) per semester, for a total of four semesters.
GRADUATE ASSISTANT (GA) POSITIONS
GA positions are available on a competitive basis. Successful Psychology applicants who accept a program offer and are eligible to work in the US will be invited to submit a GA application.
SCHOLARSHIPS AND FINANCIAL AID
Links to information about Scholarships and Financial Aid are listed here.
Candidates in this program are responsible for observing the general requirements stated in the University Catalog as well as requirements specified by the Psychology Department. Please email MAPR.PSY@csulb.edu for more information.
The MAPR Program features a 30-unit full time, four-semester curriculum, with a Thesis as the capstone project. Students must maintain both a minimum cumulative and program GPA of 3.0 and successfully defend their capstone project. Here is a PDF download of the MAPR Timeline
SAMPLE SCHEDULE
1ST FALL SEMESTER
- PSY 596 – Proseminar on Graduate Research
- MAPR Seminar
- Statistics or Elective
1ST SPRING SEMESTER
- PSY 696 – Research Methods in Psychology
- MAPR Seminar
- Statistics or Elective
2ND FALL SEMESTER
- MAPR Seminar
- Statistics or Elective
- Thesis (3 units)
2ND SPRING SEMESTER
- MAPR Seminar
- Remaining Elective (if any)
- PSY 698 – Thesis (3 units)
Curriculum subject to change
The following faculty are considering accepting new MAPR applicants into their research programs. It is strongly suggested that these specific faculty members be considered as potential mentors when completing Part D of the MAPR department application.
This procedure applies to MAPR applicants only.
Potential Mentors
Barbara Caplan
I study families of children with autism and other developmental disabilities and the delivery of evidence-based interventions and practices in community settings. My research seeks to promote equity in care for children with disabilities and their families by studying the use of culturally responsive and research-supported practices with traditionally underserved populations (e.g., families from low income and/or racial/ethnic minoritized backgrounds). To achieve this, I use community-partnered approaches and implementation science methods and frameworks. I have a particular interest in researching best practices for engaging families in their child’s care.
Maricela Correa
My research examines the organization of childhood and family life in communities that do not have a long history of participation of schooling. In particular I examine some of the ways that families organize teaching and learning in everyday family and community life and some of the strengths associated with these forms of learning. My work has centered on families that have historical roots in the Americas (Mexico and Central America in particular) as well as in immigrant families.
Gino Galvez
Dr. Galvez has played key roles as an investigator or lead program evaluator on several multi-year grant-funded research projects (e.g., National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Education). These research projects have focused on examining interventions that broaden participation in the STEM fields, low-income and underrepresented student success, first-generation status, undergraduate research training programs, the role of mentoring, and the development of noncognitive factors (e.g., science identity).
May Ling Halim
In my primary line of research I study how, across different cultural groups, children’s gender and ethnic identities develop from preschool to early elementary school. I also investigate what factors lead to differences in gender and ethnic identities, as well as what consequences are associated with them (e.g., intergroup gender attitudes, psychological adjustment). In my secondary line of research I study how forms of group-based discrimination (ethnic, gender, language) interact with one’s identity in affecting health and well-being.
https://homeweb.csulb.edu/~mhalim/index.html
Karissa Miller
My research focuses on the psychosocial determinants of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk, with a particular emphasis on the pathways (endocrine, autonomic) through which health disparities in CVD may arise. I am particularly interested in threat appraisal, and examining how individual differences in attention to threat might contribute to sociodemographic health disparities. This work involves examining whether social disadvantage is reflected in heightened attentional vigilance for threat, and testing whether computerized threat bias interventions might be used to improve cardiovascular health.
William Pedersen
My research is focused on factors that impact aggressive behavior and violence. I am interested in a variety of personality factors including trait rumination, narcissism, impulsivity, and religiosity. I have also investigated a variety of situational factors that impact aggression including collective rumination, priming aspects of religion, resource inequality, alcohol priming, personal control, and social exclusion. Please see my lab website for more information (http://www.aggression-irlab.com/).
Yada Treesukosol
Taste cues and feeding behavior. My research takes advantage of animal models to ask questions related to how oral signals (e.g. taste, smell, texture) send information to the brain to control feeding and drinking behavior. My approach is to use physiological procedures (e.g. pharmacology, electrophysiology, genetic manipulations) combined with behavioral measures (e.g. meal patterns, detection thresholds, preference). This allows us to begin to tease apart the relative contributions of oral stimulation, post-ingestive cues and reward-related mechanisms to eating behavior. Such studies contribute to efforts to reveal how the system is organized and in turn may also identify potential targets for therapeutic interventions for eating disorders and obesity-related complications.
Guido Urizar
My research in the area of Health Psychology has focused on how chronic stressors (e.g., discrimination, poverty, family instability, immigration stress) can lead to the intergenerational transmission of adverse health outcomes during critical periods of development, such as pregnancy. As such, my area of expertise is in behavioral medicine, with specializations in maternal and infant health, psychoneuroendocrinology, and disease prevention in underserved populations. Specifically, my research has examined how chronic stress and its biomarkers (e.g., cortisol, genetic markers) impact the health of low-income, ethnic minority parents and their infants. The central goal of this research is to reduce health disparities by identifying groups at risk for stress-related disorders and designing, testing, and disseminating effective health promotion interventions (e.g., stress management, exercise) aimed at regulating biological markers of stress in these underserved communities. Students in my PRO-Health research group are trained in salivary bioscience, developmental psychoneuroendocrinology, health disparities, and health behavior interventions as they continue on to doctoral programs and research careers. For more information about my PRO-Health research group, please refer to the following web site: https://csulb-gurizar-prohealth.com/
Amy Wax
My research interests broadly include diversity in the workplace, teamwork, and social network analysis. Currently, my stream of research investigates women’s issues and LGBTQ issues at work.
https://amymwax.wixsite.com/waxlab
Amy Wax CV
Arturo Zavala
Areas of interest include animal models of drug addiction and developmental neuropsychopharmacology. Specifically, my research investigates the short- and long-term neurochemical and behavioral effects of exposure to psychostimulant drugs across development (neonatal, adolescence, and adulthood), the impact that early exposure to drugs may have on the susceptibility to abuse drugs later in life, and on the role of serotonin in modulating the effects of drugs of abuse. My laboratory combines neurochemical, molecular, and pharmacological approaches with animal behavioral models to understand the neural basis of addiction.