USC Psychology: Affiliated Centers

• Mind and Society Center

  
  The USC Dornsife Mind & Society Center opened in August 2014 in the new Dr. Verna and Peter Dauterive Hall, an interdisciplinary social sciences building. Our research addresses the interface of individual and society by investigating how people think about societal issues and how societal context shapes individuals' thoughts and actions.  Understanding this interface requires insight into the context sensitivity of basic cognitive and affective processes, which we study in laboratory experiments and social surveys, and their real-world implications, which we study through field experiments and controlled interventions.

• Center for Economic and Social Research

  
  The Center for Economic and Social Research (CESR) is dedicated to discovering how people around the globe live, think, interact, age, invest, and make important, life-changing decisions. Our in-depth research and analysis are deepening the understanding of human behavior in a wide range of economic and social contexts.

• Center For Research on Crime

   

  
  The Center For Research on Crime aims to apply principles of social identity and social categorization theories to the pernicious problem of street gang affiliation among urban youth in the United States and Central America. A series of studies testing factors that may inadvertently promote gang association as well as factors that may help discourage gang association are underway. A spin-off from this effort includes the development of an assessment designed to identify youth at risk for joining street gangs that can be used to target prevention services toward youth most in need. Parts of this research take place in the context of regional efforts to prevent or suppress gang membership, delinquency and criminal offending. Applied contexts included in this work vary from neighborhood gang injunction policies to local gang prevention and gang intervention programs.