USC Dornsife Mind and Society Center

Home
United States
Los Angeles, CA
USC Dornsife Mind and Society Center

The Mind and Society Center is a research facility in the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

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 cont

ext 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.

02/04/2026

Congratulations to USC's new President, Beong-Soo Kim!

Visit USC on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/USC/ Learn more about the University of Southern California: https://www.usc.edu

12/18/2025

PSI CHI podcast with Daphna Oyserman, discussing difficulties of daily life from the perspective of identity-based-motivation theory.

Why do some challenges feel like opportunities while others seem impossible? In this episode, Dr. Daphna Oyserman explains identity-based motivation theory a...

07/30/2025

Congratulations to the PBS documentary "Possible Selves: Overcoming the Odds in Foster Care"! It won a 2025 Emmy Award! The documentary features Daphna Oyserman's research on possible selves and opportunities to work on them in the context of foster care. You can watch the documentary at this link.

Foster teens strive to graduate from college, a dream that only 3% of foster youth attain.

07/30/2025

Metaphors can guide how we think about things. This piece reports on work with Dave Hauser, now at Queen's University, Canada, in which we explored the influence of metaphors on healthy people's intention to engage in cancer prevention.

USC’s Norbert Schwarz: Viewing cancer as battle may actually hurt patients.

02/07/2025

How does cultural identity influence us? Mind & Society co-director Daphna Oyserman discusses her work in an interview with The Perception Box, a podcast that explores how each person's perception is influenced by their context and beliefs.

Our cultural lenses can expand our Perception Box or contract it, keeping us closed off to new opportunities. So how do we become aware of the personal influ...

Address

635 Downey Way, Verna And Peter Dauterive Hall
Los Angeles, CA
90089

Website

http://dornsife.usc.edu/mindandsociety/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when USC Dornsife Mind and Society Center posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.