Stanford Psychophysiology Laboratory

The Stanford Psychophysiology Laboratory is a research laboratory designed for the study of emotion and emotion regulation. This laboratory is also a teaching laboratory, training advanced undergraduates, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, andvisiting scholars in the measurement and analysis of emotion and emotion regulation.

Join Us as an Undergraduate

Thank you for exploring the possibility of becoming involved in the Stanford Psychophysiology Laboratory. The success of this laboratory depends heavily upon the involvement of bright and motivated undergraduates and recent graduates, and we welcome your interest in this research and teaching laboratory.

Our ongoing research projects all focus on emotion and emotion regulation. These projects typically use multiple methods, and involve measures of physiological (e.g., blood pressure, respiration), behavioral, and experiential response domains. Getting involved in these projects is an ideal way to see whether psychology is for you, and if it is, to obtain the research experience and training that you will need to gain admission to psychology graduate programs or medical school.

As a research assistant in the Stanford Psychophysiology Laboratory, you will be working closely with other members of the laboratory (including graduate students, postdocs, and Professor Gross) on one or more of our ongoing research projects. Your involvement may include subject scheduling and running. In addition, you may be asked to enter data, help with data reduction using customized physiological data reduction software, data analysis, behavioral coding, preparing stimuli for projects, or doing literature searches.

Research assistant positions are typically volunteer rather than paid. Because of the extensive training involved in becoming a research assistant in our laboratory, we ask for a minimum of a 9 hour commitment per week, usually for at least two quarters.

Past research assistants have included a large number of Stanford undergraduates and recent graduates, many of whom have found it useful to register for credit on Axess (3 units). We also have hosted students from a variety of home institutions, including Yale, Cornell, and Princeton in the United States, as well as leading universities in Europe and Asia. If all of this sounds intriguing, please contact Professor James Gross to arrange an interview. He may be reached via e-mail at gross@stanford.edu, or by phone at (650) 723-1281. Thank you for your interest! We look forward to talking with you.

Join Us as a Graduate Student or Postdoctoral Fellow

Graduate students join the Stanford Psychophysiology Laboratory via the doctoral program in psychology. Within the psychology department, students are typically admitted either to the Personality and Psychopathology area, the Neuroscience area, or both. Postdoctoral fellows join the Stanford Psychophysiology Laboratory by making arrangements directly with Professor James Gross.

Graduate students and postdoctoral fellows pursue a range of topics in the areas of emotion and emotion regulation (see People for a list of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows and their research interests). Some students conduct experiments using autonomic and behavioral measures. Others focus on fMRI studies. Others still focus on individual-differences approaches to understanding emotion regulation processes. Graduate students and fellows take full advantage of the resources of the Stanford Psychophysiology Laboratory, the Psychology Department (which has many faculty whose research focuses on emotion), and the larger Bay Area. There are a large number of courses on emotion, emotion regulation, neuroscience, fMRI methods, and statistics at Stanford. and there is an active network of Bay Area emotion researchers.

Past graduate students and postdoctoral fellows have gone on to faculty positions across the States (see People for recent alumni). If you’d like to discuss the possibility of joining the Stanford Psychophysiology Laboratory as a graduate student or postdoctoral fellow, please contact Professor James Gross to arrange an interview. He may be reached via e-mail at gross@stanford.edu, or by phone at (650) 723-1281. Thank you for your interest! We look forward to talking with you.

Join Us as a Visting Scholar

The Stanford Psychophysiology Laboratory benefits immensely from hosting visiting scholars. Previous scholars (from the United States, Europe, and Asia) have visited for periods ranging from a few months to a year or more. During these visits, visiting scholars have initiated collaborations that have continued well after their departure, and have made full use of the rich resources available at Stanford and the Bay Area.

If you’d like to discuss the possibility of joining the Stanford Psychophysiology Laboratory as a visiting scholar, please contact Professor James Gross to arrange an interview. He may be reached via e-mail at gross@stanford.edu, or by phone at (650) 723-1281. Thank you for your interest! We look forward to talking with you.