Personal Statement: A Career In Developmental Psychology

1. Why do you want to work in our lab as a summer intern?
I had always known that I wanted to work with children in whatever way possible – and throughout my college career I have studied educational policies, volunteered at schools, written children’s stories, and currently am creating a STEM game for children with a team. This is to some degree a result of my own dissatisfaction of how early development is handled in my home country of Taiwan, where studying is valued over almost every other aspect of childhood. In addition, I also know, as cliché as this sounds, just how important raising the next generation is for the future of our world. I have set my mind on pursuing a PhD in developmental psychology after I graduate, and hope to gain more research experience before I do. The Yale Cognition and Development Lab presents an opportunity for intensive research over summer, focusing on topics of how children and adults interpret the world around
Our lab does work both in cognitive psychology (with adults) and in developmental psychology (with kids). Do you prefer one or the other of these types of work? Are there any particular lines of work that the lab is doing that are of interest to you? (Note: It’s okay if you have no preferences here. This is just to direct your application to the relevant graduate students.)

I would definitely prefer to work with kids over adults, but am very open to both opportunities. In particular, I found the work on ownership assessment quite interesting, both for children and adults. I also really enjoyed reading the studies on the development for understanding causal relationships in the world, as it is a type of reasoning that seems quite fundamental to other skills that come later in life. Finally, I would love to work on any line of work related to morals or ethics, since this subject matter is highly interdisciplinary and allows for a lot of freedom and creativity in design due to the controversies that surround the