Faculty Profile
Robert Ricco
Professor; MAGE Director
Ph.D., Temple Universtiy, 1987
Child Development and General Experimental Psychology Programs
Specialty in Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive Development
Contact Information:
Office: SB-535
Phone:909.537.5485
Fax:909.537.7003
Email:rricco@csusb.edu
Research and Teaching Interests:
Dr. Ricco received his B.A. in psychology from New York University in 1980 and his Ph.D. in developmental psychology in 1987 from Temple University. He was a post-doctoral fellow at the City University of New York Graduate Center from 1986 to 1988 and held the position of visiting assistant professor at Vassar College from 1988 to 1992. He has been a member of the psychology department at CSUSB since 1992.
Primary Research Program:
- Reasoning and language processes involved in the construction and evaluation of formal and informal arguments.
- Argumentation as dialectic, discourse, and social process.
- Dual process theories of cognition with special emphasis on analytical processes including metacognition, epistemic thinking, and deductive reasoning.
Secondary Research Program:
- Parent cognition including parent beliefs about knowledge, learning, and development, and parents' motivational goals and expectations for their children.
- The relevance of parents' beliefs, goals, and expectations for their parenting practices and for children's attitudes toward school.
Course Offerings:
Undergraduate
Critical Thinking through Problems Analysis (105)
Developmental Psychology (201)
Psychology of Middle Childhood (320)
Cognitive Development (358)
Social and Personality Development (384)
Advanced Seminar in Developmental Psychology (421)
Advanced Experimental Psychology: Developmental (431)Graduate
Advanced Cognitive Development (651).
Advanced Middle Childhood and Adolescent Development (646).
Graduate Seminar in Developmental Psychology (655).
Representative Publications:
Ricco, R. B., Schuyten Pierce, S., & Medinilla, C. (in press). Epistemic beliefs and achievement motivation in early adolescence. Journal of Early Adolescence.
Ricco, R. B., Sabet, S., & Clough, C. (in press). College mothers in the dual roles of student and parent: Implications for their children's attitudes toward school. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly.
Ricco, R. B. (2008). The influence of argument structure on judgments of argument strength, function, and adequacy. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 61(4), 641-664.
Ricco, R. B. (2007). Individual differences in the analysis of informal reasoning fallacies. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 32, 459-484.
Ricco, R.B., & Rodriguez, P. (2006). The relation of personal epistemology to parenting style and goal orientation in college mothers. Social Psychology of Education, 9, 159-178.
Ricco, R. B. (2003). The macrostructure of informal arguments: A proposed model and analysis. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 56A(6), 1021-1051.
Ricco, R. B., McCollum, D., and Schuyten, S. (2003). College mothers' academic achievement goals as related to their children's attitudes toward learning. Social Psychology of Education, 6, 325-347.
Ricco, R. B. (2002). Analyzing the roles of challenge and defense in argumentation. Argumentation and Advocacy: Journal of the American Forensic Association, 39(1), 1-22.
Ricco, R. B. (1997). The development of proof construction in middle childhood. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 66, 279-310.
Ricco, R. B., McCollum, D., and Wang, J. (1997). Chldren's judgments of certainty and uncertainty on a problem where the possible solutions differ in likelihood. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 158(4), 401-410.
Overton, W. F., Foltz, C., and Ricco, R. B. (1995). Proof construction: Adolescent development from inductive to deductive problem solving strategies. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 59, 179-195.
Ricco, R. B. (1993). Revising the logic of operations as a relevance logic: From hypothesis testing to explanation. Human Development, 36, 125-146.
Ricco, R. B., and Beilin, H. (1992). Operativity and the superordinate categorization of artifacts. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 54, 334-354.
Ricco, R. B. (1990). Necessity and the logic of entailment. In W. F. Overton (Ed.), Reasoning, necessity, and logic: Developmental Perspectives. Hillsdale, N.J.: LEA.
Ricco, R. B. (1989). Operational thought and the acquisition of taxonomic relations involving figurative dissimilarity. Developmental Psychology, 25, 996-1003.
Student Research Projects:
College mothers in the dual roles of parent and student: Implications for their children’s attitudes toward learning. (with Sarah Sabet and Cassandra Clough)
Epistemic beliefs, academic achievement goals, and self-regulated learning in middle school students. (with Sara Schuyten Pierce and Connie Medinilla)
A comparison between single and married college student mothers: The challenging roles and responsibilities of raising children while pursuing higher education. (with Yvette Trevino)
Other:
Dr. Ricco is currently serving as director of the General Experimental Psychology M.A. Program. The GE faculty are widely recognized for their research and their exceptional mentoring of students, many of whom have continued their education at prestigious doctoral programs in psychology. If you are interested in learning more about this program and its award-winning faculty, please contact Dr. Ricco.
