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Philip Hwang

Senior Researcher

Department of Psychology
Telephone
+46 31-786 18 43
+46 708-96 06 36
Mail
philip.hwang@psy.gu.se
Visiting address
Haraldsgatan 1
41314 Göteborg
Postal address
Box 500
405 30 Göteborg

About Philip Hwang

Biography

  • B.A. in psychology, 1975
  • Licensed psychologist, 1979
  • Ph.D. in psychology, 1981
  • Docent of psychology, 1984
  • Licensed psychotherapist, 1990
  • Professor of applied psychology, 1994

My teaching focuses on the following areas: (1) Developmental psychology, for instance the socio-emotional development of children and adolescence, parenthood, with special emphasis on fatherhood, identity development in adolescence and early adulthood; (2) Organizational culture and gender equity (for instance how family policy affects equality between men and women, the importance of the workplace for fathers taking parental leave). Supervision of doctoral students has also been an important aspect of my teaching, and close to 30 graduate students have completed their PhD´s under my supervision (for more information see my CV).

Research interests

My background is in clinical as well as developmental psychology. I am a licensed Psychologist and Psychotherapist and Professor of Applied Psychology at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. My research centers around child development, fatherhood and the linkages between gender, family, and work in post-industrialized societies. I am currently overseeing/participating in the following projects:

The Gothenburg Longitudinal study of Development (GoLD) that I started together with Professor Michael E. Lamb (University of Cambridge), in 1981/1982. GoLD is an ongoing 40-year prospective longitudinal study of Swedish participants and their families who have been followed from age one until recently when they were 40 years old. The subjects have been seen more than 20 times in a variety of social contexts, in their homes of origin, in out of home care, school and at the Department of Psychology, University of Gothenburg. GoLD has generated many Doctoral dissertations and close to one hundred publications mostly in international scientific journals. Since 2009, Professor Ann Frisén is the principal investigator of GoLD; Father involvement from Early Childhood to Adulthood (FIECA), is a project that is an outlier from the GoLD-project and is led by Associate Professor Maria Wängqvist. In this project father involvement over time is investigated; In the project Work, Family and Society, led by Professor Linda Haas (University of Indianapolis, USA) and myself the impact of the workplace on men's Involvement with Children is investigated. Since 1993, we have performed a series of studies in which we have studied the dynamic linkages between gender equity, work-family balance, and organizational change (together with Linda Haas). A fourth project concerns: Postnatal Depression, Anxiety, and Stress in Fathers: The overall aim of this project has been to learn more about depression, anxiety, and stress in fathers and how these symptoms can be identified during the postnatal period. The above-mentioned projects are and have been supported financially trough several research grants from the Swedish Reseach Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare (FAS/FORTE), The Swedish Research Council and Riksbankens Jubileumsfond.

Finally, I am involved in an extensive research program entitled The Gothenburg Research Program on Ethnic Identity – Increasing the Life Chances of Young People. The Principal Investigator of this program is Professor Ann Frisén, and it’s financed through grants from Sten A. Olssons Stiftelse för Forskning och Kultur and the University of Gothenburg. The overarching aim of this program is to better understand ethnic identity issues through a set of studies that use different methods, age groups, and informants, thereby providing different perspectives on the same topic. The combination of studies provides both real-world relevance and scientifically thorough evaluation. Taken together, the research program will provide new knowledge in young people’s circumstances and living conditions and how schools can, on that basis promote favorable development.

Additional information

For more information see: Gothenburgh Research Group in Developmental psychology (GRiD); see also Child & Family Blog