Dr. Randall Osborne

Biography

Dr. Osborne received his Ph.D. in Social Psychology from The University of Texas at Austin in 1990. He successfully defended his dissertation in the Fall of 1989 while serving as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Luther College in Decorah Iowa. After serving two years as an Assistant Professor at Phillips University, Dr. Osborne joined the faculty at Indiana University East in 1992 and was tenured and promoted to Associate Professor in 1997. Dr. Osborne came to Texas State in the Fall of 2001 and served as Department Chair for 4 years. Randall created and is advisor for our undergraduate minors in Forensic and Sport Psychology and out Graduate Certificate in Forensic Psychology.

In a recent publication, Dr. Osborne described himself and his interests in the following way:

"As human beings, we share a tendency to ask "why" questions. We want to know, indeed, may need to know, why people (ourselves included) do the things they do. In my case, the "why" question always seemed to separate me from others, accentuating philosophical and personal differences with my father to more pedestrian debates concerning similarities and differences among and between people. When others were satisfied with such dismissive comments as "because that's the kind of people they are," I had always felt that explaining people (and situations) is much more complicated than simple summations suggest. In response, I charted a path that moved toward exploring impression formation processes in general, and the path from ordinary bias to directed hate in particular. As a parent, I can say that my son, Joseph, reminds me of the urgent need to understand and to deconstruct hate, and it is his willingness to learn from me and from others that reminds me of the silver lining of hope beneath the dark clouds of hate. Hate need not perpetuate."

Areas of Interest