David Wall Rice, PhD

Born in Washington, DC, living elementary school years in Los Angeles, California and coming of age in Arlington, Texas, David calls on a diverse set of experiences in situating his work as an educator, writer and social justice advocate. 

David is associate professor of psychology at Morehouse College where he leads the Identity Orchestration Research Lab and serves as Co-Director of the College’s Cinema, Television and Emerging Media Studies (CTEMS) program. 

David graduated from Morehouse College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology, earned a Masters degree in Journalism from Columbia University and a Doctorate in Personality Psychology from Howard University.  He is also Embedded Journalist for The Gordon Commission on the Future of Assessment in Education, and is at work on his second book, Visible Man: Emcees, identity and the psychology of hip-hop narratives. 

David’s current research looks at identity and the self within the recast social context of the “Obama Era,” and the psychology of strength as informed by study in Israel, Haiti and Ghana.  An emphasis on “the positive” is an approach that informs David’s work  concerning youth culture, music culture, media, politics, psychology and faith. 

Identity Orchestration Research Lab

The Identity Orchestration Research Lab (IORL) at Morehouse College is committed to high caliber research through a strengths-based personality psychology lens.

The Lab explores expressions of identity balance through the authentic engagement of varied contexts and personal narratives. 

We utilize identity orchestration, conceptualized as the negotiated balance of identities (Rice, 2008; 2012), as a theoretical and methodological framework, and stress a transdisciplinary studies approach.

Developing a research scientist identity is the core expectation of members in our lab.  Both nomothetic and idiographic approaches to knowledge are stressed, and there is emphasis placed on the utilization of multiple worldviews.

IORL studies are designed to impact community in both broad and narrow spaces.  They are also positioned as opportunities for our researchers to develop critical thinking, reading and writing skills that will serve them in the deep study of psychology and beyond.