Dr. Vivian Dzokoto

Assistant Professor, African American Studies

Contact information

1000 W Franklin St., room 109
PO Box 842509
Richmond, VA 23284-2509
(804) 828-4925
(804) 828-1665 fax
vdzokoto@vcu.edu

Education

PhD (2005) in Clinical Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign

Biographical statement

Dr. Dzokoto received her PhD in Clinical & Community Psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and completed an APA accredited internship at the University of Michigan Counseling and Psychological Services. She is a licensed psychologist and health service provider in the state of North Carolina, and was an assistant professor in psychology at Fayetteville State University in North Carolina for 4 years.

Research interests

Dr Dzokoto's major interest lies in the application of quantitative and qualitative techniques to investigate the cultural grounding and somatization of emotion, focusing primarily on West African populations. A parallel line of research involves the exploration of the cultural grounding of money behaviors in developing economies. Other areas of interest include cultural clinical psychology, anxiety disorders, multicultural competencies in psychotherapy, cross-cultural transitions, and intercultural communication.

Representative publications

Dzokoto, V. (2010). Different ways of feeling: Emotion and somatic awareness in Ghanaians and Euroamericans. Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology, 4(2): 68-78.

Dzokoto, V, Mensah, C., & Opare-Henaku, A. (in press). A bird, a crocodile, and a 21st century cowrie shell: Analyzing Ghana's Currency Change. Journal of Black Studies.

Dzokoto, V., Young, J, & Mensah, E.C. (2010). A tale of two Cedis: Making sense of a new currency in Ghana. Journal of Economic Psychology, 31, 520 – 526.

Dzokoto, V., & Adams, G. (2007). Analyzing Ghanaian emotions through narrative: A textual analysis of Ama Ata Aidoo's novel Changes. Journal of Black Psychology, 33, 94-112.

Dzokoto, V., & Okazaki, S. (2006) Happiness as Eye-Get or White Heart: A comparison of somatic referencing in the emotion vocabularies of two West African languages. Journal of Black Psychology. 32(2), 117-140.

More publications [PDF]

Recent courses

Recent grants or awards