Branches of Psychology

As psychology has grown, it has split into a wide range of specialised fields, each with its own preferred questions, theories, and methods, though the boundaries between them are often porous rather than sharp.

Cognitive psychology investigates the mental processes involved in acquiring, storing, manipulating, and transforming information received from the environment, along with how that information is used and communicated -- chiefly attention, perception, memory, reasoning, problem-solving, decision-making, and language. Cognitive psychologists mostly work through laboratory experiments, though some follow an ecological approach that studies these same processes as they naturally occur outside the laboratory, and they often collaborate closely with neuroscientists and computer scientists.

Biological psychology studies the relationship between behaviour and the physical system that underlies it, including the brain, the rest of the nervous system, the immune system, and genetics, often working alongside neuroscientists, zoologists, and anthropologists. A closely linked field, neuropsychology, has grown out of collaboration between psychologists and neuroscientists studying the neurotransmitters (chemical substances) responsible for communication between different brain regions and, through that, for the mental functions those regions support; this research uses advanced brain-imaging technologies such as EEG, PET, and fMRI on both normally functioning and damaged brains.

Developmental psychology studies the physical, social, and psychological changes a person goes through at different ages and life stages, from conception to old age. Historically the field emphasised child and adolescent development, but an increasing number of developmental psychologists now focus on adult development and ageing, examining how biological, socio-cultural, and environmental factors shape characteristics such as intelligence, cognition, emotion, temperament, morality, and social relationships; the field draws in anthropologists, educationists, neurologists, social workers, and counsellors.

Social psychology explores how people are affected by their social environments and how they think about and influence one another, through topics such as attitudes, conformity and obedience to authority, interpersonal attraction, helping behaviour, prejudice, aggression, social motivation, and relations between groups.

Cross-cultural and cultural psychology examines the role culture plays in shaping behaviour, thought, and emotion, on the assumption that human behaviour is not only a reflection of biological potential but also a genuine product of culture, and so must be studied within its own socio-cultural context.

Environmental psychology studies how physical factors -- temperature, humidity, pollution, natural disasters -- interact with human behaviour, including how the physical arrangement of a workplace affects health, emotional state, and interpersonal relations; current research topics in this field include waste disposal, population growth, energy conservation, and the efficient use of shared community resources, all treated as genuinely behavioural issues.

Health psychology focuses on the role psychological factors such as stress and anxiety play in how illness develops, is prevented, and is treated, with particular interest in stress and coping, the links between psychological factors and physical health, the patient-doctor relationship, and ways of promoting health-enhancing behaviour.

Clinical and counselling psychology deals with the causes, treatment, and prevention of psychological disorders such as anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and chronic substance abuse; the closely related field of counselling instead aims to improve everyday functioning by helping people solve day-to-day problems and cope more effectively with difficult situations, often working with students on personal issues and career planning -- the day-to-day work of clinical and counselling psychologists overlaps considerably, though counselling psychologists more often deal with comparatively less severe problems. Psychiatrists study the same broad set of concerns, but hold a medical degree with specialised training in treating psychological disorders, and -- unlike clinical psychologists, whose degree is in psychology itself -- psychiatrists alone are qualified to prescribe medication and administer treatments such as electroshock therapy.

Industrial/organisational psychology deals with workplace behaviour, attending to both individual workers and the organisations that employ them -- training employees, improving working conditions, developing criteria for selecting staff, and, for example, recommending management structures that improve communication between managers and staff; psychologists in this field often come from a background in cognitive and social psychology. …