Fields of specialization in psychology

• TYPE OF PSYCHOLOGY: Origin and definition of psychology

Psychology is both a theoretical and an applied science. Psychologists use observational and experimental methods to reach a greater understanding of the human mind and human behavior. They then use this knowledge in a variety of settings to help people in their daily lives.

Introduction

Because the fields of specialization within psychology are so numerous, the science must first be examined as an entity unto itself. This involves defining psychology, exploring the reasons for its existence, reviewing its history, and surveying the diverse specialists who assist various populations. Although the semantics of defining psychology differ from text to text, the actual explanation remains constant: It is the science of human behavior as it relates to the functions of the mind. More specifically, it provides evidence for why people experience a gamut of emotions, think rationally or irrationally, and act either predictably or unpredictably.

The discipline’s very existence justifies humankind’s need to plumb the depths of its interior to search for the self, to process conflict, to solve problems, and to think critically as well as act pragmatically. Its challenge is to assist people in understanding themselves. Humans have a natural curiosity; it moves them to try to determine their relationship to the world in which they live. With this comes the inclination to observe and compare the ideas, behavior patterns, and abilities of other people. These analyses and comparisons, which people cannot help but make, involve the self as well as others. People may be either overly harsh or selectively blind when examining themselves; both these situations can be a handicap, and both can be helped by psychology.

At times, people’s anxiety levels may peak uncontrollably. Through the science of the mind, people seek to temper their agitation by becoming familiar with and acknowledging vague fears and uncomfortable feelings. Thus, they learn about the source of their tension. From this, experts learn how behavior originates. They assist people in learning to cope with change; people discover how to make adequate adjustments in daily living. The fast pace that humans in industrialized society keep requires them, more than ever before, to have a working knowledge of people—their thought processes and behavior patterns. From all of this, experts are able to arrive at reasonable predictions and logical conclusions about humankind’s future behavior.

History and Systems of Psychology

Psychology did not become accepted as a formal discipline until the late nineteenth century. Before then, questions were directed to philosophers, the wise thinkers of the time. Though they were versed in reasoning, logic, and scholarship, only a few of these thinkers could deal with the complexities of the human mind. Their answers were profound and lengthy, but these scholars frequently left their audiences bewildered and without the solutions they sought. Some of these logicians used the Socratic method of reasoning; they often frustrated those who questioned them and expected realistic replies. Inquires were redirected to questioners, whose burden it was to arrive at their own solutions.

Gustav Theodor Fechner, a nineteenth-century philosopher and physicist, postulated that the scientific method should be applied to the study of mental processes. It was his contention that experimentation and mathematical procedures should be used to study the human mind. From the mid-nineteenth century onward, many disciplines contributed to what was to become the science of psychology. Wilhelm Wundt and Edward Titchener were the leaders of the structuralist school, which identified the elements and principles of consciousness.

Other early giants of the field included William James and John Dewey. They inaugurated the study of functionalism, which taught that psychological knowledge should be applied to practical knowledge in fields such as education, business law, and daily living. A champion of behaviorism, John B. Watson, advocated that the study of psychology should concentrate on observable behavior; he urged that objective methods be adopted. The Gestalt movement was originated by Max Wertheimer. In concert with Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Köhler, Wertheimer embraced the premise that the whole may be different from its parts studied in isolation.

Psychoanalysis was developed by Sigmund Freud. He studied the unconscious using techniques of , , and body language. The neobehaviorist model, in contrast, defended the behaviorist position that complicated phenomena such as mental and emotional activities cannot be observed. Love, stress, empathy, trust, and personality cannot be observed in and of themselves. Their effects, however, are readily apparent.

Carl R. Rogers and Abraham Maslow pioneered the area known as humanism in the 1950s and 1960s. Areas of interest to humanistic psychologists are self-actualization, creativity, transcendence, the search for meaning, and social change. Its goals are to expand and enrich human lives through service to others and an increased understanding of the complexity of people, as individuals, in groups, organizations, and communities.

In the mid-twentieth century, with the development of cognitive psychology, mental processes such as attention, memory, and reasoning became the focus of direct study. This approach to understanding human thought analyzes cognitive processes into a sequence of ordered stages; each stage reflects an important step in the processing of information. In the 1980s and 1990s, the fields of cognitive science and cognitive neuroscience emerged. Psychologists began working with computer scientists, linguists, neurobiologists, and others to develop detailed models of brain and mind relationships.

Major Fields in Psychology

Psychology is a theoretical and applied science with a myriad of subspecialties. The American Psychological Association has more than fifty divisions, representing psychologists working in settings as diverse as community mental health clinics and large corporations, and with interests ranging from adult development and aging to the study of peace, conflict, and violence. Subfields of psychology are divided into clinical psychology, counseling psychology, applied psychology, research and experimental psychology. Typically, health-service-focused professions comprise about half of doctorates awarded each year, including clinical psychology, clinical child and adolescent psychology, behavioral and cognitive psychology, and counseling. Psychologists in the clinical specialties then use this knowledge to help people in their daily lives. Academic and research psychologists use observational and experimental methods to reach a greater understanding of the human mind and human behavior.

Children who are abused or neglected or who experience difficulties as a result of being members of dysfunctional families require the services of child psychologists, who evaluate, diagnose, and treat youngsters; this usually occurs in a clinical setting. Thus, child psychologists are considered clinical practitioners. Many psychologists also work in the area of education. Educational psychologists develop and analyze materials and strategies for effective educational curricula. School psychologists design instructive programs, consult with teachers, and assist students with problems. In the twenty-first century, addiction psychology gained importance in research and clinical psychology. Amid the opioid epidemic, understanding and treating addictions most effectively was critical.

In the first decades of the twenty-first century, it became increasingly important for psychologists to collaborate with professionals in other professions, such as the biomedical field, genomics, and addiction medicine specialists. As technology progressed and facilitated groundbreaking research in one field, such findings informed other related fields in important ways. For example, gene markers were increasingly able to indicate predispositions to mental health conditions, like addiction, depression, schizophrenia, or Alzheimer’s disease. Approaching mental health as a well-informed practitioner allows the best possible patient outcomes. Interdisciplinary collaboration allows a whole-body approach to psychology.

Genetic psychologists study the activities of the human organism in relation to the hereditary and evolutionary factors involved; functions and origin play a central role. Physiological psychologists examine the biological bases of behavior. They are often interested in the biochemical reactions underlying memory and learning. Engineering psychologists design and evaluate equipment, training devices, and systems. The goal is to facilitate the relationship between people and their environment. Industrial and organizational (I-O) psychologists research and develop programs that promote on-the-job efficiency, effectiveness, challenge, and positive disposition. They study ability and personality factors, special training and experience, and work and environment variables, as well as organizational changes.

Personality psychologists study the many ways in which people differ from one another; they are instrumental in analyzing how those differences may be assessed and what their impact is. Criminal psychologists study the complexities of a perpetrator’s thought process. They are keenly interested in a criminal’s habits, idiosyncrasies, and possible motives. Developmental psychologists study changes in people as they age and mature. Their work may be protracted over the span of an individual’s life; their theories may be advanced several years after they were first conceived.

Social psychologists study how people influence one another. They may be interested, for example, in the concept of leaders and followers. Environmental psychologists monitor the physical and social effects of the environment on behavior. They are interested in how elements such as heat, noise, health, and activity affect the human condition. Their contributions are in the areas of urban planning, architecture, and transportation.

Consumer psychologists determine factors that influence consumer decisions, exploring such issues as the effect of advertising on purchasing decisions, brand loyalty, and the rejection or acceptance of new products. Experimental psychologists design and conduct basic and in a variety of areas, including learning, sensation, attention and memory, language, motivation, and the physiological and neural bases of behavior. Comparative psychologists study the behavior, cognition, perception, and social relationships of diverse animal species. Their research can be descriptive as well as experimental and is conducted in the field or with animals in captivity.

Tests and Measures of Individual Differences

The scope of psychology’s fields of specialization is great. The professionals who work in these areas strive to help people know, understand, and help themselves. To accomplish this, psychologists use numerous tests to help them ascertain specific information about an individual, a group of people, or a particular population. Ability tests measure multiple aptitudes, creativity, achievement, and intelligence levels. Psychologists may perform occupational and clinical assessments. Also included in the area of assessment are personality tests, which encompass self-report inventories, measures of interests, attitudes and values, projective techniques, and performance and situational evaluations.

An example of a multiple-aptitude test is the Differential Aptitude Test (DAT), first published in 1947 and then revised in 1963, 1973, and 1991. Its primary purpose is to counsel students in grades eight through twelve in educational and vocational matters. Creativity tests have received much attention from researchers and practitioners alike. The twenty-year Aptitudes Research Project (ARP) was developed by the University of Southern California. It is a structure-of-intellect (SI) model that encompasses all intellectual functions. Though its initial platform was reasoning, creativity, and problem-solving, its base was expanded to divergent production. Until the ARP, research resources in this area were very limited.

Achievement tests, which differ from aptitude tests, measure the effects of specific instruction or training. Some of the most respected tests are the California Achievement Tests, the Iowa Assessments (formerly Iowa Tests of Basic Skills), the Metropolitan Achievement Test, and the Stanford Achievement Test Series. Their significance lies in reporting what the individual can do at the time of test administration. Aptitude instruments, on the other hand, make recommendations about future skills. Intelligence tests measure forms of intelligence; however, the scores given by the Stanford-Binet test and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale are only part of a big picture about any given human being and should be evaluated accordingly.

Personality tests measure the emotional, motivational, interpersonal, and attitudinal characteristics of an individual. The Kuder Interest Inventories list occupations according to a person’s interest area. The Rorschach Inkblot Projective Technique investigates the personality as a whole. The (TAT) researches personality and attitude. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is a widely used measure of personality dispositions and interests based on Carl Jung’s theory of types.

Psychology and Society

Psychology as a formal discipline is still relatively new; of its many specializations, some have found their way to maturity, while others are still in their early stages. The development of diverse fields has been justified by the changing nature of social and psychological problems as well as by changing perceptions as to how best to approach those problems. For example, because more people live closer together than ever before, they must interact with one another to a greater degree; finding ways to deal with issues such as aggression, racism, and prejudice, therefore, becomes crucial.

Economic conditions require most parents to work—whether they are single parents or parents in a two-parent family—thus depriving children of time with their parents. This has created a need for daycare centers; the care and nurturing of young people is being transferred, to a significant degree, to external agents. Moreover, older children may be expected to assume adult responsibilities before they are ready. All these issues point to an increasing need for family counseling. Educational institutions demand achievement from students; this can daunt students who have emotional or family problems that interfere with their ability to learn. The availability of school counselors or psychologists can make a difference in whether such children succeed or fail. Businesses and organizations use psychologists and psychological testing to avoid hiring employees who would be ineffective or incompatible with the organization’s approach and to maximize employee productivity on the job.

The specialized fields of psychology have played both a facilitative and a reflective role. Therapists and counselors, for example, have enabled individuals to look at what they have previously accomplished, to assess the present, and to come to terms with themselves and the realities of the future. The future of psychology itself will hold developments in refining existing specializations, collaboration across fields, and developing new specialties to meet society’s changing needs.

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