3 How Psychologists Think About the Field of Psychology

In most of this unit we described how psychologists think about the world and how they discover knowledge about human behavior and mental processes. Here we turn our gaze inward, so to speak, and examine how psychologists think about their own discipline.

We, like many psychologists, were originally drawn to the discipline because of our observations and curiosity about everyday phenomena. Even now, we are continually fascinated by the events and behaviors that we witness daily. Even more so, we are intrigued by how these everyday phenomena fit into the discipline of psychology. The field of psychology is divided into several subfields; each subfield is concerned with topics that are loosely related to a set of similar everyday phenomena.

If you decide to become a psychologist, or more likely, if you decide to major in psychology, you will have to think about the discipline in a new way, too. Specifically, you will have to consider what career options are available to you.

This module is divided into two parts. One section describes the organization of the field, and the other section describes career options for psychology majors.

3.1  Psychology’s Subfields and Perspectives

3.2  Career Options for Psychology Majors

READING WITH A PURPOSE

Remember and Understand

By reading and studying Module 3, you should be able to remember and describe:

1. The major psychological subfields: biopsychology, clinical psychology, cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, industrial/organizational psychology, personality psychology, social psychology (3.1)
2. The minor psychological subfields: community psychology, consumer psychology, educational psychology, health psychology, human factors/engineering psychology, forensic psychology (3.1)
3. The main psychological perspectives: biological, cognitive, learning, psychodynamic, sociocultural (3.1)
4. Skills that employers value (3.2)
5. Common careers available to undergraduate psychology majors (3.2)
6. Career options for students with master’s and doctoral degrees in psychology (3.2)

Apply

By reading and thinking about how the concepts in Module 3 apply to real life, you should be able to:

1. Demonstrate how different classes are helping you are acquiring the skills that employers value (3.2)

Analyze, Evaluate, and Create

By reading and thinking about Module 3, participating in classroom activities, and completing out-of-class assignments, you should be able to:

1. Outline how psychologists from different perspectives might approach a specific research question (3.1)

3.1 Psychology’s Subfields and Perspectives

As students begin to learn about different disciplines in college, many are surprised to discover how complex the organization within each discipline can be. For example, think about biology. It is divided into several subfields, such as animal physiology, biochemistry, cellular biology, molecular biology, ecology, evolutionary biology, and neurobiology. The subfields are related to each other in complex ways, and several of them are related to other disciplines, such as medicine, biotechnology, and natural resources (and psychology).

Psychology is no different. It has several major and minor subfields, divisions of the discipline-based on topics. Some of the subfields are themselves divided into sub-subfields. In addition, some subfields are beginning to merge, thus creating new combination subfields. To give you an idea of the complexity, the American Psychological Association has 54 divisions; most are devoted to specific subdivisions or subfields. Altogether, the divisions in the field of psychology make an extraordinarily complex discipline.

That is not the end of the complexity, though. Psychologists who are interested in the same topics or who labor within the same subfields may adopt different perspectives. The division of psychology into perspectives provides an alternative way to organize the field.

Psychology’s Subfields

Psychology has a small number of major subfields, reasonably broad groupings of psychologists who are interested in similar topics within the discipline. The subfields correspond to the department divisions that you will find in a large university’s psychology department and to course names of many second and third-year psychology courses. They also correspond roughly to the major units within this book.

Here are descriptions of the subfields, along with some of the major topics covered in each:

Biopsychology (or biological psychology). Concerns itself with the biological underpinnings of behavior and mental processes. Biopsychology can hardly be called a subfield, however, as its content is distributed across the entire discipline. Any time psychologists are interested in the brain areas, brain and nervous system activity, physiological states, hormones, or evolution, they are working in the subfield of biopsychology.

Clinical psychology. Uses psychological theory to understand and treat psychological disorders and promote adjustment and personal development. Many clinical psychologists provide therapy to individuals; others conduct research and teach.

Cognitive psychology. Studies knowledge—what it is and how it is learned, understood, communicated and used. Cognitive psychology is the psychology of everyday thinking. It includes such topics as reasoning and problem solving, memory, language, judgment and decision making, and perception.

Developmental psychology. Examines how people change and how they stay the same throughout the life-span. Like biopsychology, developmental psychology cuts across all of the other subfields. For example, a developmental psychologist with an interest in biopsychology might be interested in what happens to children’s brains as they mature. A specialist in cognitive development might be interested in the differences in memory ability for children, adolescents, young adults, and older adults. A social or personality development psychologist might examine whether a personality trait such as shyness tends to change or stay constant throughout a person’s lifetime.

Industrial/organizational psychology. Applies psychology to the workplace. It is roughly divided into human resources topics and organizational psychology. Human resources topics include selecting, training, rewarding, and retaining workers. Organizational psychology is essentially applied social psychology. It is concerned with such topics as group functioning, leadership and management, motivation, and job satisfaction.

Personality psychology. Focuses on the characteristics of individual people, such as personality traits. Personality psychologists and social psychologists (see below) are interested in many of the same topics, so the two subfields are very closely related.

Social psychology. Seeks to understand how people think about, influence, and relate to one another. Topics of interest include aggression, prejudice, persuasion, romantic attraction, friendship, group processes, and helping behavior. Social psychologists have a particular interest in how situational factors influence these phenomena.

Some minor subfields are also important to know:

Psychological Perspectives

Psychologists who work in the different subfields tend to be interested in different phenomena or topics. For example, a cognitive psychologist might be interested in how information gets into memory, while a social psychologist might be interested in how stereotypes develop. At the same time, psychologists who work in particular subfields develop characteristic approaches. For example, cognitive psychologists tend to prefer experiments as their research method, and they (obviously) focus on the cognitive causes of behavior.

Division by topic is not the only way to organize psychology. Another way is on the basis of different perspectives, the approaches or lenses through which psychologists may view a single phenomenon. For example, consider the phenomenon of depression. The subfield that is most directly related to depression is clinical psychology, of course. Depression is of interest to psychologists in a variety of subfields, however, and it can be viewed through several perspectives:

Biological perspective. Similar to the subfield of biopsychology, the biological perspective seeks to explain psychological phenomena by discovering the biological causes, such as brain and nervous system activity, brain structures, hormonal influences, and so on. A psychologist who takes a biological perspective on depression might note that it is related to an irregularity in the neural transmission process, the process through which individual cells in the nervous system send chemical signals to other cells.

Cognitive perspective. Similar to the cognitive psychology subfield, the cognitive perspective seeks to explain psychological phenomena by discovering the causes that are related to patterns and styles of thinking. From a cognitive perspective, a psychologist might note that particular patterns of thinking, such as blaming oneself for failures, is related to depression.

Learning perspective. Many phenomena can be understood as examples of learning from experience. The learning perspective often focuses on observable behavior. A psychologist with a learning perspective might emphasize how a depressed person is rewarded for their passive behavior.

Psychodynamic perspective. In the early 20th century, Sigmund Freud developed the psychoanalytic perspective, which views human personality and behavior as a reflection of conflicts between hidden desires and social restraints. The original psychoanalytic perspective was extremely influential throughout the first half of the 20th century. It has developed into the modern psychodynamic perspective. This newer perspective retains the key assumptions about conflicts from the original psychoanalytic perspective but drops some of the more controversial aspects, such as Freud’s emphasis on childhood sexuality. A psychodynamic psychologist might emphasize how depression results from negative feelings left over from unresolved conflicts.

Sociocultural perspective. The sociocultural perspective examines the role of social forces and culture on psychological phenomena. An important piece of the sociocultural perspective is the cross-cultural view. It examines the role of culture on psychological phenomena by exploring the similarities and differences between people throughout the world. A psychologist who takes a sociocultural perspective might note that the decline in social connections that has affected the United States since 1960 correlates with the increase in depression over the same period. A psychologist taking a cross-cultural approach might compare rates of depression in different parts of the world.

No one perspective provides the answer to every psychological question. All can be correct simultaneously. Together, they give a more complete picture of a phenomenon than each perspective can alone. For example, in the study of depression, the answers suggested by all of the perspectives provide a much fuller explanation than any one perspective can by itself.

The Intersection of Subfields and Perspectives

To summarize (because the distinction between subfields and perspectives can be hard to keep straight):

• The organization of psychology into subfields reflects psychologists’ interests in different topics. Psychologists who are interested in similar topics work in the same subfield.
• The organization of psychology into perspectives reflects psychologists’ preferred approaches to studying a topic. Psychologists may be interested in the same topic but study it from different perspectives.

This book tends to be organized around subfields, grouping topics more or less the way professional psychologists do. But sometimes you can see signs of the psychological perspectives. For example, because the biological perspective has become so important in recent years, we often include a description from that perspective for a topic more often linked with a subfield like cognitive psychology or clinical psychology. Occasionally, particularly for complex and important phenomena, such as depression, we will draw from multiple perspectives.

3.2 Careers Options for Psychology Majors

Most of the people who read this book will not major in psychology. Indeed, out of the more than 1 million U.S. students who take General Psychology every year, only about 94,000, or at most 9%, go on to major in psychology (Goldstein, 2010; NCES, 2010). On the other hand, 94,000 is a very large number; psychology is a common college major.

In the event that you are one of the people who are intrigued by their first course in psychology and decide to make it your major (or have already decided to major in psychology), this section provides some information about what majoring in psychology will do for you in your future career and about whether an undergraduate degree or an advanced degree is necessary for success. Even if you do not major in psychology, you can use the information in this section to start thinking about how to make the most of your undergraduate experience and about the many different career options that are available for almost any major.

In preparation for writing this module, we previewed a well-known textbook in psychology (we won’t tell you which one because we are about to criticize it). In their section on career options for students with degrees in psychology, they devoted five times as much space to graduate degrees as they did to undergraduate degrees (and the pictures were better too). That might seem sensible at first, as there are more graduate degrees to talk about and it is the career path that many future psychology grads are interested in. The truth is, however, that the majority of students who major in psychology do not end up going to graduate school. By focusing on the graduate school path, nearly to the exclusion of the more common undergraduate-only path, textbooks contribute to one of the most damaging myths about the psychology major, that you have to go to graduate school to get a job. That has never been true, as you will see.

What Useful Skills Do Psychology Majors Develop?

Many types of employers, in many different fields, routinely hire psychology majors because of the skills they cultivate in pursuit of their degree. Eric Landrum and Renee Harrold (2003) conducted a survey of 87 businesses that hire psychology majors and found that a few of the most important skills are:

• Ability to listen
• Ability to work on a team
• Ability to get along with other people
• Willingness and ability to learn

More recently, many researchers have identified that these skills, along with several others are still essential for successful college graduates to possess. For example, the National Association of Colleges and Employers (2018) has identified the following top-ten skills that employers seek in college graduates:

1. Problem-solving skills
2. Ability to work on a team
3. Written communication skills
4. Leadership
5. Strong work ethic
6. Analytical/quantitative skills
7. Oral communication skills
8. Initiative
9. Detail-oriented
10. Flexibility/adaptability

Whether you end up majoring in psychology or not, you should look for opportunities to develop these kinds of skills. You should be aware, however, that psychology courses not only give you opportunities to practice these skills, as do many other college courses, but also often give you the theoretical knowledge to apply them in new situations.

Careers with an Undergraduate Psychology degree from A to Z

“You can’t get a job with a Bachelor’s degree in psychology.” That “fact” first surfaced for us back in 1982 when one of the authors was first considering majoring in psychology. It is still a common caution today. The only problem is, it is not true. Approximately 45% of psychology majors go on to earn a degree beyond a bachelor’s degree (Carnevale et al., 2015). That means a majority of psychology majors have a bachelor’s degree only, and clearly they do not all remain unemployed. Indeed, in an extensive survey of college graduates from 1993, the National Center for Education Statistics found that fewer than 5% of academic major graduates (including psychology majors) were unemployed in 2003, which was below the overall unemployment rate of 6%. Although social science majors began their careers earning below-average salaries, by 2003 many had caught up to—and in some cases passed—their peers who had majored in career-oriented fields, such as business (Choy & Bradburn, 2008). (More on this in a bit)

If you still do not believe us, we offer you, as more evidence, a list of careers you can have with an undergraduate psychology degree from A to Z:

• Advertising Assistant
• Benefits Manager
• Community Relations Representative
• Delinquency Prevention Social Worker
• Employment Agency Counselor
• Fund Raiser
• Group Worker (leads groups within social service sector)
• Human Resource Advisor
• Information Specialist
• Job Developer
• Keeper (of animals); this one might seem like a stretch, but a knowledge of animal behavior is essential in this industry. Some very important principles of human psychology also apply to animal behavior.
• Labor Relations Manager
• Market Research Analyst
• News Writer
• Occupational Analyst
• Personnel Interviewer
• Queen of a Small Country, but you might have to marry a King. OK, we admit it. we could not find a psychology-related position that starts with Q, but trust us, we could have listed about 20 more that start with P.
• Recreational Therapist
• Sales Representative
• Teacher; e.g., high school, but of course, you would need to obtain a teacher certification as part of your education.
• Union Business Representative
• Volunteer Coordinator
• Wage/Benefits Analyst
• X-Men; we reserve Wolverine (one of us went to the University of Michigan), but the rest of the spots are available. Again, we could not find a real occupation that starts with X, but unless you are interested in working with X-rays or xylophones, who could?
• Youth Corrections Officer
• Zoo Communications Researcher; seriously, one of us was almost hired for this position at the Brookfield Zoo (near Chicago), but we all have Ph.D’s.

The sources we used to compile this list were: Majoring in Psychology by Jeffrey Helms and Daniel Rogers (2011) and Occupations of Interest to Psychology Majors from the Dictionary of Occupational Titles, an online publication by Drew Appleby (2006). To find a couple of job titles, we consulted the US Department of Commerce’s Dictionary of Occupational Titles ourselves (and the zoo position is based on personal experience).

As you might have noticed from the list, a psychology major is an especially important route to jobs in the business world. Approximately one-third of social science majors who do not enroll in graduate school have careers in business ten years after graduation (Choy & Bradburn, 2008).

What About Pay?

Many students base their choice of major solely on the expected salary. We would like to caution you to be careful about choosing a major this way. For example, many students choose engineering because it is the highest paying major, and shun education because it is the lowest paying major. First, you should realize that money will likely not bring the level of happiness that many people expect it to (but that is a story for another module). The important point for this section is that these salary expectations are only estimates, or more technically, they are medians when a single number is given. So if petroleum engineers earn a median yearly salary of $136,000 over the course of their careers (which is true, Carnevale et al., 2015), it does not mean that all petroleum engineers make $136,000. It does mean that half earn more than that, and half earn less, sometimes much less (this is the definition of the median, remember). Suppose you choose a major for which you are ill-suited. Do you think that you will be among the high earners or the low earners in that field? Now, we are not trying to talk anyone out of majoring in engineering, or business. We are trying to talk you into choosing a major that suits you, one that will lead to a career that you will find meaningful and satisfying.

Let’s consider some actual numbers to drive this point home (from Carnevale et al., 2015). The bottom 25% of business majors earn $43,000 per year (averaged over the course of their careers). The top 25% of education majors (a famously low-paying major) earn $59,000. Students who major in business solely because it pays well but have no real interest in the field, stand a very good chance of ending up in that bottom 25%. On the other hand, students who pick a major that they love have a very good chance of being a top performer, and therefore, relatively high earner in that “low paying” field.

Liberal Arts Education

As the cost of a college education continues to increase, observers have begun to question its value in general. A common target of critics is the “Liberal Arts” education. A Liberal Arts education is a well-rounded education that cuts across many different disciplines, rather than one that focuses on preparing students for one specific career. History, humanities, philosophy, and psychology, for example, are generally considered Liberal Arts degrees. A business degree, on the other hand, is by far the most common career-oriented major (and the most common college major, period). Many observers (along with quite a few parents and students with whom we have spoken) believe that because college is intended to prepare students for careers, it should be focused on specific career training.

It is undeniable that business majors have an easier time getting their first job (Choy & Bradburn, 2008), but do not sell Liberal Arts education short. Research has found that social sciences, humanities, natural science, and mathematics majors improved the most during their college careers in critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing. Business, education, social work, and communications majors improved the least. In the first few years after graduation, students who showed the least improvement in these skills were three times more likely to be unemployed, and more likely to live with their parents and have credit card debt, regardless of their college major (Arum et al., 2011; Arum et al., 2012).

We should tell you that the main point of the Arum et al. research we just mentioned was that college students in general tend to improve very little in these important skills. So, whatever your major is, look for opportunities to develop and practice them. The researchers gave the following advice:

• Spend time studying alone (studying with a group, although useful for building relationships with classmates, is not very effective).
• Take courses with more reading (40 or more pages per week) and writing (20 or more pages per semester).
• Seek out professors with high standards and high expectations.

Returning to the value of a Liberal Arts education, the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University had a good way to answer this question. There are many colleges in the US that are considered Liberal Arts Colleges. They essentially offer only Liberal Arts degrees. The Center has developed a simple Return on Investment calculation consisting of Earnings over a Specified Period of Time – Cost of Attending. One key timeframe they focused on is 40 years. This would essentially be lifetime earnings for students who entered college right out of high school. The Center found that the median Return on Investment for the Liberal Art colleges was $918,000, which was substantially higher than the median for all colleges and universities ($723,000). They also uncovered a possible reason for the perception that Liberal Arts do not pay off. At ten years, the median Return on Investment for the Liberal Arts Colleges was $62,000, less than the median for all colleges and universities ($104,000) (Georgetown University CEW, 2020). So you see, you have to take the long view; these degrees will help you be successful in a future career. As we mentioned above, it may be a bit tougher to start, but the skills you will be learning will allow you catch up, and even pass up, many of your peers with other majors.

What About an Advanced Degree?

It is true that if you hope to be able to call yourself a “psychologist,” or to provide individual therapy to clients, then you will need an advanced degree (master’s degree or higher). As you have just learned, however, dozens of careers (or at least 26, which is technically dozens) exist for which an undergraduate psychology degree provides excellent qualifications.

So, what about the 45% of psychology majors who do go on to earn an advanced degree? Where do they end up employed? Even here, there are many more options than most people realize. Although about half of the psychology doctorate degrees are in clinical psychology or counseling, the other half are in the other subfields (Morgan and Korschgen, 2008). People with advanced degrees in the other subfields often end up employed in the same kinds of careers (at higher levels) as those with undergraduate psychology degrees.

About 21,000 students earn master’s degrees in psychology each year (Goldstein, 2010). These degrees typically take two years beyond a bachelor’s degree. Graduates with master’s degrees can often begin their careers at a higher level in many of the same areas that are available to students with bachelor’s degrees. In addition, a master’s degree is considered the minimum qualification that will allow you to provide any substantive one-on-one counseling or therapy. You can also teach at the community college level with a master’s degree.

If you earn a master’s degree in psychology, you cannot yet call yourself a psychologist; that title is reserved for people who have earned a doctorate. The two types of doctorate degrees are a Ph.D. and a Psy.D. To earn a Ph.D., a student attends graduate school for five to seven years beyond a bachelor’s degree. It is a research degree and provides training for conducting research and teaching at the university level and clinical training for therapists (if the Ph.D. is in clinical or counseling psychology). People with a Ph.D. in psychology also find employment in business as researchers, statisticians, or industrial/organizational psychologists. They also are employed by government and school systems (as a school psychologist, for example). A Psy.D. requires three to four years beyond a bachelor’s degree. It provides training for therapy only.

One last point about advanced degrees: Psychology is also a good choice for an undergraduate major if you plan to attend graduate school in some other discipline, such as business, law, or medicine.

Where Does Psychiatry Fit In?

A psychiatrist is an MD (medical doctor) that has specialized in the diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorders. It takes about 8 years after your undergraduate degree to become a psychiatrist, four years in medical school and four years as a resident. As physicians, psychiatrists are the only mental health professionals who are authorized to prescribe medications. Psychiatrists can also provide psychotherapy. Often, however, they work as part of a team with a psychologist who provides the primary psychotherapy.

As we have described, an undergraduate degree in psychology qualifies you for dozens of careers in business, mental health, and social services, as well as for graduate study in several disciplines (including, of course, psychology). To be sure, any college major that offers you a well-rounded education can likewise prepare you for many fulfilling careers. The key is to make the most of your undergraduate experiences. Do not consider your coursework a series of meaningless hurdles that you must jump over; consider them opportunities to gain skills that will help you throughout your career and your life. Try to see the value of all of your classes. Not only will doing so help turn you into a more attractive candidate when you eventually do begin your career, it will help make the classes more enjoyable now.