PASAG, GIAN CARLO A.

BSRT I B

GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY 8:30-9:30, MWF, V311

FIELDS OF PSYCHOLOGY
Psychology is a huge topic and conveying the depth and breadth of the subject can be difficult. As a result, a number of different fields of psychology have emerged to deal with specific subtopics within the study of the mind, brain and behavior. Abnormal Psychology: Abnormal psychology is a field of psychology that deals with psychopathology and abnormal behavior. The term covers a broad range of disorders, from depression to obsession-compulsion to sexual deviation and many more. Counselors, clinical psychologists and psychotherapists often work directly in this field. Biopsychology: Biopsychology is a field of psychology that analyzes how the brain and neurotransmitters influence our behaviors, thoughts and feelings. This field can be thought of as a combination of basic psychology and neuroscience. Clinical Psychology: Clinical psychology is the branch of psychology concerned with the assessment and treatment of mental illness, abnormal behavior and psychiatric problems. Cognitive Psychology: Cognitive psychology is the branch of psychology that studies mental processes including how people think, perceive, remember and learn. As part of the larger field of cognitive science, this branch of psychology is related to other disciplines including neuroscience, philosophy, and linguistics. Comparative Psychology: Comparative psychology is the branch of psychology concerned with the study of animal behavior. Modern research on animal behavior began with the work of Charles Darwin and Georges Romanes and has continued to grow into a multidisciplinary subject. Today, biologists, psychologists, anthropologists, ecologists, geneticists and many others contribute to the study of animal behavior. Counseling Psychology: Counseling psychology focuses on providing therapeutic treatments to clients who experience a wide variety of symptoms. It is also one of the largest specialty areas within psychology. The Society of Counseling Psychology describes the field as " a psychological specialty [that] facilitates personal and interpersonal functioning across the life span with a focus on emotional, social, vocational, educational, healthrelated, developmental and organizational concerns." Developmental Psychology: This branch of psychology looks at development throughout the lifespan, from childhood to adulthood. The scientific study of human development seeks to understand and explain how and why people change throughout life. This includes all aspects of human growth, including physical, emotional, intellectual, social, perceptual and personality development. Topics studied in this field include everything fromprenatal development to Alzheimer's disease. Educational Psychology: Educational psychology involves the study of how people learn, including topics such as student outcomes, the instructional process, individual differences in learning, gifted learners and learning disabilities. Experimental Psychology: Experimental psychology is an area of psychology that utilizes scientific methods to research the mind and behavior. Experimental psychologists work in a wide variety of settings including colleges, universities, research centers, government and private businesses. Forensic Psychology: Forensic psychology is defined as the intersection of psychology and the law, but forensic psychologists can perform many roles so this definition can vary. In many cases, people working within forensic

psychology are not necessarily "forensic psychologists." These individuals might be clinical psychologists, school psychologists, neurologists or counselors who lend their psychological expertise to provide testimony, analysis or recommendations in legal or criminal cases. Health Psychology: The field of health psychology is focused on promoting health as well as the prevention and treatment of disease and illness. Health psychologists also focus on understanding how people react, cope and recover from illness. Some health psychologists work to improve the health care system and the government's approach to health care policy. Human Factors Psychology: Human factors is an area of psychology that focuses on a range of different topics, including ergonomics, workplace safety, human error, product design, human capability and human-computer interaction. In fact, the terms human factors and ergonomics are often used synonymously, with human factors being commonly used in the United States and ergonomics in Europe. Industrial-Organizational Psychology: Industrial organizational psychology is a field of psychology that applies psychological theories and principles to organizations. Often referred to as I/O psychology, this field focuses on increasing workplace productivity and related issues such as the physical and mental well being of employees. Industrial organizational psychologists perform a wide variety of tasks, including studying worker attitudes and behavior, evaluating companies and conducting leadership training. Personality Psychology: Personality psychology looks at the patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behavior that make a person unique. Some of the best-known theories in psychology have originated in this field, including Freud's psychoanalytic theory of personality and Erikson's theory of psychosocial development. School Psychology: School psychology is a field that works within the educational system to help children with emotional, social and academic issues. The goal of school psychology is to collaborate with parents, teachers, and students to promote a healthy learning environment that focuses on the needs of children. Social Psychology: Social psychology looks at a wide range of social topics, including group behavior, social perception, leadership, nonverbal behavior, conformity, aggression and prejudice. It is important to note that social psychology is not just about looking at social influences. Social perception and social interaction are also vital to understanding social behavior. Sports Psychology: Sports psychology is the study of how psychology influences sports, athletic performance, exercise and physical activity. Some sports psychologists work with professional athletes and coaches to improve performance and increase motivation. Other professionals utilize exercise and sports to enhance peoples lives and well-being throughout the entire lifespan. Industrial Psychology majors study psychology as it applies to the workplace: attitudes of employees and employers, organizational behavior, workplace environment and its effects, and much, much more. Youll study such things as personality, cognition, perception, and human development. Youll learn about the biological side of behavior (which means youll also really know what chemicals arent at proper levels in a person with a chemical imbalance). You might be given the option to take relevant business courses, such as management, since you will focus on organizational settings.

Engineering psychology is the science of human behavior in the operation of systems. Consequently, engineering psychologists are concerned with anything that affects the performance of system operators -whether hardware, software, or liveware. They are involved both in the study and application of principles of ergonomic design of equipment and operating procedures and in the scientific selection and training of operators. The goal of ergonomics is to optimize machine design for human operation, and the goal of selection and training is to produce people who get the best performance possible within machine design limitations.

 Psychopharmacology is the study of drug-induced changes in mood, thinking, and behavior. These drugs may originate from natural sources such as plants and animals, or from artificial sources such as chemical syntheses in the laboratory. These drugs interact with particular target sites or receptors found in the nervous system to induce widespread changes in physiological or psychological functions. The specific interaction between drugs and their target sites or receptors is referred to as drug action. The widespread changes in physiological or psychological function is referred to as drug effect. In psychopharmacology, researchers are interested in a wide range of drug classes such as antidepressants and stimulants. Drugs are researched for their pharmaceutical properties, physical side effects, and psychological side effects. Psychopathology is a term which refers to either the study of mental illness or mental distress or the manifestation of behaviours and experiences which may be indicative of mental illness or psychological impairment. The many different professions may be involved in studying mental illness or distress. Most notably, psychiatrists and clinical psychologists are particularly interested in this area and may either be involved in clinical treatment of mental illness, or research into the origin, development and manifestations of such states, or often, both. More widely, many different specialties may be involved in the study of psychopathology. For example, a neuroscientist may focus on brain changes related to mental illness. Therefore, someone who is referred to as a psychopathologist, may be one of any number of professions who have specialised in studying this area. Psychiatrists in particular are interested in descriptive psychopathology, which has the aim of describing the symptoms and syndromes of mental illness. This is both for the diagnosis of individual patients (to see whether the patient's experience fits any preexisting classification), or for the creation of diagnostic systems (such as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) which define exactly which signs and symptoms should make up a diagnosis, and how experiences and behaviours should be grouped in particular diagnoses (e.g. clinical depression, schizophrenia). Psychopathology is not the same as psychopathy, which has to do with antisocial personality disorders and criminality. Child psychology is one of the many branches of psychology and one of the most frequently studied specialty areas. This particular branch focuses on the mind and behavior of children from prenatal development through adolescence. Child psychology deals not only with how children grow physically, but with their mental, emotional and social development as well. Adolescent psychology is the field of psychology concerned with the normal and abnormal behaviour of adolescents. It includes mental processes as well as observable responses.

REFERENCES: http://psychology.about.com/od/branchesofpsycholog1/a/fields-of-psychology.htm http://www.princetonreview.com/Majors.aspx?cip=420901 http://www.hfes.org/Web/PubPages/adolescencehtml.html http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/p/psychopharmacology.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/p/psychopathology.htm http://psychology.about.com/od/developmentalpsychology/a/child-psychology.htm http://www.biology-online.org/dictionary/Adolescent_psychology

gcap 11/12/11