Explore the fields of psychology
What does each area study, how did it emerge, which methods does it use, and where is it taught and applied? Every profile rests on sources that were opened and checked, and says what those sources do not show. This is a broad, selected map, not a complete or official classification.
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Addiction psychology
The study of substance use disorders and other addictive behaviors, drawing on psychological, biological and social evidence about risk, course and change.
Health and care4 dated milestones
People: W. Miles Cox, Herbert J. Freudenberger, Daniel L. Yalisove
Interdisciplinary fieldRead the profile: Addiction psychologyAdult development and aging
Adult development and aging studies psychological continuity and change through adulthood, including cognition, everyday functioning and differences between individuals.
Development and learning3 dated milestones
People: K. Warner Schaie, Sherry Willis, Paul B. Baltes, Karl Ulrich Mayer
Core subfieldRead the profile: Adult development and agingAffective science
Affective science is the scientific study of emotion and related phenomena such as moods, stress, attitudes, valuation and motivation, pursued across several disciplines.
Brain and cognition2 dated milestones
People: James Gross, Lisa Feldman Barrett, Wendy Berry Mendes
Interdisciplinary fieldRead the profile: Affective scienceBehavior analysis
A natural-science approach to understanding the behavior of individuals. Its experimental and applied research appear in separate journals, and ABAI serves as a membership organization for the field.
Development and learning4 dated milestones
People: Donald M. Baer, Montrose M. Wolf, Todd R. Risley, B. F. Skinner
Methodological traditionRead the profile: Behavior analysisBehavioral genetics
Behavioral genetics studies how genetic and environmental differences among people relate to differences in behavior, mainly through twin, family and adoption designs and gene-finding studies.
Brain and cognition1 dated milestone
People: Thomas J. Bouchard, Matt McGue, Eric Turkheimer
Interdisciplinary fieldRead the profile: Behavioral geneticsBehavioral neuroscience
Behavioral neuroscience studies how nervous systems produce behavior and change through experience, connecting behavioral evidence with biological mechanisms.
Brain and cognition1 dated milestone
People: Mark Rosenzweig, Ed Bennett, David Krech, Marian Diamond
Core subfieldRead the profile: Behavioral neuroscienceChild and adolescent development
Research on development from before birth through adolescence, carried by two research societies and SRCD's journal Child Development. It is a research focus, not a clinical credential.
Development and learning5 dated milestones
People: Hershel Thornburg, Ellen Thornburg, Robert S. Woodworth
Interdisciplinary fieldRead the profile: Child and adolescent developmentClinical child and adolescent psychology
A professional specialty that applies clinical psychology, together with knowledge of child, adolescent and family development, to the assessment, prevention and treatment of problems in young people.
Health and care5 dated milestones
People: Alan O. Ross, Gertrude Williams, John Weisz
Professional specialtyRead the profile: Clinical child and adolescent psychologyClinical neuropsychology
Clinical neuropsychology is the applied specialty of psychologists trained in the science of brain-behavior relationships, documented here mainly through training and recognition statements.
Health and care4 dated milestones
People: H. Julia Hannay
Professional specialtyRead the profile: Clinical neuropsychologyClinical psychology
Clinical psychology connects psychological research with assessment and treatment, including the evaluation and delivery of interventions for mental health problems.
Health and care2 dated milestones
People: Lightner Witmer
Professional specialtyRead the profile: Clinical psychologyCognitive neuroscience
Cognitive neuroscience is described by the Cognitive Neuroscience Society as an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the nature of thought through mind and brain research.
Brain and cognition
People: Michael S. Gazzaniga, George A. Miller
Interdisciplinary fieldRead the profile: Cognitive neuroscienceCognitive psychology
Cognitive psychology studies mental processes such as perception, attention, problem solving and remembering, mainly through experiments with human participants.
Brain and cognition3 dated milestones
People: Ulric Neisser, George A. Miller
Core subfieldRead the profile: Cognitive psychologyCommunity psychology
Community psychology looks beyond individual factors to the social, cultural, economic, political and environmental forces that shape people, and aims to promote health and empowerment and prevent problems through collaboration and action-oriented research.
Social life and culture1 dated milestone
Interdisciplinary fieldRead the profile: Community psychologyComparative psychology
Comparative psychology studies behavior and cognition across species, using experiments and observation to examine similarities, differences and their contexts.
Brain and cognition3 dated milestones
People: Edward L. Thorndike
Core subfieldRead the profile: Comparative psychologyComputational psychology
Computational psychology develops explicit computational models of psychological processes and compares them with behavioral evidence. University programs connect it with mathematics, statistics, and experimental research.
Foundations and methods1 dated milestone
People: Ron Sun
Methodological traditionRead the profile: Computational psychologyConservation psychology
Conservation psychology studies the reciprocal relationships between humans and the rest of nature, with a focus on encouraging conservation. It was proposed as a field in 2003 and overlaps with environmental psychology.
Law, environment, and public life2 dated milestones
People: Carol D. Saunders
Interdisciplinary fieldRead the profile: Conservation psychologyConsumer psychology
Consumer psychology studies the psychological processes underlying consumer judgment and behavior, including attention, attitudes, decisions, social influences, and responses to marketing.
Work, technology, and performance3 dated milestones
Interdisciplinary fieldRead the profile: Consumer psychologyCounseling psychology
Counseling psychology is an applied specialty that, in the Society of Counseling Psychology's description, promotes personal, educational, vocational and group adjustment in a variety of settings.
Health and care1 dated milestone
Professional specialtyRead the profile: Counseling psychologyCouple and family psychology
A specialty that treats relationships among couples, families and wider systems as the unit of assessment, treatment and research, using a systemic view of behavior.
Health and care4 dated milestones
People: Gregory Bateson, Jay Haley, John Weakland, Don Jackson and others
Professional specialtyRead the profile: Couple and family psychologyCross-cultural psychology
Cross-cultural psychology studies similarities and differences in individual psychological functioning across cultural and ethnocultural groups, and links psychological variables to sociocultural, ecological and biological ones.
Social life and culture5 dated milestones
People: Robert D. Meade, Walter J. Lonner
Interdisciplinary fieldRead the profile: Cross-cultural psychologyCultural psychology
Cultural psychology studies how cultural traditions and social practices shape the human psyche. Its own authors distinguish it from cross-cultural psychology, though other sources place it inside that field.
Social life and culture1 dated milestone
People: Richard A. Shweder, Michael Cole
Interdisciplinary fieldRead the profile: Cultural psychologyCyberpsychology
The study of how people think, feel and act in digital environments and through technology. Sources describe it as a young area with journals, a handbook and master's programs.
Work, technology, and performance3 dated milestones
People: Julie R. Ancis
Interdisciplinary fieldRead the profile: CyberpsychologyDevelopmental disabilities research
Interdisciplinary research on intellectual and developmental disabilities, spanning genomics, neuroimaging, behavioral phenotyping and the study of adaptive behavior.
Development and learning2 dated milestones
Interdisciplinary fieldRead the profile: Developmental disabilities researchDevelopmental psychology
The study of how people change over time. Its main research society, SRCD, draws members from psychology, anthropology, education, neuroscience, economics and other disciplines.
Development and learning6 dated milestones
People: Charles Darwin, Robert S. Woodworth, Paul B. Baltes
Core subfieldRead the profile: Developmental psychologyEconomic psychology and decision science
The study of how people make judgments and decisions, including economic behavior, pursued by psychologists together with economists and other researchers.
Work, technology, and performance2 dated milestones
People: James C. Shanteau
Interdisciplinary fieldRead the profile: Economic psychology and decision scienceEducational psychology
The scientific study of how people learn, are motivated, interact socially and develop in educational settings. It is a research area, separate from school psychology practice.
Development and learning2 dated milestones
People: Edward L. Thorndike, Barry J. Zimmerman, Dale H. Schunk
Core subfieldRead the profile: Educational psychologyEnvironmental psychology
Environmental psychology studies the relationship between people and their physical surroundings, both built and natural.
Law, environment, and public life5 dated milestones
People: William Ittelson, Harold Proshansky, Terence Lee, David Canter
Interdisciplinary fieldRead the profile: Environmental psychologyEvolutionary psychology
Evolutionary psychology investigates psychological mechanisms using evolutionary questions. Critics and philosophers of biology argue that claims that a trait is an adaptation need evidence beyond a plausible story.
Brain and cognition2 dated milestones
People: Leda Cosmides, John Tooby
Interdisciplinary fieldRead the profile: Evolutionary psychologyExperimental psychology
Experimental psychology is a research tradition that applies experimental methods across many areas of psychology. Its institutional history includes nineteenth-century laboratories and the Society of Experimental Psychologists, which first met in 1904 as the Experimental Psychologists.
Foundations and methods5 dated milestones
People: Wilhelm Wundt, G. Stanley Hall, Mary Whiton Calkins, Edward Bradford Titchener
Methodological traditionRead the profile: Experimental psychologyFeminist psychology
Psychological work that questions research based mostly on men and socially sanctioned beliefs about women, with its own associations, a journal and a divisional home in the American Psychological Association.
Social life and culture4 dated milestones
People: Georgia Babladelis, Ann Johnson, Alexandra Rutherford, Stephanie A. Shields
Interdisciplinary fieldRead the profile: Feminist psychologyForensic psychology
Forensic psychology applies psychological knowledge to legal, contractual, and administrative questions. It includes assessment, consultation, treatment, research, and communication of psychological evidence.
Law, environment, and public life2 dated milestones
Professional specialtyRead the profile: Forensic psychologyGeropsychology
Geropsychology applies psychological knowledge and methods to the well-being, mental health and everyday functioning of older adults and their families.
Health and care3 dated milestones
People: Bob G. Knight, Michele J. Karel, Sara H. Qualls, Gregory A. Hinrichsen and others
Professional specialtyRead the profile: GeropsychologyHealth psychology
Health psychology studies the psychological processes underlying health, illness and health care, and applies that work to prevention and to outcomes for people who are ill.
Health and care5 dated milestones
People: William Schofield, Stephen Weiss, Joseph Matarazzo
Interdisciplinary fieldRead the profile: Health psychologyHistory of psychology
History of psychology investigates the development of psychological knowledge and practice. It uses historical evidence and examines how accounts of the past are selected, interpreted, and taught.
Foundations and methods2 dated milestones
People: Robert I. Watson
Interdisciplinary fieldRead the profile: History of psychologyHuman factors and engineering psychology
The study of interactions among people and other elements of a system, applied to design. Societies in this area describe it as both a science and a profession.
Work, technology, and performance3 dated milestones
People: Arnold Small, Paul Fitts, Jesse Orlansky, Max Lund
Interdisciplinary fieldRead the profile: Human factors and engineering psychologyIndigenous psychologies
Indigenous psychologies are approaches that build psychological knowledge from the concepts and practices of particular cultural settings. The plural form reflects distinct regional movements rather than one school.
Law, environment, and public life2 dated milestones
People: Kuo-Shu Yang, Carl Martin Allwood, John W. Berry
Interdisciplinary fieldRead the profile: Indigenous psychologiesIndustrial and organizational psychology
Industrial and organizational psychology studies well-being and performance at work and applies psychological research to tasks such as understanding jobs, selecting employees and designing training.
Work, technology, and performance5 dated milestones
People: Hugo Munsterberg, Frank Gilbreth, Lillian Gilbreth, Elton Mayo and others
Professional specialtyRead the profile: Industrial and organizational psychologyMathematical psychology
Mathematical psychology is theory-driven research that uses mathematical methods, formal logic or computer simulation to study behavior and cognition. It is organized around a society and a journal that date from the 1960s and 1970s.
Foundations and methods4 dated milestones
People: R. C. Atkinson, Walter Kintsch, Jean-Claude Falmagne
Methodological traditionRead the profile: Mathematical psychologyMedia psychology
The study of how people interact with mediated communication, including psychologists' roles in media. Definitions vary and there is little agreement on scope.
Work, technology, and performance2 dated milestones
People: Pamela Rutledge
Interdisciplinary fieldRead the profile: Media psychologyNeuropsychology
Neuropsychology studies relationships between brain function and behavior, with roots in clinical study of brain injury and a long debate over localization.
Brain and cognition5 dated milestones
People: Paul Broca, John Hughlings Jackson, Carl Wernicke, Kurt Goldstein and others
Interdisciplinary fieldRead the profile: NeuropsychologyOccupational health psychology
The study of psychological factors in worker health, safety and well-being, as its main society describes it. The area developed through United States agencies, APA and a professional society.
Work, technology, and performance6 dated milestones
People: Irvin Schonfeld
Interdisciplinary fieldRead the profile: Occupational health psychologyPeace psychology
Peace psychology studies psychological aspects of peace, conflict and violence, including the prevention of war and destructive conflict. One account dates efforts to establish it as a formal subdiscipline of psychology to the 1980s in the United States.
Law, environment, and public life3 dated milestones
People: William James, Charles Osgood
Interdisciplinary fieldRead the profile: Peace psychologyPediatric psychology
An integrated area of science and practice that applies psychological knowledge to children's health, illness and injury, usually in cooperation with pediatric medicine.
Health and care3 dated milestones
People: Logan Wright, Dorothea Ross, Lee Salk, Leonard Eron
Professional specialtyRead the profile: Pediatric psychologyPersonality psychology
Personality psychology is the scientific study of personality structure, processes and development. One historical account dates its academic emergence to around 1937.
Social life and culture2 dated milestones
People: Gordon Allport, Floyd Ruch
Core subfieldRead the profile: Personality psychologyPolice and public safety psychology
Police and public safety psychology applies psychological knowledge in policing and related public safety settings, including evaluation of candidates and employees and support for officers after shootings. Requirements depend on local systems.
Law, environment, and public life2 dated milestones
People: Charles Galbo
Professional specialtyRead the profile: Police and public safety psychologyPolitical psychology
Studies how psychological processes and political life shape each other, drawing on psychology, political science and other disciplines.
Social life and culture3 dated milestones
People: Harold Lasswell, Jeanne N. Knutson
Interdisciplinary fieldRead the profile: Political psychologyPsycholinguistics
Psycholinguistics is the interdisciplinary study of how people process, produce, understand and acquire language.
Brain and cognition2 dated milestones
People: Willem Levelt, Charles Osgood, Thomas Sebeok, Noam Chomsky
Interdisciplinary fieldRead the profile: PsycholinguisticsPsychology and law
Psychology and law examines how psychological science and practice relate to law and legal institutions. It is organized through societies for scientists and practitioners in the United States and Europe.
Law, environment, and public life6 dated milestones
People: Hugo Münsterberg, Jay Ziskin, Bruce Sales
Interdisciplinary fieldRead the profile: Psychology and lawPsychology of learning
Research on how experience changes behavior and what organisms learn, framed through connections, conditioned reflexes, cognitive maps and learned relations among events.
Development and learning3 dated milestones
People: Edward L. Thorndike, Ivan P. Pavlov, Edward C. Tolman, Robert A. Rescorla
Core subfieldRead the profile: Psychology of learningPsychology of race and ethnicity
Studies how racial and ethnic categories, identities and group relations shape thought, behavior and well-being. A major review treats race as largely socially constructed rather than biological.
Social life and culture2 dated milestones
People: Jennifer A. Richeson, Samuel R. Sommers, Derald Sue, Stanley Sue
Interdisciplinary fieldRead the profile: Psychology of race and ethnicityPsychology of religion and spirituality
Studies religious and spiritual belief, experience and practice with psychological methods.
Social life and culture6 dated milestones
People: William James, G. Stanley Hall, Wilhelm Stählin, Virginia Sexton and others
Interdisciplinary fieldRead the profile: Psychology of religion and spiritualityPsychometrics
Psychometrics is the study and practice of measuring psychological attributes that cannot be directly observed, using test theory, scaling and statistical models. It supports research in psychology, education and related sciences.
Foundations and methods1 dated milestone
People: L. L. Thurstone, Paul Horst, Albert K. Kurtz
Methodological traditionRead the profile: PsychometricsPsychophysiology
Psychophysiology is the scientific study of psychological and behavioral phenomena as related to and revealed through physiological events.
Brain and cognition2 dated milestones
Interdisciplinary fieldRead the profile: PsychophysiologyQualitative psychology
Qualitative psychology uses methods for understanding psychological life through people's lived experience, expression, practice and social conduct. The sources opened document its recent organization within the American Psychological Association.
Foundations and methods5 dated milestones
People: Ruthellen Josselson, Ken Gergen, Fred Wertz, Heidi M. Levitt
Methodological traditionRead the profile: Qualitative psychologyQuantitative psychology
Quantitative psychology develops and applies statistical, measurement and multivariate methods for psychological research. It overlaps closely with psychometrics.
Foundations and methods2 dated milestones
Methodological traditionRead the profile: Quantitative psychologyRehabilitation psychology
Rehabilitation psychology addresses the psychological and social consequences of disability and chronic medical conditions, with work in medical rehabilitation and related settings.
Health and care4 dated milestones
People: Beatrice A. Wright
Professional specialtyRead the profile: Rehabilitation psychologySchool psychology
A professional specialty that applies psychology to help children and youth succeed in school, at home and throughout life. NASP says practice in the United States requires state certification or licensure.
Development and learning4 dated milestones
People: Morris Krugman, Ethell Cornell
Professional specialtyRead the profile: School psychologySensation and perception
Sensation and perception research examines how stimuli relate to sensory experience, with psychophysics and vision science as documented strands.
Brain and cognition4 dated milestones
People: Gustav Theodor Fechner, E. H. Weber
Core subfieldRead the profile: Sensation and perceptionSocial psychology
Social psychology studies social behavior and influence. The Society for Personality and Social Psychology says personality and social psychologists explore forces within the person and within the situation. Its modern identity is tied to experimental work.
Social life and culture5 dated milestones
People: Norman Triplett, Floyd Allport
Core subfieldRead the profile: Social psychologySport and exercise psychology
The study of psychological factors in sport, exercise and athletic performance, with research and applied performance work carried out through several international and national societies.
Work, technology, and performance6 dated milestones
People: Norman Triplett, Coleman Griffith, Ferruccio Antonelli, Miroslav Vanek and others
Interdisciplinary fieldRead the profile: Sport and exercise psychologyTrauma psychology
The study of the psychological effects of traumatic events and of ways to assess, prevent and treat them, with attention to the wide variation in how people respond.
Health and care4 dated milestones
People: Robert Lifton, Chaim Shatan
Interdisciplinary fieldRead the profile: Trauma psychology