Types of Psychology

BY: SKYLLAR

PICTURE LINK

As I sat through my psychology class this week I began to realize just how broad of a field psychology is. I began to wonder what different types of psychology there are and what path I would like to take. Choosing a major was hard enough, I had no idea that I would also have to choose which path of psychology I want to go down. Learning this made me want to do some research and see what I may be interested in most, just to have some sort of idea. My professor gave us a little idea of some of the popular types of psychology such as cognitive, developmental, and social, but they were brief descriptions since we are still learning the basics of psychology. I went ahead and looked online to see what some of my options were and narrowed it down to the top three types of psychology I am most interested in at the moment; developmental psychology, personality psychology, and neuroscience and biological psychology.

Developmental psychology portrays the growth of humans throughout their life, as my professor Dr. Hambrick described it “from womb to tomb”. Psychologists in this fieldwork to understand the changes that people go through during their lifespan. After being able to understand this they work to spot possible problems that may occur in someone’s life and offer their assistance. They work with people of all ages, but some developmental psychologists decide to specialize in specific age groups.

Personality psychology is the largest and most popular branch of psychology. They seek to understand how personality develops over time and how it influences the way humans think and act. They also try to understand how personality changes among different people, as well as how it’s the same. Personality psychologists diagnose and treat personality disorders that may be interfering with someone’s everyday life.

Neuroscience and biological psychology is all about how the brain and nervous system works. The brain and nervous system impact our behavior tremendously and these psychologists work to understand how that happens. They study genetics as well and how certain traits make me passed down. Biological psychology studies thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and tries to find a biological cause to them.