Psychology

Assignment 1
Name: Zainab Nawaz
Roll No: 19L-0009
Section: BBA-2B
 Introduction to Psychology
Applications of Psychology

1. Experimental Psychology
It refers to psychologists who apply experimental methods such as controlled experiments and
data analytics to study behavior and processes that underlie it. Mainly, psychologists employ
humans or animal subjects to carry out various tests on them in a controlled environment so that
they can collect and analyze data. Moreover, experimental psychologists manipulate research
variables in order to discover relationships between cognition and behavior. A famous example
of this branch is the “Surrogate Mother Experiment” conducted by Harry Harlow where he
wanted to emphasize importance of a mother’s love for healthy childhood development. In this
test he used infant monkeys as his subjects in his laboratory and ran several tests to analyze their
behavior and thinking.

2. Biological Psychology

It is the application of using the principals of biology in order to understand the mental processes
and behavior. It mainly focuses on the genetic, hormonal and neurochemical activities
(e.g., thinking, learning, feeling, sensing, and perceiving) recognized as characteristic of humans
and other animals. For example physiological psychologists typically use rats to study the neural,
genetic, and cellular mechanisms that underlie specific behaviors such as learning and memory
and fear responses.

3. Developmental Psychology

 It mainly focuses on the development of the human mind through the life span. Furthermore it
seeks to understand how people come to perceive, understand, and act within the world and how
these processes change as they age. Developmental psychology focuses on cognitive, affective,
moral, social, or neural development. For example, to study the mental processes of infants over
the years psychologists devised several mind games for the children which were both enjoyable
for the children and proved useful for the psychologists as well to gain knowledge for their
research.
4. Social Psychology

Social psychology is the study of how humans think about each other and how they relate to each
other. It primarily focuses on attitude formation, attitude change, prejudice, leadership,
conformity, attraction, aggression, intimate relationships and behavior in groups. An example of
this field is the Murder of Kitty Genovese where the victim was consistently attacked and
molested by the attacker since none of her neighbors called the police. Even though all 37 of
those people could hear her screams but they choose to ignore it.

5. Clinical Psychology

 It deals with the evaluation, diagnosis and treatment of individual psychological disorders.
Principal activities include interviewing the client, psychological testing, and providing group or
individual psychotherapy. It is a science that generates research efforts to discover and validate
information about what people are like and why they behave as they do. WWII was a major step
towards the development of Clinical Psychology as a profession. In the military during the war
and among veterans following it, large numbers of men and women experienced psychological
disabilities requiring mental health services. To meet this need, the Veterans Administration
created hospital and clinic positions for staff psychologists to provide assessment and treatment
services, and it also established paid internship positions for training clinical psychology
graduate students.

6.   Educational Psychology

Educational psychology is the study of how humans learn in educational settings, the
effectiveness of educational interventions, the psychology of teaching, and the social psychology
of schools as organizations. For e.g. Ion School psychology combines principles from
educational psychology and clinical psychology to understand and treat students with learning
disabilities, to foster the intellectual growth of gifted students, to facilitate prosocial behaviors in
adolescents, and moreover to promote safe, supportive, and effective learning environments.
7. Cross Cultural Psychology

It is the scientific study of human behavior and mental processes, including both their variability
and invariance, under diverse cultural conditions. Through expanding research methodologies to
recognize cultural variance in behavior, language, and meaning it seeks to extend and develop
psychology. Some cultures, for example, might stress individualism and the importance of
personal autonomy. Other cultures, however, may place a higher value on collectivism and
cooperation among members of the group. Such differences can play a powerful role in many
aspects of life.

8. Industrial-Organizational Psychology

 Industrial and organizational psychology applies psychological concepts and methods to

optimize human potential in the workplace.  It tries to study and solve the different
organizational problems exist in the school, hospitals, university, military, companies etc. 
Here it tries to solve the problems of leadership, group conflicts, conflicts, different levels of
organization, organization culture, organization development etc. ”Scientific Management” was
among the early example of this field as Fedrick Taylor stressed that workers should
cooperatively share responsibility for the design and conduct of work. As a result production
increased and efficiency increased. Nowadays, industrial- organizational psychologists perform
work activities like job analysis, diagnosis, surveying employees, designing and administering
selection & performance appraisal systems, training etc.

9. Psychiatry

It is a branch of medicine that deals with the origin, diagnosis and treatment of mental and
emotional disorders. A psychiatrist is a medical doctor (an M.D. or D.O.) who specializes in
mental health, including substance use disorders. Psychiatrists are qualified to assess both the
mental and physical aspects of psychological problems. People seek psychiatric help for many
reasons. The problems can be sudden, such as a panic attack, frightening hallucinations, thoughts
of suicide, or hearing "voices." Or they may be more long-term, such as feelings of sadness,
hopelessness, or anxiousness that never seem to lift or problems functioning, causing everyday
life to feel distorted or out of control.
10. Health Psychology

 Health psychology deals with the psychological and behavioral processes contributing to
overall individual’s well-being and health. It is also called as a behavioral medicine. Behavioral
medicine is interdisciplinary field including both medicine and psychology.  It deals with the
subject of health and illness by merging all knowledge of biological, behavioral, social and
psychological sciences. Health psychology is basically applying the psychological theory to
health related practices. Developing and evaluating interventions to enhance patient self-
management/ health-related behavior change (e.g. smoking cessation, weight management) is an
example of health psychology.

11. Counseling

It can be defined as a professional psychology field that pays attention to the “emotional, social,
vocational, educational, health-related, developmental, and organizational concerns” that
normally impact our daily lives. Counseling psychologists often provide psychotherapy services
to help individuals overcome difficulties in their daily lives, may help individuals choose a
career path, cope with the loss of a loved one, overcome a learning challenge, and more. For
example students in a college or university may be anxious about how to study in university, lack
of clarity on educational or career direction etc. For such students on campus counseling is
available which allows counselors to explore issue that directly affect them.

12. Psychology of Woman

It is an approach to psychology that focuses on issues concerning gender, female human identity,
and the issues that women face throughout their lives especially social, economic, and political
issues.  Moreover, it explains several social issues like discrimination against women, structural
differences between men and women, and the effect of hormones on behavior, causes of violence
against women and so on.

13. Forensic Psychology

 It is the application of methods, theories & concepts of psychology within the legal
system. Forensic psychologists analyze, compare, identify & interpret physical evidence and try
to link that evidence to the subjects. Their principles are used in a wide range of evaluation tasks
including child custody evaluations, competency evaluation of defendants in criminal cases,
threat evaluations for schools, counseling victims of crime, and death notification processes.

14. Environmental Psychology

Environmental psychology is the study of transactions between individuals and their physical
settings. In these transactions, individuals change the environment, and their behavior and
experiences are changed by the environment. Environmental psychology includes theory,
research, and practice aimed at improving our relationship with the natural environment and
making buildings more humane. we can apply environmental psychology to design and
architecture as by designing interactive and engaging environments can boost our attention span.