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Compared to a subject like Physics, Psychology is a new discipline, having its roots in the mid-nineteenth century when scientific methods were applied to perception and memory, and has developed over the years into a mature and most exciting discipline. It deals with many different types of issues...

From the point of view of pure science, Psychologists variously find themselves involved in issues such as the investigation of the nature of consciousness, how people make decisions, the nature and functioning of memory of various kinds, the development of the psychological capacities of children and adults, the psychology of interpersonal interaction, and many others. One of the biggest challenges that faces psychology today is to take the knowledge and skills that are developed in the discipline and apply them in a useful manner to the real world. This has led to the development of a number of applied sub-disciplines, which include Occupational/Organisational Psychology, Educational Psychology, Health Psychology, Clinical Psychology, and Forensic Psychology. There are many other smaller variants.

By its nature, Psychology is multi-disciplinary, and qualified Psychologists might find themselves working with a range of different colleagues. These can include health care professionals, Computer Scientists, Engineers, Policians, various guises of business people, and the armed forces, but there are many others. The strengths of the approach adopted to Psychology, by and 16, in the UK and also in North America, Australasia and some European countries, is that it is highly empirical. There is no utilisation of some unitary model of human behaviour, for example, the work that has sprung from the writings of Freud. Rather, human behaviour and its investigation is subjected to a scientific analysis. This is, of course, something rather harder to do for psychological issues than for, say, Biology or Chemistry, but nonetheless, it provides a strong intellectual foundation for the discipline.

Some specific examples of what a Psychologist might end up doing demonstrate the range of the usefulness of the Psychologist. Psychologists routinely design system interfaces to make them useable by system operators. This includes aircraft cockpits, nuclear power station control rooms, ticket machines in railway stations, video interfaces, and the controls and instruments in a car. Psychologists are involved in helping people recover from illness, both mental and physical, they might help children who have learning difficulties at school, and more and more are making a significant contribution to the successful running of organisations. Many sports teams employ psychologists to help performers achieve their maximum potential, and many companies employ psychologists to help workers who have stress-related problems. Forensic psychologists assist the police in preventing crime and in detecting criminals, using techniques such as officer profiling.

Some Psychologists try to answer issues that are of extreme importance to society. Why, for example, people continue to smoke cigarettes when they know that there is a serious risk of poor health as a result. Why people persist in drinking and driving, although the penalties are often most severe, and the consequences sometimes fatal. Such investigations very often influence the formation of both social policy and law. Psychologists in the UK and many other countries are regulated by professional bodies that make sure that people do not make claims about their abilities within psychology that are unwarranted, misleading and unjustified, and it is now possible to be accredited as a Chartered Psychologist after an appropriate education, training and supervised practice.

Author
Donald Ridley
University of Hertfordshire