Mitch’s Advice for Applying to Grad School
Page 11
Developmental, Social, Cognitive Psychology and Neuroscience
What is a developmental, social, or cognitive psychologist, or a neuroscientist?
Most departments of psychology have one or more faculty who represent sub-disciplines within
the field, such as developmental, social, biological, cognitive, neuroscience, experimental,
quantitative, developmental, or community psychology to name a few. Each of these areas can be
pursued for a graduate degree (although few community programs remain). If you are interested
in understanding human behavior, consider each of these options. However, remember that none
of them focus on psychopathology predominantly, and doctoral degrees in these areas do not
qualify you to practice. Below I offer a review of a few of these sub-disciplines that are most
common in departments across the country.
Developmental psychology is a scientific discipline that is focused specifically on the study of
behavior as it changes across the life-span (see www.srcd.org). Although there is a great need for
more work on emerging adulthood, middle adulthood, and geriatric issues, the majority of work
done in developmental psychology is on children and adolescents. Developmental psychologists
are interested in understanding topics such as cognitive, language, motor, social, emotional, and
moral development, for example. The field is invested in understanding influences on
development, both intra-individual (i.e., even including neuroscience mechanisms) and inter-
individual, such as the role of parents, peers, schools, communities, and culture on development.
Social psychologists (www.spsp.org) are interested in how individuals function within the world
around them, broadly speaking, and tackle issues such as prejudice, attitudes, social influence, and
human behavior among peers in communities, in the workplace, within personal relationships and
in unfamiliar settings. Many social psychologists go on to work (in highly lucrative positions) in
business schools, since much of what social psychologists do has great relevance to business
management. Social psychologists also may address personality psychology, positive psychology,
or health psychology issues.
Cognitive psychologists (www.cogneurosociety.org and www.psychonomic.org) are interested in
learning, language, perception, memory, and increasingly how the brain is involved in the ways
we perceive, encode, and communicate with the world around us. Many cognitive psychologists
work in academia, but increasingly their expertise is needed in our growing digital world where
they can help determine what’s most likely to capture our attention in the super-saturated
information age.
Last, a brief word about neuroscience (www.sfn.org). Although the discipline of psychology has
long been interested in understanding the associations among our emotions, behavior, and our
central and peripheral nervous systems, this work was conducted almost exclusively with animals
for many decades. With the advent of new tools to make human brain imaging more affordable
and accessible to non-medical professionals, there has been a surge interest in neuroscience in
ways that have affected all of the psychological sub-disciplines described above. Those interested
in pursuing a career in psychology – whether clinical or not – should be at least somewhat
comfortable talking about the brain, its lobes, sub-structures, and how we may conceptualize
human behavior as relevant to the activity within and between brain regions. This rapid change in
the field has been reflected in several ways, including the new priority within the National Institute
of Mental Health (the federal agency that funds a remarkably high proportion of research done in