^{Different fields in Psychology}

    Psychologists in Teaching and Research

                Many psychologists who are not clinical psychologists have positions in colleges and universities where they teach and do research. This can lead to a greater understanding of behavior and experience and perhaps have useful applications.  A small percentage of psychologists work in full-time research institutions. Here we preview a few major categories psychological research.

Biological Psychology

  A biopsychologist (or behavioral neuroscientist) tries to explain behavior in  terms of biological factors, such as electrical and chemical activities in the nervous system, the effects  of drugs and hormones, genetics, and evolutionary pressures.

Learning and Motivation

The research field of learning and motivation studies ,how behavior depends on the outcomes of past behaviors and on current motivations.

Cognitive Psychologist

Cognition refers to thinking and acquiring knowledge. A cognitive psychologist studies those processes. (The root cogn- also shows up in the word recognize, which literally means "to know again". As a rule cognitive psychologists do not simply ask people to describe their thought processes. (if people understood their own thoughts that well, there would be less need for psychologists) Cognitive psychologists conduct experiments to infer what people know, how they came to know it, and how they use their knowledge to solve new problems.

Developmental Psychology

Developmental psychologists study the behavioral capacities typical of different ages and how behavior changes with age, 'from womb to tomb.' In a typical study, developmental psychologists examine a particular behavior across a certain age span, such as language from age 2 to age 4 or the speed of solving intellectual tasks from age 60 to age 80.  The first question is: What do people do at one age that they do not do at another age?  The second question is: Why?  Was the change due to a biological process, to changes in experience, or to a complex combination of both?

Social Psychology

Social psychologists study how an individual influences other people and is influenced by others.  When we are with other people, we tend to take our cues from them about what we should do. According to social psychologists, people are also heavily influenced by other people's expectations.  For example, parents often intentionally or unintentionally convey expectations that boys will be more competitive and girls will be more cooperative or that teenagers will be immature and that 25-year-olds will be responsible.  At least to some extent, people's behavior tends to live up to-or down to-the expectations of others.  Social psychologists study such influences.