Practicing psychologists know that their profession offers as much insight into issues that affect the self as it does assistance to others who are struggling. This is what often attracts psychology students to the field in the first place — the chance to learn more about the self and others. Applied psychology is a newer branch of psychology with its goal being to bring theory and practice together. This has made applied psychology a popular choice for students who want a broad range of career options.
Applied Psychology: A History and Overview
Applied psychology’s founder, Hugo Munsterberg, traveled to the United States from Germany in the late 19th century. While others in his field were working toward similar goals, Munsterberg was eventually recognized as applied psychology’s “father” due to the extent of his insights. He showcased how applied psychology can work in a variety of fields from education to industrial efficiency. Wikipedia defines applied psychology as “the use of psychological principles and theories to overcome problems in real-life situations.” Today, a student will move from the preliminary “I thought about this” phase to pursuing their online masters degree in psychology because of the diverse career possibilities.
Applied Psychology in the Classroom
There are three main educational tracks you can take when earning a degree in applied psychology.
- Industrial-Organizational Applied Psychology. You learn specific theories and techniques to apply those theories in workplace situations. You study how applied psychology can boost performance, productivity and profits in personnel management, employee development, organizational behavior and performance assessment.
- Community Applied Psychology. Here, you learn how applied psychology’s theories and techniques apply to the classroom, to health and social services and to the greater community as you study how individuals and groups interact to care for each other.
- General Applied Psychology. This gives you the option to specify a number of classes to build your personalized degree plan in applied psychology. For instance, you may choose some classes with a business focus and others with a community focus.
Applied Psychology at Work
Even as you are studying for your degree, you can see how applied psychology theories and techniques are at work all around you.
- Human adaptation and innovation. Charles Darwin claimed the ability to adapt and innovate was more important than any other survival factor. Adaptation requires innovation, which points to the application of theory to confront and solve real-world problems as they unfold.
- Human ability to tackle new challenges. Tackling challenges not only builds new neural connections and keeps the brain young and sharp, it also points back to the ability to learn from past experiences and apply those lessons to new ones.
- Human willingness to visualize success. The ability to take theory from a theory-state to a practice-state requires visualization. Only those who can visualize how a theory may work in a real-life situation can take that next step to gather evidence for their assertions.
- Human ability to create the structure necessary for success. Creating structure comes from somewhere; in the case of applied psychology, it comes from the development of theory. The “application” of applied psychology phase is in creating the structure to test out theory in a real-world environment.
- Human action to ask for help while maintaining independence. Evidence from biological science is indicating that both human and non-human beings working in community settings have higher survival rates and better reproductive rates than those who choose to “go it alone.” The ability to work in a system or community is the result of agreeing on what works (theory) and applying that to everyday life.
- Human drive for individuality and significance. Finally, the human drive for individuality and life significance comes from translating that individual vision (theory) into action (application).
In these ways and many others, applied psychology is a vibrant, growing field with near-limitless application.
About the Author: Caroline Carter graduated with her master’s degree several years ago. She works as a psychologist with a technology company, working to improve employee productivity.