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The science of psychology spans several fields. There are dozens of disciplines in psychology, such as abnormal psychology, cognitive psychology and social psychology.

But one way to view these different fields is to separate them into two types: applied vs. experimental psychology. These groups describe virtually any type of work in psychology.

The following sections explore what applied psychology is and some examples of what it covers.

What is Applied Psychology?

Applied psychology uses psychological methods and findings (experimental psychology) to solve problems of the human experience.

It is nearly impossible to develop a precise definition for applied psychology due to the sheer scope of the term. Findings are applied in fields like clinical psychology, educational psychology, forensic psychology, sports psychology and social psychology — nearly every psychological discipline. Unless the field is exclusively research-based, applied psychology is involved.

An example of the breadth of applied psychology is the non-exhaustive sample of topics deemed appropriate for the Journal of Applied Psychology, which includes:

• individual differences in abilities, personality and other characteristics;
• testing and personnel selection;
• performance measurement and management;
• training, learning and skill acquisition;
• work motivation;
• job attitudes, affect and emotions;
• leadership;
• team development, processes and effectiveness;
• career development;
• work–family interface;
• work stress, health and well-being;
• positive and negative work behaviors;
• diversity and cross-cultural differences in work behavior and attitudes;
• technology and work systems;
• expertise and knowledge management;
• creativity, innovation and adaptation;
• organizational culture and climate; and
• organizational design, change and interventions.

Applied Psychology and Technology

One of the biggest trends in applied psychology is in developing technology.

Smart vehicles, smart homes and other types of devices are widely available, but smart systems aren’t so clever if they’re too complicated to use, according to the American Psychological Association. Human factors psychologists are designing products and systems that are easier and more enjoyable to use. Work is being performed in areas like human-robot interactions, brain-machine interfaces and virtual reality systems.

Technology companies are looking for insights on human behavior, such as how people use speech recognition systems and what makes someone want to engage with a device. This has led to a new field — neuroergonomics — which applies tools and knowledge from neuroscience to design safer, smarter and more efficient human-centered systems. These systems could help prevent worker fatigue, and adapting the amount of automation depending on workers’ attention levels and cognitive state.

Applied psychologists are also seeing other areas of opportunity in transportation and health care.

• Research is focused on developing driver-vehicle interfaces in smart cars that are intuitive and reduce accidents. Psychologists will play a critical role in educating and training the public to use these systems, so that they are not afraid or overly confident.
• In health care, the demand for psychologists has increased after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a guidance in 2016 that manufacturers integrate human factors into the testing process when developing new medical devices. Psychologists are being used to enhance patient safety, from robotic surgical tools to at-home glucose monitors. Another area where psychologists are applying their research skills is in studying hospital and health care errors. They are looking for gaps in communication that lead to medical errors and devising systems that minimize such mistakes.

Pursue Your Career Goals in Psychology

Develop a greater understanding of psychology concepts and applications with Concordia, St. Paul’s online bachelor’s in psychology. This is a fully accredited bachelor’s degree from Concordia University, St. Paul, offered online. Enjoy small class sizes with a personal learning environment geared toward your success, and learn from knowledgeable faculty who have industry experience.

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The science of psychology spans several fields. There are dozens of disciplines in psychology, including abnormal psychology, cognitive psychology and social psychology.

One way to view these fields is to separate them into two types: applied vs. experimental psychology. These groups describe virtually any type of work in psychology.

The following sections explore what experimental psychology is and some examples of what it covers.

What Is Experimental Psychology?

Experimental psychology seeks to explore and better understand behavior through empirical research methods. This work allows findings to be employed in real-world applications (applied psychology) across fields such as clinical psychology, educational psychology, forensic psychology, sports psychology, and social psychology. Experimental psychology is able to shed light on people’s personalities and life experiences by examining what the way people behave and how behavior is shaped throughout life, along with other theoretical questions. The field looks at a wide range of behavioral topics including sensation, perception, attention, memory, cognition, and emotion, according to the American Psychological Association (APA).

Research is the focus of experimental psychology. Using scientific methods to collect data and perform research, experimental psychology focuses on certain questions, and, one study at a time, reveals information that contributes to larger findings or a conclusion. Due to the breadth and depth of certain areas of study, researchers can spend their entire careers looking at a complex research question.

Experimental Psychology in Action

NASA

The APA writes about one experimental psychologist, Robert McCann, who is now retired after 19 years working at NASA. During his time at NASA, his work focused on the user experience — on land and in space — where he applied his expertise to cockpit system displays, navigation systems, and safety displays used by astronauts in NASA spacecraft. McCann’s knowledge of human information processing allowed him to help NASA design shuttle displays that can increase the safety of shuttle missions. He looked at human limitations of attention and display processing to gauge what people can reliably see and correctly interpret on an instrument panel. McCann played a key role in helping determining the features of cockpit displays without overloading the pilot or taxing their attention span.

“One of the purposes of the display was to alert the astronauts to the presence of a failure that interrupted power in a specific region,” McCann said, “The most obvious way to depict this interruption was to simply remove (or dim) the white line(s) connecting the affected components. Basic research on visual attention has shown that humans do not notice the removal of a display feature very easily when the display is highly cluttered. We are much better at noticing a feature or object that is suddenly added to a display.” McCann utilized his knowledge in experimental psychology to research and develop this very important development for NASA. 

Valve Corporation

Another experimental psychologist, Mike Ambinder, uses his expertise to help design video games. He is a senior experimental psychologist at Valve Corporation, a video game developer and developer of the software distribution platform Steam. Ambinder told Orlando Weekly that his career working on gaming hits such as Portal 2 and Left 4 Dead “epitomizes the intersection between scientific innovation and electronic entertainment.” His career started when he gave a presentation to Valve on applying psychology to game design; this occurred while he was finishing his PhD in experimental design. “I’m very lucky to have landed at a company where freedom and autonomy and analytical decision-making are prized,” he said. “I realized how fortunate I was to work for a company that would encourage someone with a background in psychology to see what they could contribute in a field where they had no prior experience.” 

Ambinder spends his time on data analysis, hardware research, play-testing methodologies, and on any aspect of games where knowledge of human behavior could be useful. Ambinder described Valve’s process for refining a product as straightforward. “We come up with a game design (our hypothesis), and we place it in front of people external to the company (our play-test or experiment). We gather their feedback, and then iterate and improve the design (refining the theory). It’s essentially the scientific method applied to game design, and the end result is the consequence of many hours of applying this process.” To gather play-test data, Ambinder is engaged in the newer field of biofeedback technology, which can quantify gamers’ enjoyment. His research looks at unobtrusive measurements of facial expressions that can achieve such goals. Ambinder is also examining eye-tracking as a next-generation input method.

Pursue Your Career Goals in Psychology

Develop a greater understanding of psychology concepts and applications with Concordia St. Paul’s online bachelor’s in psychology. Enjoy small class sizes with a personal learning environment geared toward your success, and learn from knowledgeable faculty who have industry experience. 

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Psychological disciplines include abnormal psychology, cognitive psychology, and social psychology, along with dozens of other fields and specialties. However, you can separate these fields into two basic types of psychology: applied and experimental. Here is a look at the two types and common career paths for each.

Applied Psychology

What Is Applied Psychology?

Applied psychology uses psychological methods and findings (experimental psychology) to solve problems of the human experience. It is nearly impossible to develop a precise definition for “applied psychology” due to the sheer scope of the term. Findings are applied in fields such as clinical psychology, educational psychology, forensic psychology, sports psychology, and social psychology — nearly every psychological discipline. Unless the field is exclusively research-based, applied psychology is involved.

An example of the breadth of applied psychology is the non-exhaustive sample of topics deemed appropriate for the Journal of Applied Psychology, which includes:

• individual differences in abilities, personality, and other characteristics
• performance measurement and management
• training, learning, and skill acquisition
• leadership
• career development
• work-family interface
• work stress, health, and well-being
• creativity, innovation, and adaptation
• organizational culture and climate

Sample Careers in Applied Psychology

Psychologists

Psychologists study cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior by observing, interpreting, and recording how people relate to one another and to their environments. They use their findings to help improve processes and behaviors. Many kinds of psychologists work within applied psychology. For instance, school psychologists apply psychological principles and techniques to education disorders and developmental disorders.

Research may still be an aspect of the role. Psychologists often gather information and perform research, and whether they are considered as being within applied or experimental psychology will depend on the primary focus of their work.

One example is the field of industrial-organizational psychology, which focuses on the workplace, using psychological principles, and research methods to solve problems and improve the quality of work life. Psychologists in this field could be considered on the side of applied or experimental psychology depending on the extent of any research they perform. One industrial-organizational psychologist may work with business on applying best practices into the workplace while another may be actually conducting that research.

Psychologists typically need a doctoral degree, according to the BLS. The median annual wage for psychologists is $79,010, and employment is projected to grow 14% through 2026.

Mental Health Counselors

Mental health counselors, along with related careers like marriage and family therapists and school and career counselors, work within applied psychology. Mental health counselors help people facing grief, anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, stress, suicidal thoughts, and a variety of conditions. They help clients with a wide variety of mental and emotional health issues and relationship problems.

Often, mental health counselors perform the following tasks:

• Evaluate clients’ mental and physical health and assess their readiness for treatment
• Develop and oversee treatment goals and plans with clients
• Help clients work on the necessary skills and behaviors to face relevant issues
• Refer clients to other resources and services, such as support groups
• Conduct outreach programs to help people identify the signs of destructive behavior

Mental health counselors use certain approaches and theories to help clients. One popular approach is to combine behavioral therapy and cognitive theory to treat a number of illnesses such as anxiety, eating, personality, and substance abuse disorders.

Mental health counselors need a master’s degree and, depending on the state, 2,000 to 4,000 hours of supervised clinical experience. The BLS groups mental health counselors with substance abuse and behavioral disorder counselors; the median annual wage for all three careers is $44,630, and employment is projected to grow 23% through 2026.

Experimental Psychology

What Is Experimental Psychology?

Experimental psychology seeks to explore and better understand behavior through empirical research methods. This work allows findings to be employed (applied psychology) in real-world applications across fields such as clinical psychology, educational psychology, forensic psychology, sports psychology, and social psychology.

This area of psychology is able to shed light on people’s personalities and life experiences by examining what the way people behave and how behavior is shaped throughout life, along with other theoretical questions. The field looks at a wide range of behavioral topics that includes sensation, perception, attention, memory, cognition, and emotion, according to the American Psychological Association (APA).

Research is the focus of experimental psychology. Using scientific methods to collect data and perform research, experimental psychology focuses on certain questions, and, one study at a time, reveals information that contributions to larger findings or a conclusion. Due to the breadth and depth of certain areas of study, researchers can spend their entire careers looking at a complex research question.

Careers in Experimental Psychology

Experimental psychology careers are slightly more difficult to define compared to those in applied psychology. Applied psychology is seen as a broad field in which there are distinct subfields where practitioners may work, such as clinical mental health counseling. However, experimental psychology is typically seen as a field of its own. There are plenty of psychological specialties where experimental psychologists can work — research-focused positions are available in the vast majority of specialties and across industries — but the designation often remains the same: “experimental psychologist.”

“The exact type of research an experimental psychologist performs may depend on a number of factors, including his or her educational background, interests and area of employment,” according to the APA. “Often, psychologists with training in experimental psychology contribute across subfields, using scientific research to provide insights that improve teaching and learning, create safer workplaces, and promote healthy child development, to list a few examples. Those who work in academia often teach psychology courses in addition to performing research and publishing their findings in psychological journals.”

Regardless of the title, there are a wide variety of career opportunities in experimental psychology. One individual may be called an experimental psychologist and study memory, one professional may engage in research-based studies as an industrial-organizational psychologist, another may perform research and be a professor, and a final person may hold a completely different title (e.g., product user researcher) and conduct research that ultimately helps design consumer products.

Explore the Different Types of Psychology

Having a strong understanding of the various disciplines of psychology can help you excel in a variety of careers. With the online bachelor’s degree in psychology program from Concordia University, St. Paul, you can gain more insight into the differences between applied and experimental psychology so that you can find the right career path for you. Our program offers small class sizes, the ability to learn from experienced faculty, and the flexibility to study when it’s most convenient.