• Question: Do you think development psychology is the most interesting research area in psychology?

    Asked by anon-351186 to Hannah, Birsu on 8 Mar 2023.
    • Photo: Hannah Fawcett

      Hannah Fawcett answered on 8 Mar 2023:

      My research is all based in forensic psychology so I am very biased towards that! Having said that, there is overlap between all areas of psychology and I have published research looking at children as alibi witnesses which considered how their development – cognitive skills, memory and deception ability – affected juror’s perceptions of their reliability as witnesses. This was a great mash-up of developmental and forensic psychology.

    • Photo: Birsu Kandemirci

      Birsu Kandemirci answered on 8 Mar 2023:

      I find developmental psychology incredibly interesting -of course I might be biased 🙂 I’m specifically interested in how children learn to communicate with the world around them, both in terms of using language and learning about social roles. Essentially, they slowly learn that the people around them are not simply there to serve for their needs and that they need to learn social rules such as sharing, playing with others, understanding and respecting others’ beliefs and so on. I believe that this shows a great level of skill and yet we have all been through these steps (even though we might have had varying degrees of success). BUT, I should also say that I don’t think one area of psychology is inherently more interesting than others, especially because different areas of psychology can be very intertwined, such as my research area involving both developmental and social psychology.

Comments

  • Photo: Greta

    Greta commented on :

    As a developmental psychologist I find children most interesting. I use to conduct research drawing purely upon psychological theory (my work on objects) but my current research on poverty, food insecurity and interventions requires an inter-disciplinary approach which I find fascinating. I have learnt so much from nutritional scientists, economists etc. Proving that you are never too old to learn new things.