• Question: Which type of Phycology is most important

    Asked by anon-354956 on 13 Mar 2023.
    • Photo: Emily McDougal

      Emily McDougal answered on 13 Mar 2023:

      This is really difficult to answer, because each area of psychology has its own purpose and importance. Personally, I’m a developmental psychologist and I think it is important because it can be linked to most other areas of psychology. For example, developmental psychologists and social psychologists can work together to understand how neurodivergent people communicate compared to neurotypical people.

    • Photo: Hannah Fawcett

      Hannah Fawcett answered on 14 Mar 2023:

      All areas of psychology are really important as all have the potential to shape lives for the better. You’ll also see a lot of overlap between different approaches and domains of psychology all approaching the same problem. An example of this is police investigations – when thinking about interviewing a child witness we may need to draw on the work and ideas of
      – developmental psychology to understand the communication abilities of children at different ages
      – clinical psychology if there is underlying mental health difficulties or communication barriers
      – social psychology and interpersonal interactions
      – cognitive psychology and how people process information and their memories
      – community psychology and our understanding of culture, race and inequality

      When all of these are blended together and used to understand police interviewing of child witnesses, we call it forensic psychology – the application of psychology to legal contexts.

      My specialism is forensic psychology and I think it is really important as it shapes how we investigate and prosecute crime, how lawyers and witnesses can effectively communicate in court, how we ensure fair decision making by jurors and judges, and how we assess and treat offenders. These areas affect all of us as they all contribute to making a safer and fairer society.

    • Photo: Joanne Cummings

      Joanne Cummings answered on 14 Mar 2023:

      Lots of areas of psychology are important. My area broadly speaking is health psychology, and the health of the public is an extremely important one for me.

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