Psychology Careers and Salaries

The prime responsibility of a school psychologist is to assist in the promotion of social and cognitive development or growth of pupils in schools. A school psychologist carries out the assessment of students and collects data that is used in the development of intervention programs. Addressing the parents and teachers in order to encourage the learning and adjustment skills in students is also an important job responsibility of school psychologists. A career in school psychology requires the candidate to be patient enough to understand problems and needs of children; one should therefore, be mentally prepared for doing such a job.

The main job of a forensic psychologist is the development of intervention techniques. He also treats the offenders through specialized programs. The psychological needs of the prisoners are addressed both in a group and one-to-one format. Along with the work of presenting evidence in court, research too is an integral part of the job of a forensic psychologist. Apart from treating the patients, these professionals have to develop working practices and institutional policies. They also need to handle responsibilities like providing the necessary advise to prison governors, presenting information retrieved from assessments to the staff audience and much more. Development and evaluation of assessment techniques used for interacting with prisoners also is carried out by these psychologists.

The organizational or industrial psychologists work for corporate/business houses and strive to increase the productivity of employees. They assist the company management in enhancing the working conditions. Industrial psychologists have the knowledge about categorizing workers in the job profiles best suited for them. These professionals study the behavior of employees and classify them into following groups: open, responsible, stable, easygoing and outgoing.

The core functions or tasks that a developmental psychologist undertakes include the study of different aspects of human development viz., physiological, social and cognitive development. The job of a developmental psychologist involves the study of different phases of development. It is difficult for a single person to study all the developmental phases. Therefore, psychologists prefer to specialize and study the development in certain phases like infancy, adolescence, adulthood, etc.

To enhance the performance of a sportsman by helping him achieve a mental state that is perfect to undertake a sporting activity is the main job of a sports psychologist. In order to reach the above mentioned ‘target’ or obtain the desired results, a sports psychologist first studies and understands the factors associated with the performance of a sportsman. The next step which he undertakes is that of devising and implementing appropriate methods of treatment to attain that perfect/optimum mental condition.

To examine the human behavior and development of hypotheses is the prime responsibility of an experimental psychologist. In order to examine the behavior of human beings, he may have to conduct experiments in controlled situations. Various aspects of psychology like perception, sensation, memory, motivation, etc., are studied and analyzed in this discipline of experimental psychology.

These professionals can work in a variety of settings and they can undertake many different tasks. Health psychologists perform clinical work, research and also associate with governmental agencies to handle public policies related to health. The clinical work performed by health psychologists mainly includes conducting personality tests, assessing the behavior of patients, etc.

These are psychologists who deal with mental problems of aging adults. It is observed that elder people tend to suffer from mental illnesses like depression and anxiety. Treating these problems in a timely manner is necessary to prevent them from becoming chronic. These professionals make use of different kinds of psychotherapies for treating the aging patients.