What Is Applied Psychology?

Psychology can be conceived as a big tree with infinite branches that try to understand human behavior. Thus, among all this set of branches and leaves, there is one that is particularly useful and different: we are talking about applied psychology, which tries to give concrete solutions to the problems that occur in our daily life.

It’s possible that our readers feel a little surprised. Isn’t that what psychology has always done? Isn’t this science focused from the outset on helping, responding and supporting the most common and complex needs of human beings? We can say that, surprisingly, the answer is no, it hasn’t always been that way.

At its origin, psychology was more focused on collecting information and controlling psychological processes such as attention, memory, learning or language… This whole passionate, immense and ever-expanding area configures what is known as “psychology basic”.

At the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century, thanks to the German-American psychologist Hugo Münsterberg, a new leap in the history of psychology took place. This very broad science was finally oriented towards the search for practical and real solutions for the human being, using all the knowledge generated by basic psychology to transform our scenarios, to improve people’s learning, well-being and health. As we can see, it is almost impossible to conceive of the two areas separately. Basic psychology and applied psychology are two fundamental branches of the same tree. A spectacular tree that will never stop growing to improve our environments and our quality of life.

Hugo Münsterberg: an objective man who laid the foundations of applied psychology

Hugo Münsterberg’s biographers said that he used to read Kant and that he had a good relationship with William James after he volunteered to work in his psychology laboratory at Harvard University. But things between them didn’t turn out well. It is said that William James was interested in investigating so-called paranormal phenomena, something the disciple of Wilhelm Wundt could not conceive and accept as a lover of the objective and, in essence, the practical.

Münsterberg cataloged everything that escaped the logical and tangible as the “psychology of abracadabra”. Perhaps for this reason, and knowing that his main interest was to increase productivity in companies, he always felt some tension with academic colleagues who understood psychology from the laboratory, from the point of view of observation and experimentation, in order to publish an article and perhaps overturning some preconceived theory by other colleagues.

Hugo Münsterberg laid the foundations of applied psychology with a very specific objective: he wanted to improve the skills of workers in the context in which industry and Taylorism already demanded new profiles, more capable and trained people for a more complex work environment.

Although Münsterberg died in his early 50s, his contribution in the field of applied psychology was decisive and immense. It established the origins of industrial psychology, developed multiple tests on professional skills, and even laid the foundations for legal psychology when it created a scale to assess the reliability of testimonies.

The different aspects of applied psychology

We said at the outset that a large part of the tools and knowledge that applied psychology uses comes directly from basic psychology. However, we can say that, as always happens when we carry out any practical work, the application and development of a work end up generating new knowledge, new data and concepts. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand that applied psychology can often gain some independence from basic psychology.

In this way, we also understand that applied psychology can have infinite fields of action, areas that cover many of our most everyday contexts and where, thanks to its use, we can find solutions, improve skills, improve processes, innovate… In this article, we will mention a few examples.

• Health psychology. Although this area has some points in common with clinical psychology, it can be said that they are two different disciplines. Health psychology analyzes the relationship between behavior and physical disorders; seeks to prevent and treat different diseases.
• Clinical psychology.  Its field of work focuses on preventing and treating dysfunctional behaviors to improve our quality of life and our mental well-being.
• Sports psychology. It seeks to enhance the performance of athletes, for example reducing anxiety and improving the teamwork of sports teams.

• Organizational psychology.  Along with clinical psychology, it is one of the best known aspects of applied psychology. In this case, the purpose is to improve the work environment, solve problems, train, train, improve skills, manage the human resources of any organization…
• Educational psychology. We are facing another very important area, which uses its resources to improve learning and methodologies, to understand how students learn and provide them with better resources and mechanisms in their daily lives.
• Environmental Psychology. In this case, we have an area that is both essential and interesting: understanding how people relate to the environment and how the environment itself can affect our behavior.
• Forensic Psychology.  The professional’s work is not limited to the investigation of crimes or any criminal act. The validity of testimonies, conflicts over custody, care for victims, etc. are also analyzed.

• Advertising Psychology. We all know that advertising is an integral part of the consumer economy. Understanding what drives buyers to choose certain products, knowing what unconscious processes regulate their desires and needs, are fundamental aspects of this interesting area of ​​psychology.

Each field of action gives rise to a different profile in the exercise of the profession. These are strands of applied psychology that are part of our society, where, without a doubt, there are many other fields to detail, such as emergency psychology, traffic psychology, aging, etc. These are just small examples that allow us to understand the multiple scenarios in which psychology can be valuable, where good professionals will always try to respond to every need, to every problem.