Area choice: We would like to know what areas of Psychology interest you the most. Below, we provide brief descriptions of the main areas of psychology within our department (you can also investigate the areas here:
psyc.umd.edu/graduate/specialty-areas).
Clinical: This program trains clinical psychologists in the development, implementation, and dissemination of empirically supported treatments to remediate psychological dysfunction, emphasizing the integration of research and clinical practice. The clinical program enjoys an active array of research in areas such as ADHD, addiction, depression, HIV risk, and schizophrenia. (sample courses: Introduction to Clinical Psychology, The Assessment and Treatment of Addictive Behaviors)
Cognitive and Neural Systems (CNS): CNS laboratories investigate the cognitive and neural underpinnings of attention, perception, action, memory, decision making, sensory-motor integration, and social behaviors in humans and animal models. Research conducted in the CNS laboratories has led to a broad understanding of the cognitive and neural processes underlying real-world behavior and has important implications for neurological disorders, mental health, and education. (sample courses: Biological Basis of Behavior, Introductory to Memory and Cognition)
Counseling: The counseling psychology program is administered collaboratively by the Department of Psychology and the Department of Counseling, Higher Education, and Special Education. The collaborative program is designed to enable students to become competent in conducting research on a wide variety of psychological problems and competent in providing effective counseling. Counseling faculty members represent a broad range of research interests, including psychotherapy process and outcome research, multicultural psychology, vocational psychology, health psychology, and social justice. (sample courses: Basic Helping Skills, Counseling Psychology)
Developmental (DEV): This program draws upon a rapidly expanding area of interdisciplinary developmental research linking psychophysiological, social, emotional, and cognitive development. Research spans social, individual and neural levels of analysis to investigate the emergence of basic human emotional and cognitive capacities, including engagement in close interpersonal relationships, regulation of affective and cognitive processes, memory, social reasoning, conceptual development and language acquisition. (sample courses: Developmental Psychology, The Psychology of Adolescents' Close Relationships)
Social, Decision, and Organizational Sciences: The SDOS program brings together the subspecialties of Social Psychology, Decision Sciences, and Industrial and Organizational Psychology. SDOS laboratories study a broad array of individual, group, and organizational phenomena including, but not limited to: motivational processes, judgment and decision-making processes, interpersonal relationships, social conflict and aggression, negotiations, leadership, diversity, and culture. (sample courses: Social Psychology, Survey of Industrial and Organizational Psychology)
