Behaviors result from a complex web of interacting influences. Our department takes an interdisciplinary approach, exposing students to the various approaches to psychological research that reveal these complex influences.
Our majors graduate with a comprehensive understanding of the content of the discipline and the skills required to work within it.
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Almost half of the student body takes our introductory course, Psychology 100, at some point while at Amherst.
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Students work with faculty in labs dedicated to physiological psychology and behavioral neuroscience; cognitive psychology; developmental psychology; social psychology; personality psychology; and clinical psychology.
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Senior honors majors work independently and in depth on an empirical or theoretical research project.
Honors Program
Find answers to the frequently asked questions about our department.
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Our majors go on to careers in such fields as research, teaching, psychotherapy, consulting, medicine, business and the law.
Catherine Sanderson, Poler Family Professor in Psychology and Chair of Psychology provides an overview of the psychology department, including some of the courses students can enroll in and careers that a psychology major can pursue.
This course will help students better understand how psychological science has been used to investigate a broad range of human emotions by exploring questions such as: What are emotions, and how can we study them? What factors are associated with greater happiness and emotional well-being?
Students will examine stereotypes, microaggressions, systems of privilege, oppression, and institutionalized discrimination that influence and help maintain racism, sexism, heterosexism, and classism and their psychological consequences on the individual and society.
A review of various forms of psychopathology including addictive, adjustment, anxiety, childhood, dissociative, impulse control, mood, organic, personality, psychophysiological, schizophrenic, and sexual disorders.
The Department of Psychology provides numerous laboratories for studying many aspects of psychology—from physiological psychology and behavioral neuroscience to cognitive psychology, and much more.
Learn more about post-grad job opportunities in the field and summer internships for undergraduates, including research assistantships, applied internships and departmental honors research.