If ever you find yourself on an airplane with an annoying seatmate who refuses to let you read your magazine, there are two things you can do. First, you can turn to the person and say in a calm and friendly voice, “Did you know that I am covered with strange and angry bacteria?” If that seems a bit extreme, you might instead try saying, “Did you know that I am a psychologist, and I am forming an evaluation of you as you speak?” as this will usually eliminate the problem without getting you arrested. The truth is that most people do not really know what psychology is or what psychologists do, but they do have some vague sense that it is not wise to talk to one. Now that you have been briefly acquainted with psychology’s past, let us consider its present by looking at psychology as a profession. We will look first at the origins of psychology’s professional organizations, next at the contexts in which psychologists tend to work, and finally at the kinds of training required to become a psychologist.

You will recall that when we last saw William James, he was wandering around the greater Boston area, expounding the virtues of the new science of psychology. In July 1892, James and five other psychologists travelled to Clark University to attend a meeting called by G. Stanley Hall. Each worked at a large university where they taught psychology courses, performed research, and wrote textbooks. Although they were too few to make up a jury or even a respectable hockey team, these seven men decided that it was time to form an organization that represented psychology as a profession, and on that day the American Psychological Association (APA) was born. The seven psychologists could scarcely have imagined that today their little club would grow to have more than 150 000 members from all over the world. Although all of the original members were employed by universities or colleges, today academic psychologists make up only 20 percent of the membership, whereas nearly 70 percent of the members work in clinical and health-related settings. Because the APA is no longer as focused on academic psychology as it once was, the American Psychological Society (APS) was formed in 1988 by 450 academic psychologists who wanted an organization that focused specifically on the needs of psychologists carrying out scientific research. The APS, renamed the Association for Psychological Science in 2006, grew quickly, attracting 5000 members within 6 months; today it numbers nearly 12 000 psychologists. Although many Canadians belong to both the APA and the APS, Canada also has the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA; like the APA) and the Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour and Cognitive Science (CSBBCS) for psychologists oriented toward scientific research. Finally, the Canadian Association for Neuroscience–association canadienne de neuroscience (CAN-ACN) is a rapidly growing society of neuroscientists, including many psychologists.

In 1892, the APA had 31 members, all of whom were white and all of whom were male. Today, about half of all CPA and APA members are women, and the percentage of non-white members continues to grow. Surveys of recent Ph.D. (doctor of philosophy) recipients reveal a picture of increasing diversification in the field. The proportion of women receiving Ph.D.s in psychology increased from only 15 percent in 1950 to 70 percent in 2010 and the proportion of racial minorities receiving Ph.D.s in psychology grew from a very small number to 24 percent during that same period. Clearly, psychology is increasingly reflecting the diversity of North American society.

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The development of psychology in Canada paralleled that in Europe and in the United States. As you read earlier, the first psychology laboratory in Canada was established by James Mark Baldwin, a student of Wundt’s, in 1889, at the University of Toronto. Although Baldwin did not stay in Toronto, his laboratory was expanded by August Kirschmann, another student of Wundt’s, around the turn of the twentieth century. Although at most other universities psychology was considered a field of philosophy, by 1926, psychology was established enough at the University of Toronto to became an independent department. McGill University also had an independent psychology department from 1922. Elsewhere, after 1940, independent psychology departments began springing up at Canadian universities.

One of the first graduate students in the new Department of Psychology at McGill University was Donald Olding Hebb (1904–1985) from Chester, Nova Scotia. Hebb was working as a school principal, and pursued a master’s thesis at McGill part-time. He fell in love with physiological psychology (as cognitive neuroscience was then called) and applied to do a Ph.D. in the United States with Karl Lashley, who you met earlier in this chapter. After obtaining his Ph.D. (he studied the effects of being reared in darkness on the development of vision in rats), he applied to work with Wilder Penfield, and moved back to Montreal in 1937. Penfield was one of the most famous neurosurgeons in the world. He founded the Montreal Neurological Institute in the 1920s, and there he pioneered the surgical removal of brain tissue to relieve seizure disorders—his approach became known as “the Montreal procedure.” Hebb wanted to study the effects on psychological processes of the very specific brain removals that Penfield was producing. By 1948, Hebb was Chair of the Department of Psychology at McGill, and in 1949 he published his landmark book The Organization of Behaviour in which he lays out his theory of the neural basis of learning. As you will learn in Chapter 6, this theory was extraordinarily prescient, and Hebb’s ideas are now the basis of our understanding of how the physical structure of the brain changes with experience.

Brenda Milner, a Cambridge-trained psychologist, came to Canada in 1944. Her husband, Peter, was an engineer, who had been invited to help develop Canada’s first nuclear reactors. Brenda enrolled as a Ph.D. student with Hebb, and worked with Penfield’s patients, studying how the removals of specific parts of the brain affected perception and memory. She has remained in Montreal ever since. Over her long career, she has made several fundamental contributions to our understanding of how human thinking and behaviour depend on different parts of the brain. She is probably best known for the discovery of the brain basis of long-term memory—a topic that you will learn more about in the chapter on Memory.

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Before describing what psychologists do, it should be noted that most people who major in psychology do not go on to become psychologists. Psychology has become a major academic, scientific, and professional discipline with links to many other disciplines and career paths (see the Hot Science box below). That being said, what should you do if you do want to become a psychologist, and what should you fail to do if you desperately want to avoid it? You can become a “psychologist” by a variety of routes, and the people who call themselves psychologists may hold a variety of different degrees. Typically, students finish university and enter graduate school in order to obtain a Ph.D. in some particular area of psychology (e.g., social, cognitive, developmental). During graduate school, students generally gain exposure to the field by taking classes and learn to conduct research by collaborating with their professors. Although William James was able to master every area of psychology because the areas were so small during his lifetime, today a student can spend the better part of a decade mastering just one.

After receiving a Ph.D., you can go on for more specialized research training by pursuing a postdoctoral fellowship under the supervision of an established researcher in his or her area, or apply for a faculty position at a college or university or a research position in government or industry. Academic careers usually involve a combination of teaching and research, whereas careers in government or industry are typically dedicated to research alone.

As you saw earlier, research is not the only career option for a psychologist. Most people who call themselves psychologists neither teach nor do research but, rather, they assess or treat people with psychological problems. Most of these clinical psychologists work in private practice, often in partnerships with other psychologists or with psychiatrists (who have earned an M.D., or medical degree, and are allowed to prescribe medication). Other clinical psychologists work in hospitals or medical schools, some have faculty positions at universities or colleges, and some combine private practice with an academic job. Many clinical psychologists focus on specific problems or disorders, such as depression or anxiety, whereas others focus on specific populations such as children, ethnic minority groups, or older adults (see FIGURE 1.3). Counselling psychologists assist people in dealing with work or career issues and changes or help people deal with common crises such as divorce, the loss of a job, or the death of a loved one. Counselling psychologists may have a Ph.D. or an M.A. (master’s degree) in counselling psychology or an M.S.W. (Master of Social Work).

Psychologists are also quite active in educational settings. School psychologists, offer guidance to students, parents, and teachers. A similar proportion of APA members focus on issues in the workplace. Psychologists who work in business or industry are known as industrial/organizational psychologists. They may be involved in assessing potential employees, finding ways to improve productivity, or helping staff and management to develop effective planning strategies for coping with change or anticipated future developments. Of course, this brief list does not begin to cover all the different career paths that someone with training in psychology might take. For instance, sports psychologists help athletes improve their performance, forensic psychologists assist lawyers and courts, and consumer psychologists help companies develop and advertise new products. Indeed, we cannot think of any major enterprise that does not employ psychologists.

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Even this brief and incomplete survey provides a sense of the wide variety of contexts in which psychologists operate. You can think of psychology as an international community of professionals devoted to advancing scientific knowledge; assisting people with psychological problems and disorders; and trying to enhance the quality of life in work, school, and other everyday settings.

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