temperament, morality, and social relationship. Developmental psychologists collaborate with anthropologists, educationists, neurologists, social workers, counsellors and almost every branch of knowledge where there is a concern for growth and development of a human being. Social Psychology explores how people are affected by their social environments, how people think about and influence others. Social psychologists are interested in such topics as attitudes, conformity and obedience to authority, interpersonal attraction, helpful behaviour, prejudice, aggression, social motivation, inter-group relations and so on.
Cross-cultural and Cultural Psychology examines the role of culture in understanding behaviour, thought, and emotion. It assumes that human behaviour is not only a reflection of human-biological potential but also a product of culture. Therefore behaviour should be studied in its socio-cultural context. As you will be studying in different chapters of this book, culture influences human behaviour in many ways and in varying degrees.
Environmental Psychology studies the interaction of physical factors such as temperature, humidity, pollution, and natural disasters on human behaviour. The influence of physical arrangement of the workplace on health, the emotional state, and interpersonal relations are also investigated. Current topics of research in this field are the extent to which, disposal of waste, population explosion, conservation of energy, efficient use of community resources are associated with and are functions of human behaviour. Health Psychology focuses on the role of psychological factors (for example, stress, anxiety) in the development, prevention and treatment of illness.
Areas of interest for a health psychologist are stress and coping, the relationship between psychological factors and health, patient-doctor relationship and ways of promoting health enhancing factors. Clinical and Counselling Psychology deals with causes, treatment and prevention of different types of psychological disorders such as anxiety, depression, eating disorders and chronic substance abuse. A related area is counselling, which aims to improve everyday functioning by helping people solve problems in daily living and cope more effectively with challenging situations. The work of clinical psychologists does not differ from that of counselling psychologists although a counselling psychologist sometimes deals with people who have less serious problems.
In many instances, counselling psychologists work with students,