Psychology Research Areas

The UC Davis Department of Psychology contains five major "areas": Developmental, Perception-Cognition, Biological Psychology, Quantitative and Social-Personality. Boundaries between the areas are fluid, and students are encouraged to take seminars in all five.

Developmental Psychology

Developmental Psychology includes imaging the developing brain, children's psychological understanding or theory of mind (e.g., knowledge about people's thoughts, beliefs, desires, and emotions), children’s language development, and children's social development

Social and Personality Psychology

Social and Personality Psychology involves the study of the individual in his or her social environment and includes such topics as personality theory, abnormal psychology, individual differences, developmental psychology and social psychology.

Biological Psychology

Biological Psychology involves the study of the biological correlates of behavior and includes such topics as physiological psychology, sensory processes, health psychology and animal behavior.

Perception, Cognition & Cognitive Neuroscience

Perception, Cognition & Cognitive Neuroscience involves the study of awareness and thought, and includes such topics as perception, learning, memory and consciousness.

Quantitative

Quantitative psychology emphasizes applied methods for the analysis of data resulting from psychological experiments and correlational studies.