Applied psychology is the use of psychological methods and findings of scientific psychology to solve practical problems of human and animal behavior and experience. Educational and organizational psychology, business management, law, health, product design, ergonomics, behavioural psychology, psychology of motivation, psychoanalysis, neuropsychology, psychiatry and mental health are just a few of the areas that have been influenced by the application of psychological principles and scientific findings. Some of the areas of applied psychology include counseling psychology, industrial and organizational psychology, engineering psychology, occupational health psychology, legal psychology, school psychology, sports psychology, community psychology, neuropsychology, medical psychology and clinical psychology, evolutionary psychology, human factors, forensic psychology and traffic psychology. In addition, a number of specialized areas in the general area of psychology have applied branches. However, the lines between sub-branch specializations and major applied psychology categories are often mixed or in some cases blurred. For example, a human factors psychologist might use a cognitive psychology theory. This could be described as human factor psychology or as applied cognitive psychology. When applied psychology is used in the treatment of behavioral disorders there are many experimental approaches to try and treat an individual. This type of psychology can be found in many of the subbranches in other fields of psychology.
The Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors is a United Kingdom-based professional society for ergonomists, human factors specialists, and those involved in user-centred design.
Health psychology is the study of psychological and behavioral processes in health, illness, and healthcare. The discipline is concerned with understanding how psychological, behavioral, and cultural factors contribute to physical health and illness. Psychological factors can affect health directly. For example, chronically occurring environmental stressors affecting the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis, cumulatively, can harm health. Behavioral factors can also affect a person's health. For example, certain behaviors can, over time, harm or enhance health. Health psychologists take a biopsychosocial approach. In other words, health psychologists understand health to be the product not only of biological processes but also of psychological, behavioral, and social processes.
Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are injuries or pain in the human musculoskeletal system, including the joints, ligaments, muscles, nerves, tendons, and structures that support limbs, neck and back. MSDs can arise from a sudden exertion, or they can arise from making the same motions repeatedly repetitive strain, or from repeated exposure to force, vibration, or awkward posture. Injuries and pain in the musculoskeletal system caused by acute traumatic events like a car accident or fall are not considered musculoskeletal disorders. MSDs can affect many different parts of the body including upper and lower back, neck, shoulders and extremities. Examples of MSDs include carpal tunnel syndrome, epicondylitis, tendinitis, back pain, tension neck syndrome, and hand-arm vibration syndrome.
Sir Cary Lynn Cooper, is an American-born British psychologist and 50th Anniversary Professor of Organizational Psychology and Health at the Manchester Business School, University of Manchester.
Occupational health psychology (OHP) is an interdisciplinary area of psychology that is concerned with the health and safety of workers. OHP addresses a number of major topic areas including the impact of occupational stressors on physical and mental health, the impact of involuntary unemployment on physical and mental health, work-family balance, workplace violence and other forms of mistreatment, psychosocial workplace factors that affect accident risk and safety, and interventions designed to improve and/or protect worker health. Although OHP emerged from two distinct disciplines within applied psychology, namely, health psychology and industrial and organizational psychology, for a long time the psychology establishment, including leaders of industrial/organizational psychology, rarely dealt with occupational stress and employee health, creating a need for the emergence of OHP. OHP has also been informed by other disciplines, including occupational medicine, sociology, industrial engineering, and economics, as well as preventive medicine and public health. OHP is thus concerned with the relationship of psychosocial workplace factors to the development, maintenance, and promotion of workers' health and that of their families. The World Health Organization and the International Labour Organization estimate that exposure to long working hours causes an estimated 745,000 workers to die from ischemic heart disease and stroke in 2016, mediated by occupational stress.
Joseph Henrich is an American professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University. Prior to arriving at Harvard, Henrich was a professor of psychology and economics at the University of British Columbia. He is interested in the question of how humans evolved from "being a relatively unremarkable primate a few million years ago to the most successful species on the globe", and how culture shaped our species' genetic evolution.
Anthony D. Andre is a researcher, practitioner, and academic in the fields of human factors, ergonomics, usability and product design. He is the founding principal of Interface Analysis Associates, an international human factors and ergonomics consultancy. Andre pioneered the behavioral approach to ergonomics which included behavior modification and computer skill development as its basis, in direct opposition to common product-based approaches. He is a founding member and adjunct professor of the HF/E Graduate Program at San Jose State University. He founded the International Conference on Human Factors and Ergonomics in Health Care, co-created the Ergo-X conference, managed the ergonomic content for several of the annual California Association of Rehabilitation and Re-employment Professionals (CARRP) conferences, and recently produced, hosted, and presented a COVID-19 ergonomics virtual summit on how to work/school from home more safely and comfortably. He has served as president of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. Andre is a Certified Professional Ergonomist (CPE), recognized by the Board of Certification of Professional Ergonomists (BCPE).
Human factors and ergonomics is the application of psychological and physiological principles to the engineering and design of products, processes, and systems. Primary goals of human factors engineering are to reduce human error, increase productivity and system availability, and enhance safety, health and comfort with a specific focus on the interaction between the human and equipment.
Alexander Allan Innes "Zander" Wedderburn was a British psychologist and Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the Heriot-Watt University.
David Shinar is one of the most prominent and productive researchers in the area of traffic safety, and a professor emeritus at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel.
Guy André Boy is a French and American scientist and engineer, Fellow of the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE), the Air and Space Academy and the International Academy of Astronautics. He is university professor at CentraleSupélec and ESTIA Institute of Technology. He was university professor and dean (2015–2017) at Florida Institute of Technology (FIT), where he created the Human-Centered Design Institute in 2010. He was senior research scientist at Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC). He was Chief Scientist for Human-Centered Design at NASA Kennedy Space Center (KSC) from 2010 to 2016. He is known for his work on intelligent assistance, cognitive function analysis, human-centered design (HCD), orchestration of life-critical systems, tangible interactive systems and human systems integration.
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Hywel Murrell was a British psychologist who introduced the term "ergonomics" to the English dictionary, created the first ergonomics department in British industry, and wrote the first British textbook on ergonomics. He also had keen interest in caving from his education at Sidcot School, becoming a founder member, and first secretary, of the Wessex Cave Club.
Otto Gustav Edholm (1909–1985) was a British physiologist who studied human responses to the environment. He was Professor of Physiology at the University of Western Ontario until 1947, when he was invited to head the Division of Human Physiology at the MRC National Institute of Medical Research at Hampstead. He was a leader in physiological research in the UK and his work was internationally recognised. The Otto Edholm award is given by The Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors to significant contributions to the application of ergonomics/human factors. Edholm Point in Antarctica is named after him.
Ken Parsons was born and spent his early life in the North East of England. His early academic promise was evident in his primary school and he gained a place at grammar school where in 1971 he achieved grades for a place at Loughborough University from where he graduated with a degree in Ergonomics in 1974. After a year at Hughes Hall, Cambridge University in 1980 he was awarded a PhD from the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research at Southampton University He returned to Loughborough University and founded the Human Thermal Environments Laboratory in 1981. He went on to gain international renown in the field of Human Thermal Environments and to be an authority in the field. He has published a number of definitive texts.
Daniel Gopher is a professor (Emeritus) of Cognitive psychology and Human Factors Engineering at the Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology. He held the Yigal Alon Chair for the Study of Humans at Work at the Technion. Gopher is a fellow of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, the Psychonomic Society and the International Ergonomics Association.
Eduardo Salas is an American industrial and organizational (I/O) psychologist and human factors psychologist. He is the Allyn R. & Gladys M. Cline Chair Professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Rice University. Salas was a senior research psychologist and head of the training technology development branch of the Naval Air Warfare Center's Training Systems Division.
John W. Senders was an American professor of industrial engineering and psychology who did research on safety and human error. He founded Canada's Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP), introduced the visual occlusion paradigm, and organized the first conference on human error, which came to be known as Clambake I.
