What do office settings, emergency room visits and flights to Mars have in common? All could benefit from applied psychological science.
Take the office, for example. When I became vice president of student affairs at the University of Memphis, I needed a new desk chair for my new office. The furniture store sales staff were convinced that my new role called for a large black leather executive chair and other office equipment more suited to the work world of 1990. If they had worked with human factors psychologists, however, they might have understood that because many of today’s executives spend a lot of time on computers, our chairs—as well as our desk setup and lighting—need to be ergonomically aligned for maximum efficiency and productivity.
Psychological science and its research findings were also missing when I recently had to take my sister to the emergency room. We were in the ER for more than eight hours. The patients there were upset and the medical team was fatigued. The situation could have been different with an infusion of applied psychology to streamline the workflow and manage the stress, enabling everyone to perform at their best. Research by team-focused psychologists including Georgia T. Chao, PhD, and her colleagues from Michigan State University have demonstrated that training health-care professionals who work in the ER can improve their teamwork and reduce medical errors.
Psychological science also provides solutions for challenges that are literally out of this world. As NASA plans for humans to travel to Mars, psychologists are studying how astronauts will handle the extreme isolation of the spacecraft. The work of Steve Kozlowski, PhD, and his Michigan State University colleagues on team cohesion may increase the likelihood that travel to the red planet will be a success.
These three examples illustrate a tiny fraction of the ways applied psychological science can improve lives and benefit society. Recognizing the power of this field, APA is elevating its focus on applied psychology by launching an Office of Applied Psychology to raise applied psychology’s profile among the public and key decision-makers. Stay tuned for more information on the importance of this work. The goal is to show how psychology can make the world a better place, every day.
