Who, what, how, and where the typical psychologist is ... the profession of psychology scale.

This study reports on the development of a scale to assess public perceptions of the profession of psychology. Administration of a preliminary form of the scale to introductory psychology students suggests that several misperceptions about the profession are common. Respondents significantly overestimated minority representation in the field as well as the percentage of psychologists who were health care providers. Further, the vast majority of respondents did not recognize that the doctorate was the standard level of training for psychologists. Results indicate a need to provide the public with a more faithful representation of the profession of psychology.

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The longer one teaches, the more likely one is to encounter student misconception concerning psychology. In 1960, McKeachie reported that commonly held beliefs about psychology were in direct conflict with research results (the science of psychology). These "scientific misconceptions" are untruths or half-truths about research findings accepted by students as facts.

Gallucci (1997) noted a different type of misconceptions when he evaluated why students chose psychology as a major. Gallucci noted several misconceptions among psychology students concerning their future career. For example, they overestimated salaries and job opportunities. He advised professors to correct psychology majors' misunderstandings about: "forms of professional practice that are largely unattainable at this time" (p.879). Nauta (2000) also reported "professional" misconceptions about salaries among psychology majors, as well as misunderstandings concerning graduate admissions and training.

In teaching and advising, we frequently encounter misconceptions about what psychologists do, or who they are ("the profession of psychology"). These misconceptions concern psychologists' demographics, their training, or occupations. Accurate information concerning the profession is fairly esoteric, even psychology majors are prone to erroneous beliefs (Nauta, 2000). These beliefs can result in inappropriate career choices for our majors (Nauta, 2000), as well as confusion about the nature of the profession in the lay public and fallacious attacks on the value of psychology by the uninformed (Wood, Jones & Benjamin, 1986). Based upon the potential for such misunderstandings, the current study explores undergraduates' "profession misconceptions" concerning psychology.

Few studies directly examine student's misperceptions of the profession, those that do (Friedrick, 1996; or Nauta, 2000), do so piecemeal. The bulk of the literature focuses on misperceptions concerning scientific information (e.g. DeBell & Harless, 1992; Gardner & Hund, 1983; Gutman, 1979; Lamal, 1979; Vaughn, 1977), providing a few oblique references to what psychologists do and their training.

Wood, Jones and Benjamin, (1986) went so far as to suggest a starting point for remedying what the current study labels "profession misconceptions." They suggest that authors systematically explore "psychology's public image." The current study is such an effort, it reports on the development of a scale to assess peoples' perceptions concerning the profession. The Profession of Psychology Scale explores the public's perception of "who psychologists are", "what they do", "how they are trained", and "where they work."

Method

Participants

Sixty-three undergraduate students at a small rural southern university completed the scale. All participants were volunteers and registered for a general (introductory) psychology class. The mean age of the sample was 20.3 (SD = 4.8), the mean G.P.A. was 2.64 (SD = .59). Thirty-three students (52%) were second semester freshmen. The most common major, Nursing, had nine students, (14% of respondents). Only one respondent (2%) was a psychology major.

The mean age of the 25 males was 20.4 (SD = 4.1), their mean G.P.A. was 2.46 (SD = .57). The males self-reported knowledge concerning psychology was M = 3.44 on a scale ranging from 1 (know very little) to 10 (know a great deal). The mean age of the thirty-eight female students was 20.2 (SD = 5.3), and their average G.P.A. was 2.76 (SD =. 58). The females self-reported knowledge was M = 3.39. A series of Oneway ANOVAs indicated that neither age, nor G.P.A., nor estimated knowledge, differed significantly between sexes (p > .05).

Materials, Procedure, and Analyses

The Profession of Psychology Scale. The Profession of Psychology Scale (PPS) consists of two parts. Part 1 begins with a demographic section followed by two open-ended questions "What is a psychologist, what do they do" and "What background, qualifications are necessary"? Students answered the open-ended questions on a lined sheet of paper; after completing these questions students returned Part 1 of the scale before receiving Part 2.

Part 2 of the PPS consisted of questions such as "What percentage of psychologists are male/female" and "What percentage are White/Minorities." Finally, respondents were asked to list (from most to least common) the places "Where psychologists work" and the percentage of psychologists in various sub-specialties.

Procedure. The PPS was administered in class on the first day of the semester, before students heard a lecture or read the text. To avoid contaminating the open-ended items in Part 1, it was distributed, completed and collected before Part 2 was administered. Students were encouraged to take as much time as necessary and to be truthful. They were assured that their responses would be anonymous and not effect their grades. No extra-credit was offered for participation.

Scoring. Responses to the open-ended questions "What do psychologists do? and "What are their qualifications"? were analyzed by looking for reoccurring themes using a modification of Jones and Pollio's scoring system (Jones, 1984). Questions were scored as to the presence or absence of these themes. The proportions of students reporting a theme provide the data for several test statistics.

Analyses. Analyses consisted of a series of nonparametric tests for significance of a proportion (TSP). Proportions are reported as percentages for clarity. An alpha level of .05 was observed for all tests.

Results and Discussion

Results will be presented in sections grouped by question. A section will start with a summary of what the scale indicates about undergraduates' view of a "typical" psychologist and where appropriate will be followed by statistical analyses of the data.

The Typical Psychologist - Who. Our respondents were asked to provide their estimates of the percentage of psychologists who had certain demographic characteristics. The typical psychologist was seen as more likely to be male. The mean estimate of respondents was that 56.4% of psychologists were male (SD = 15.7) and 43.5% were female (SD = 15.6). Further, respondents estimated that 56.4% of psychologists were Caucasian Americans (SD = 19.6), 18.7% were African Americans (SD = 8.8), 10.9% , were Asian Americans (SD = 7.4), 8.2% were Hispanic Americans (SD = 6.2), and 5.6% fell into the Other category (SD = 7.5).

How do their estimates agree with the real figures? The American Psychological Association (APA) reports that as of 1997, among Ph.D. psychologists, 56% were male and 44% were female (American Psychological Association, 1999a), a remarkable level of agreement between student perceptions and reality.

With respect to minority representation in the field, perception and reality markedly diverge. In order to analyze the data, we collapsed PPS minority categories into one People of Color category, the only Nonwhite category APA reports. The PPS respondents estimated that 56% of all psychologists were White and 44% were People of Color. The actual figures are 91.5% White, 8.5% People of Color (American Psychological Association, 1999a). A TSP indicated that a significant difference exists between students' perception and reality (z = 10.10, p < .001).

The Typical Psychologist - What. Of the 62 students responding to "What is a psychologist, what do they do", 31 (50%) wrote "helps/counsels with (mental) problems", or something similar as their first response. A total of 44 students (61%) included this theme in their responses.

The concept of helping in some way occurs in 48 (77%) of the responses. A total of 27 students (60%) mentioned that what a psychologist does involves "understanding" (e.g. understanding the mind, behavior, people or personality).

In addition to the open-ended items, respondents were asked what percentage of psychologists specialized in particular subfields. Only two of our sub-fields (experimental and organizational) matched the subfield categories for national data that were available. However, we combined several of our categories (clinical, counseling or school psychologists) into a "health service provider" sub-field that is an APA category.

With respect to the health service provider subcategory, students believed that approximately 67.2% of psychologists with doctorates were clinical, counseling or school psychologists. The APA Research Office lists the percentage of Ph.D. health service providers as 50% (American Psychological Association, 1999b). The TSP test-statistic indicated a significant difference between the students' estimates and the actual percentage of psychologists who are health service providers (z = 2.73, P < .01).

These quantitative data reinforce the data from the PPS open-ended question, "What do psychologists do"? Recall, 61% of respondents wrote "helping counsel people with mental problems" to this item. Students perceive the health service provider sub-specialty as more representative of the field than it actually is.

In estimating the percentage of experimental psychologists (19.0%) our students came remarkably close to reality, the true percentage is 16% . In estimating the number of organizational psychologists at 12.4% they more than tripled the real percentage of 3% , a significant difference (z = 4.37, p < .001). It should be noted that the respondents did realize that the percentage of psychologists who specialize in organizational is rather small.

The most bizarre misconception about what psychologists do among respondents was the student who wrote: "study theories of Earth Science." There were also two (3%) who thought psychologists prescribed medicine, true in some states; and two (3%) who believed a psychologist has medical training. This leads to the topic of the training required to be a psychologist.

The Typical Psychologist - How. A total of 52 of the students answered the how or qualifications question, but eleven (17%) wrote nothing or said "they had no idea." Five respondents (8%) wrote that some coursework and/or a major in psychology was necessary, though they did not mention graduating from college. Nine (14%) mentioned a Bachelors as the only requirement. The respondents who indicated some graduate training or a Masters degree was required to be a psychologist totaled 25 (40%). While nine (14%) indicated a doctorate was required or desirable. Six respondents (10%) viewed internships or fieldwork as a requirement.

Since all states require a doctorate for licensure, it is not unreasonable to assume that the minimum requirements to be a psychologist include doctoral.-level training. The TSP test-statistic for these data indicates a significant difference between the percentage of PPS respondents (14%) reporting a doctorate was necessary and reality (z = 67.82, p < .001, note for this analysis we changed 100% to 99% to avoid division by zero).

The Typical Psychologist - Where. A total of 62 students responded to the question "Where do psychologists work." Of these, 35 respondents (56%) listed "private practice" as their first response, while 59 (95%) listed it as one of their five responses. The second most common response was a Medical Setting (hospital, physician's office, mental institution). Nineteen respondents (31%) listed this as their first answer, 57 (92%) as one of their responses.

Analysis of these data is problematic, while 95% of PPS respondents listed "private practice" as a place psychologists work, this may not however, indicate that respondents believed 95% of all psychologists engage in private practice. A revision of the PPS scale will eliminate this ambiguity in the future. For now, we chose the more conservative percentage of 56% of PPS respondents who listed private practice as their first choice for where psychologists work. In actuality 39% of psychologists are classified as "for profit and self-employed" (American Psychological Association, 1999c). Once again, a TSP test indicates that a significant difference between students' perception and reality (z = 2.92, p < .01).

Conclusions

Our data indicate a wide discrepancy between student perceptions of the profession of psychology and reality. This divergence occurs in all areas, including who psychologists are, what they do, how they are trained, and where they are employed. Of particular concern are the overestimates of minority representation and percentage of psychologists who are health care providers, and students' lack of recognition of the doctorate as the standard level of training for psychologists. There is a pressing need for further research in this area. The PPS is being revised and expanded, (we are currently collecting additional data concerning students' perceptions of sub-specialties). Like Gallucci (1997), Nauta (2000) and Wood, Jones and Benjamin, (1986), we urge our colleagues to examine these profession misconceptions as a first step towards providing students of psychology as well as the general public with a more faithful representation of psychology.

Author Notes

A summary of the results of this study was presented at the 46th Annual Southeastern Psychological Association conference, New Orleans LA, March 2000.

If you would like to help with the standardization of the Revised Profession of Psychology Scale (a shorter, multiple-choice, fill-in the blank instrument) please contact Gary T. Rosenthal.

References

American Psychological Association. (1999a). Data on Education and Employment - General Demographic Shifts in Psychology [Online]. Available: http://research.apa.org/ gen1.html

American Psychological Association. (1999b). Data on Education and Employment - PhD Psychologists by Subfield: 1975,1985,1995 [On-line]. Available: http://research.apa.org/ doc15.html

American Psychological Association. (1999c). Data on Education and Employment - Doctoral, Employed Psychology PhDs by Setting: 1997 [On-line]. Available: http:// research.apa.org/doc10.html

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Gary T. Rosenthal, Richard R. McKnight and A.W. Price, Department of Psychology and Counselor Education, Nicholls State University.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Dr. Gary T. Rosenthal, Department of Psychology and Counselor Education, Nicholls State University, P.O. Box 2075, Thibodaux, Louisiana 70310. email: [e-mail]