BEHS 210: Introduction to Social Sciences
A Library Subject Guide
Research a Topic from a Psychology Perspective
Below are suggestions for researching a societal issue or topic. These are just suggestions--feel free to try other searches if the ones below do not match your chosen issue or topic.
- Be sure to read your classroom assignment instructions carefully!
- Please note: The searches below are links that will take you into our library OneSearch database, where you'll see the results of the search. You can then begin reviewing the articles that come up and perhaps even choose a few that you can use in your assignment, if the search closely matches your topic.
- The searches below use library search techniques: AND, OR, parentheses, quotation marks, and the * symbol. For a refresher on these techniques, please see our library guide for database searching.
Search results in the library are different than in Google. Google gives you a lot of easy-to-understand, practical information. The library will give you primarily in-depth, technically-written, scientific studies. These are called scholarly articles. They can be difficult to understand at first, but if you can choose a scholarly article that relates to your topic and then review the article carefully, you can usually extract a main idea or a relevant fact or two that you can incorporate in your paper.
Racial Issues from a Psychology perspective
- "racial justice" AND psycholog*
- racism AND ("African Americans" OR "Black Americans") AND "mental health"
Homelessness from a Psychology perspective
- (homeless* OR unhoused) AND women AND (psycholog* OR "mental health")
- (homeless OR unhoused) AND (therapy OR counseling) AND "mental health"
Social Class from a Psychology perspective
- ("social class" OR "social stratification") AND child* AND psycholog*
- ("social class" OR "social stratification") AND minorities AND "mental health"
Health Care from a Psychology perspective
Gender from a Psychology perspective
- ("transgender children" OR "transgender child") AND (psycholog* OR "mental health" OR counsel*)
- "gender reassignment" AND psycholog*
Environment from a Psychology perspective
Immigration from a Psychology perspective
- immigrants AND "United States" AND "mental health"
- immigrants AND "United States" AND "mental health services"
Sexual Orientation from a Psychology perspective
Technology from a Psychology perspective
- (online OR Zoom) AND (psychotherapy OR counseling OR psychologists)
- ("video games" OR "online gaming") AND addict*
Besides searching in OneSearch, you can also try searching in a psychology-related library database. Here's a list of recommended databases for psychology.