Who Majors in Psychology?

Abstract

We compared 365 graduates with bachelor's degrees in psychology to 244 in sociology/anthropology, 194 in speech communication, 155 in physical and health education, and 204 in social work/society and justice on earlier high school interests, grades, and achievement measures (e.g., vocabulary test scores). Advisers can inform prospective majors that, as high school students, psychology graduates' strongest vocational interest areas were artistic, general cultural, scientific, and service, not unlike successful PhDs in psychology. Psychology majors had similar interests to those majoring in the other four areas, but our majors had better high school grades and achievement test scores.