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Abstract

Very little research examines the beliefs and stereotypes students have about the discipline and major of psychology. Previous research has found that psychology majors report hearing a variety of such beliefs and stereotypes more often from their fellow students than from their family members. In the current study, psychology majors/minors and non-majors/-minors (N = 376) reported their frequency of hearing beliefs and stereotypes from friends/fellow students or family members and the extent that they agreed with those items. Majors/minors and non-majors/-minors differed significantly on their agreement with several items, such as psychology being “a dead end field,” “psychology is mostly an easy major,” and that “working with crazy people will make you go crazy.” Compared to majors/minors, non-majors/-minors were more likely to agree with the items. There was no evidence that upper-division majors/minors were less likely to believe or less likely to hear the beliefs and stereotypes than lower-division majors/minors. Students reported hearing many of the items more often from friends/fellow students than family members. We discuss the implications of these results for addressing beliefs about the psychology field and degree in introductory and careers courses.

Keywords

psychology stereotypes psychology beliefs psychology major psychology degree psychology discipline

Introduction

Despite, or perhaps because of, its being an interdisciplinary and hub science (Cacioppo, 2013), the field of psychology has its share of stereotypes and misconceptions held by the lay public. These stereotypes and misconceptions can apply to psychological research, the discipline as a whole, and the people who work or major in the field. For example, psychologists have identified many misconceptions that students have about research findings in psychology and how best to correct those misconceptions (Gardner & Brown, 2013; Hughes, Lyddy, & Lambe, 2013; Kowalski & Taylor, 2009). In addition, researchers have shown that agreement with these content-related misconceptions is negatively correlated with grades in psychology courses (Kuhle, Barber, & Bristol, 2009). Furnham and Hughes (2014) reported that psychology students were more knowledgeable about psychological research myths than the general public, although education appeared to have a minimal effect on the reduction of these misconceptions. Other research shows that psychology majors' perceptions of the discipline are related to their preference for, willingness, and timing to take particular core courses (Rajecki, Appleby, Williams, Johnson, & Jeschke, 2004). Amsel, Baird, and Ashley (2011) found that, as they take more disciplinary coursework and progress in academic status, actual or potential psychology majors/minors' understanding of the scientific foundations of psychology increases.

Past research has examined stereotypes about non-psychology occupations, such as medicine, engineering, and management (e.g., Jemielniak, 2007; Lewitt, Ehrenborg, Scheja, & Brauner, 2010). Although researchers have examined many aspects of the myths and misconceptions of psychology, there is very little research on specific beliefs and stereotypes that people hold about the field of psychology, such as about what can be done with a bachelor's degree or the kinds of students who tend to major in it. Given the wide range of subfields present in the field of psychology and paralleling the misconceptions research, it is not surprising that students have inaccurate views about the field, the type and levels of education needed for particular jobs, and the characteristics of those who work in psychology (Gutman, 1979; Mura & Levy, 1987; Nauta, 2000; Wood, Jones, & Benjamin, 1986). Haskell et al. (2012) showed that there is a substantial mismatch between psychology student perceptions of the field and the work-related skills valued by employers. As with the content-related misconceptions, it is important for educators to discuss these beliefs and stereotypes in the introductory and careers psychology courses and to provide more accurate information to students about the field.

Brinthaupt, Counts, and Hurst (2012) asked students from a psychology careers course to generate different beliefs and stereotypes they had heard regarding the field of psychology and the major. The 18 items included the usefulness of the degree (e.g., “You can't do anything in psychology with a bachelor's degree”), likely salary associated with the degree (e.g., “To really make good money in the field of psychology you have to get a master's degree”), general characteristics of the psychology major (e.g., “If you major in psychology you can only do counseling or something medically related”), and the types of people who major in psychology (e.g., “People who major in psychology have a history of mental illness”). Brinthaupt et al. then surveyed psychology students about the sources of these beliefs and stereotypes. The students reported more often hearing the items from their fellow students than from their families. In a follow-up study, the authors found that psychology students reported disagreeing with most of these beliefs and stereotypes.

Research on the sources and perceptions of psychology beliefs and stereotypes is important for several reasons. First, as noted earlier, very little research has determined from where students hear information about disciplinary beliefs and stereotypes pertinent to their career options. Second, it is likely that the presence or pervasiveness of such beliefs and stereotypes might affect students' willingness to major or minor in psychology. Third, information about the sources and strength of individual beliefs and stereotypes can be useful for instructors who are interested in addressing and correcting those misconceptions.

The present study uses the belief and stereotype items from the Brinthaupt et al. (2012) studies to examine the differences between psychology majors/minors and non-majors/non-minors in how strongly students believe those items and where they report hearing them. We chose to use these items to allow comparison with previous research, which derived them from psychology students who would presumably be more aware of and likely to hear beliefs and stereotypes related to the field and career options. An unanswered research question is whether academic major status is related to the agreement with and frequency of hearing discipline-related beliefs and stereotypes. We had four predictions about major status and sources of information about these psychology beliefs and stereotypes.

First, we expected that students who do not intend to major or minor in psychology (or are uncertain about doing so) would agree more strongly with the beliefs and stereotypes than would psychology majors and minors (H1). There are several possible reasons for different levels of agreement between these two groups. Because of their lack of academic exposure to psychology, non-majors/-minors may rely more than majors/minors on portrayals of the discipline in film, television, and other media (Butler & Hyler, 2005; Klin & Lemish, 2008; Maier, Gentile, Vogel, & Kaplan, 2014). In addition, less agreement with beliefs and stereotypes among majors or minors could be caused by differential exposure to psychology field content, information about specific stereotypes from psychology courses or teachers, and self-protective motivations among those who have declared psychology as a major or minor.

According to motivated reasoning theory (Kunda, 1990, 1999), if majors/minors have an emotional investment in psychology that non-majors/-minors do not, then the former students should be motivated to confirm their belief that psychology is a good and appropriate major and career option for them. This motivation should lead majors/minors to seek out, interpret, and recall information that supports their belief. Non-majors/-minors or those who are uncertain should have much less academic experience with these beliefs and stereotypes and may therefore be more likely to believe them than psychology majors/minors. Non-majors should also be less motivated to avoid or discount information that might support beliefs and stereotypes related to psychology. Additionally, psychology majors/minors may perceive themselves as members of an ingroup and non-majors/-minors may think of themselves as outgroup members with respect to psychology. Such perceptions may increase the chances that majors/minors see themselves as more varied in their characteristics, whereas non-majors/-minors might see psychology majors/minors as more homogeneous (e.g., Mullen & Hu, 1989).

For similar reasons, psychology majors and minors who are more advanced (i.e., junior or senior level) should also report less agreement with the beliefs and stereotypes than majors/minors who are less advanced (i.e., freshman or sophomore level) (H2). Compared to lower-division students, upper-division majors/minors should be characterized by increased exposure to disciplinary content, greater motivation to confirm the appropriateness of their major/minor, stronger feelings of belonging to a psychology major ingroup, and more discussion of the various career options available to them.

Because they are less likely to have discussed the psychology major or field with others and have less interest in the discipline, we also expected that, compared to majors/minors, non-majors/-minors would report fewer instances of having heard most of the beliefs and stereotypes (H3). Finally, we assessed how frequently students heard stereotypical views of the field from their parents/family members as well as from their friends/fellow students. Though research has shown that family is influential in career choice (Berrios-Allison, 2005; Marrs, Barb, & Ruggiero, 2007), peers can also exert influence over career and academic major choices (Anderson, 2005; Mudhovozl, 2010). One of the ways that peers might influence students' career and major choices is through the promulgation of beliefs and stereotypes related to specific disciplines. Based on previous research (Brinthaupt et al., 2012), we expected that students would be more likely to report hearing these items from friends/fellow students than from family members, regardless of their major/minor status (H4).

Method

Participants

Participants were 376 undergraduates (100 men, 271 women, four other, one missing) from a large (25K+) public university in the southeastern U. S. The sample included 170 freshmen (45%), 75 sophomores (20%), 57 juniors (15%), 71 seniors (19%), and three others (1%). With respect to ethnicity, most of the students were either Caucasian (61%) or African-American (30%). The students came from lower- or upper-division courses in general psychology, psychology of criminal behavior, issues and ethics, abnormal psychology, theories of counseling, history and systems of psychology, organizational communication, and agriculture policy. We asked students to only complete the survey once, in case they had more than one teacher who distributed it. They received course credit for their participation at the discretion of their instructor.

Seventy-two percent of the participants either were not currently psychology majors or did not intend to major in psychology, whereas 16% were declared or intended to declare and 12% were unsure. Additionally, 64% indicated that they neither had declared a minor in psychology nor had an intention to declare that minor, with 15% indicating yes and 21% choosing the unsure option. Based on these responses, we created three groups: declared or intended to declare psychology as a major or minor (n = 100, 27%); had neither declared nor intended to declare psychology as a major or minor (n = 203, 54%); and were uncertain about either declaring a major or minor in psychology (n = 72, 19%). The major/minor group is smaller than the individual major and minor percentages because some majors also choose psychology as one of their required minors.

Measures and Procedure

Respondents participated during the first half of the academic term. After reading and signing an informed consent form, they completed the survey. It consisted of 18 beliefs and stereotypes generated by psychology majors taking a Psychology Careers Seminar (Brinthaupt et al., 2012), and contained three parts. In the first part, students rated the extent that they personally agreed or disagreed with “various stereotypes related to the field of psychology and to psychology majors.” Students rated these items using a 5-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree). Table 1 presents the complete wording for each of the beliefs and stereotypes.

Table 1.

Agreement with Psychology Beliefs and Stereotypes by Different Student Categories

Psychology Belief or Stereotype	Majors/ Minors M	(n = 100) (SD)	Unsure M	(n = 72) (SD)	Non-Majors/ -Minors M	(n = 203) (SD)	F-value	ηp ²
Usefulness of Degree
1. You can't do anything in psychology with a bachelor's degree.	2.52	(1.12)	2.51	(1.06)	2.41	(1.05)	0.435	0.002
2. To do anything in psychology you have to have at least a master's degree.	2.94	(1.17)	2.78	(1.05)	2.85	(1.08)	.473	0.003
3. You can't do anything in psychology without a Ph.D.	1.82^a	(0.78)	2.15^b	(0.90)	2.32^b	(0.94)	10.261**	0.052
4. It is impossible to get a job in the field of psychology with a bachelor's degree, and still tough with a master's degree.	2.50	(0.95)	2.57	(0.96)	2.64	(0.98)	0.668	0.004
5. Psychology is a dead end field with no job opportunities.	1.35^a	(0.58)	1.75^b	(0.85)	1.92^b	(0.92)	15.957**	0.079
Salary
6. You can't get good paying jobs with just a bachelor's degree in psychology.	2.88	(1.17)	2.63	(1.00)	2.71	(1.01)	1.396	0.007
7. To really make good money in the field of psychology you have to get a master's degree.	3.61	(0.96)	3.36	(0.92)	3.40	(0.90)	2.087	0.011
The Psychology Major
8. If you major in psychology you will have to write a lot of papers and teachers grade so hard that it is very difficult to pass.	2.32^a	(1.05)	2.74^b	(0.98)	2.83^b	(1.05)	8.209**	0.042
9. Psychology is not suitable as a major.	1.36 ^a	(0.54)	1.81 ^b	(0.93)	2.08 ^b	(1.00)	22.267**	0.107
10. If you major in psychology, you have to focus on a specific area and cannot study the field of Psychology as a whole.	2.30	(1.00)	2.32	(1.06)	2.60	(1.08)	3.583	0.019
11. If you major in psychology you can only do counseling or something medically related.	1.59 ^a	(0.80)	2.25 ^b	(1.07)	2.19 ^b	(1.04)	14.273**	0.071
12. Majoring in psychology is taking the easy way out of school. There is easy coursework and it is mostly an easy major with an easy A.	1.41 ^a	(0.64)	1.69	(0.87)	1.87 ^b	(1.01)	8.941**	0.046
Types of People Who Major in Psychology
13. Working with crazy people will make you go crazy.	1.70 ^a	(0.87)	1.96	(1.12)	2.20 ^b	(1.17)	7.134*	0.037
14. People who major in psychology have a history of mental illness.	1.78	(0.99)	1.71	(0.93)	1.85	(0.94)	.658	0.004
15. People who major in psychology are constantly analyzing everyone around them and every situation they are in.	2.86	(1.17)	3.15	(1.10)	3.04	(1.16)	1.485	0.008
16. People who major in psychology know all the answers to everybody's problems.	1.81	(0.99)	2.01	(0.90)	1.87	(0.86)	1.099	0.006
17. People who major in psychology are far crazier than the people they treat.	1.57	(0.82)	1.79	(0.92)	1.81	(0.91)	2.633	0.014
18. People who major in psychology are nosy and in other people's business all the time.	1.85	(0.88)	2.01	(0.94)	2.11	(1.06)	2.364	0.013

Note. * p < 0.003, ** p < 0.001; df = 2, 372. Means with different superscripts differ significantly from each other (p < .05). Participants rated their level of agreement with each belief or stereotype using a 5-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree).

In the remaining parts of the survey, students rated each of the beliefs and stereotypes in terms of “how often you have heard various stereotypes related to the field of psychology and to psychology majors from your friends or fellow students” and “from your parents or family members.” Students rated these items using a 5-point frequency scale (1 = never, 2 = rarely, 3 = sometimes, 4 = often, 5 = very often).

We counterbalanced the order of the three parts of the belief/stereotype ratings (i.e., self-agreement, heard from friends/fellow students, heard from family). Following the belief and stereotype ratings, participants answered several demographic questions, including gender, year in school, ethnicity, and actual and intended major and minor.

Results

Hypothesis 1: Student Status Differences in Agreement with Belief and Stereotype Items

Table 1 provides the descriptive statistics for the self-rated agreement with the beliefs and stereotypes based on the three academic groups. We conducted a series of one-way analyses of variance (ANOVA) on self-ratings of the 18 items to evaluate group differences in the extent that students personally agreed with the different beliefs and stereotypes. Because of the multiple comparisons, we used the Bonferroni correction to adjust our significance level (0.05/18 = 0.003) for this and the following analyses. As can be seen in the table, the student groups differed significantly on seven of the 18 items, primarily within the general category of characteristics of the psychology major.

Bonferroni post hoc comparisons indicated that psychology majors/minors disagreed more with the “can't do anything without a PhD” item than the non-majors/-minors (p < 0.001) and the undecideds (p = 0.05) and disagreed more with the “psychology is a dead end field” item than the non-majors/-minors (p < 0.001) and the undecideds (p = 0.006). Majors/minors also disagreed more with the “working with crazy people will make you go crazy” item than did the non-majors/-minors (p = 0.001).

For the psychology major items, majors/minors disagreed more with the “very difficult to pass” item than the non-majors/-minors (p < 0.001) and the undecideds (p = 0.03) and disagreed more with the “psychology is not suitable as a major” item than the non-majors/-minors (p < 0.001) and the undecideds (p = 0.004). Majors/minors also disagreed more with the “you can only do counseling” item than the non-majors (p < 0.000) and the undecideds (p < 0.000) and disagreed more with the psychology “is mostly an easy major” item than the non-majors/-minors (p < 0.001). The 18 agreement items showed acceptable internal consistency (r = 0.81). We therefore calculated an overall belief/stereotype agreement index (summing the 18 items) and compared the three student groups on this index. The group effect was significant, F(2, 372) = 9.43, p < 0.001, ηp² = 0.048. Majors/-minors (M = 38.17, SD = 8.27) scored significantly lower on the index than both the non-majors/-minors (M = 42.71, SD = 8.83) and the uncertain students (M = 41.19, SD = 8.18). Thus, we found moderate support for our first hypothesis that non-majors/-minors would agree more with the beliefs and stereotypes than psychology majors/minors.

Hypothesis 2: Lower- and Upper-Division Differences in Agreement and Sources

To conduct the comparison of the lower- and upper-division students (H2), we used only the psychology majors/minors. This provided a better test of the prediction about the effects of increased exposure to psychology course content on stereotype perceptions than using the entire sample. Using the Bonferroni-corrected alpha of 0.003, comparison of lower-division (freshman/sophomore, n = 49; six men, 43 women) and upper-division (junior/senior; n = 51; 13 men, 35 women, three other) majors/minors on the self-ratings revealed no significant differences. Thus, we found no support for our second hypothesis. Lower- and upper-division majors/minors also did not differ in how frequently they reported hearing any of the beliefs and stereotypes from different sources.

Hypotheses 3 and 4: Student Status and Source Differences in Belief and Stereotype Information

To compare the group differences against the two different sources of belief and stereotype information, we conducted a series of three (major status: major/minor, non-major/-minor, uncertain) X 2 (source: friends/fellow students, parents/family) mixed model ANOVAs. These analyses indicated that there were main effects for major status on three of the 18 items, including the “can't do anything with a bachelor's degree” (F(2, 371) = 6.76, p = 0.001, ηp² = 0.035), “to do anything you have to have at least a master's degree” (F(2, 371) = 6.35, p = 0.002, ηp² = 0.033), and “know all the answers to everybody's problems” (F(2, 371) = 8.45, p < 0.001, ηp² = 0.044) items. In each of these cases, Bonferroni post hoc tests indicated that non-majors/-minors reported less often hearing the beliefs and stereotypes than majors/minors (all ps < 0.05). Thus, we found partial support for our third hypothesis.

There were also several source main effects (see Table 2), with significant differences on seven of the 18 items. In all of these cases, participants reported hearing the beliefs and stereotypes more often from friends/fellow students than from parents/family members. This pattern appeared across all four different categories of the items and provided good support for our fourth hypothesis.

Table 2.

Frequency of Hearing Psychology Beliefs and Stereotypes from Different Sources

Psychology Belief or Stereotype	Friends/ Fellow Students M	(SD)	Parents/Family Members M	(SD)	F-value	ηp ²
Usefulness of Degree
1. You can't do anything in psychology with a bachelor's degree.	2.87	(1.49)	2.58	(1.45)	14.163*	0.037
2. To do anything in psychology you have to have at least a master's degree.	3.11	(1.53)	2.80	(1.43)	17.385*	0.045
3. You can't do anything in psychology without a Ph.D.	2.50	(1.49)	2.38	(1.41)	3.182	0.009
4. It is impossible to get a job in the field of psychology with a bachelor's degree, and still tough with a master's degree.	2.82	(1.33)	2.57	(1.45)	13.406*	0.035
5. Psychology is a dead end field with no job opportunities.	2.19	(1.39)	2.08	(1.33)	2.756	0.007
Salary
6. You can't get good paying jobs with just a bachelor's degree in psychology.	2.69	(1.33)	2.64	(1.47)	0.389	0.001
7. To really make good money in the field of psychology you have to get a master's degree.	3.14	(1.35)	2.78	(1.43)	24.662*	0.062
The Psychology Major
8. If you major in psychology you will have to write a lot of papers and teachers grade so hard that it is very difficult to pass.	2.43	(1.45)	2.13	(1.33)	21.454*	0.055
9. Psychology is not suitable as a major.	1.97	(1.24)	1.96	(1.35)	0.005	0.000
10. If you major in psychology, you have to focus on a specific area and cannot study the field of Psychology as a whole.	2.21	(1.33)	2.04	(1.32)	6.707	0.018
11. If you major in psychology you can only do counseling or something medically related.	2.29	(1.35)	2.36	(1.45)	1.044	0.003
12. Majoring in psychology is taking the easy way out of school. There is easy coursework and it is mostly an easy major with an easy A.	1.96	(1.31)	1.72	(1.24)	14.256*	0.037
Types of People Who Major in Psychology
13. Working with crazy people will make you go crazy.	2.35	(1.41)	2.29	(1.43)	0.883	0.002
14. People who major in psychology have a history of mental illness.	1.94	(1.26)	1.81	(1.20)	4.733	0.013
15. People who major in psychology are constantly analyzing everyone around them and every situation they are in.	3.08	(1.45)	2.79	(1.49)	17.661*	0.045
16. People who major in psychology know all the answers to everybody's problems.	2.38	(1.30)	2.22	(1.30)	4.943	0.013
17. People who major in psychology are far crazier than the people they treat.	2.06	(1.37)	1.90	(1.28)	7.240	0.019
18. People who major in psychology are nosy and in other people's business all the time.	2.29	(1.39)	2.13	(1.39)	5.804	0.015

Note. N = 375. * p < 0.001. Participants rated their frequency of hearing each belief or stereotype using a 5-point scale (1 = never, 5 = very often).

We found three significant major status X source interactions. An interaction emerged for the “can't do anything with a bachelor's degree” item, F(2, 371) = 10.89, p < 0.001, ηp² = 0.055. In this case, majors/minors reported being more likely to report hearing this item from friends (M = 3.41, SD = 2.55) than parents (M = 2.62, SD = 2.65), whereas uncertain students and non-major/-minor students reported hearing it equally often from parents and friends.

An additional interaction occurred for the “psychology is a dead end field” item (F(2, 371) = 7.39, p = 0.001, ηp² = 0.038). Once again, the pattern of means indicated that majors/minors reported hearing these items more often from friends (M = 2.26, SD = 1.28) than parents (M = 1.76, SD = 1.22), whereas uncertain students and non-major/-minor students reported hearing it equally often from parents and friends. Finally, an interaction occurred for the “can't get good paying jobs with just a bachelor's degree” item (F(2, 371) = 13.41, p < 0.001, ηp² = 0.067). In this case, the pattern of means indicated that majors/minors reported hearing these items more often from friends (M = 3.17, SD = 1.34) than parents (M = 2.58, SD = 1.23), whereas uncertain students reported hearing them more often from parents (M = 2.75, SD = 1.33) than friends (M = 2.29, SD = 1.23).

Supplementary Analyses

Gender comparisons on the self-, friend-, and parent-ratings revealed one significant difference out of the 54 comparisons. The difference occurred with the self-rating “psychology is not suitable as a major” item, t(369) = 3.36, p = 0.001, d = 0.26. Women (M = 2.66, SD = 1.05) reported agreeing less strongly with this item than did men (M = 2.94, SD = 1.11).

Discussion

In this study, we compared how often psychology majors and non-majors reported hearing several beliefs and stereotypes about the field and how strongly they agreed with those stereotypes. Very little research has examined discipline-specific beliefs and stereotypes and the factors that might be related to agreement with and hearing them. The study provided interesting results regarding the relationships among major status, academic progression, and the sources of belief and stereotype information.

Agreement with Psychology Beliefs and Perceptions

There was partial support for our first hypothesis, that non-majors/-minors would agree with the psychology beliefs and stereotypes more strongly than majors/minors. Non-majors/-minors did report stronger agreement with some of the items than majors/minors. The main area of stronger agreement was the characteristics of the major, including the suitability of psychology as a major, the limitations of what one can do with the major, and the kinds of courses students take in the discipline. Major status was also related to agreement with the usefulness of the degree (having to have at least a master's degree and psychology being a dead end field). The lower agreement of the majors/minors with these beliefs and stereotypes might be affected by their greater exposure to disciplinary content, more information about specific stereotypes from psychology courses or teachers, or less reliance on portrayals of the discipline in film, television, and other media compared to the non-majors/-minors.

Comparison of the student groups revealed that majors/minors did not differ from non-majors/-minors in their agreement with most of the items pertaining to the types of people who major in psychology (see Table 1). This is an interesting pattern, given that those items are most clearly “stereotypes” (i.e., expressing a perceived shared attribute) rather than beliefs about the consequences of majoring or minoring in psychology. The student groups mostly disagreed with the items, with nearly all the items rated below the scale midpoint. From an ingroup perspective, the stereotypes about psychology majors' characteristics should constitute an affective threat to the majors/minors, decreasing their tendency to agree with them compared to outgroup members. However, we found little evidence that this kind of threat might have been operating. The results suggest that the academic groups differed mainly in their tendency to disagree with items pertaining to the negative consequences of majoring in psychology. Such a result provides indirect support for motivated reasoning theory, in that majors/minors might be motivated to deny or find evidence that counters the possible negative implications of their disciplinary choice.

There are other possible reasons why majors/minors were less likely than non-majors/-minors to agree with the psychology beliefs. Presumably, majors/minors are interested in the discipline, are likely to have taken courses within the field, and have considered the career options available to them. These experiences might provide majors and minors with more relevant information about psychology than non-majors/-minors have, particularly if they have taken a psychology careers course (which is a required course for our majors and a popular option for minors). In fact, if we asked psychology majors about the beliefs and stereotypes associated with a different field (such as chemistry, computer science, or business), we expect that their levels of agreement would be similar to the non-majors/-minors in the current sample. Comparing beliefs and stereotypes from other disciplines would help researchers to understand whether or not the current results are unique to psychology.

Relationship of Year in School to Beliefs and Stereotypes

We found minimal support for our second hypothesis, that junior- and senior-level psychology majors and minors would agree less strongly with the beliefs and stereotypes than freshman- and sophomore-level majors/minors. We assumed that, compared to lower-division students, upper-division majors/minors would be characterized by more exposure to disciplinary content, greater motivation to confirm the appropriateness of their major/minor, and increased discussion of the various career options available to them. These and other factors were expected to reduce the upper-division students' agreement with the various beliefs and stereotypes. However, none of the 18 items showed significant upper-/lower-division differences in agreement.

One possible reason for the absence of differences in upper-/lower-division student agreement might be that academic advising focuses primarily on course sequencing and mapping for graduating in a timely manner rather than addressing beliefs and stereotypes about the field and major. In addition, unless students take a course on psychology careers, their course content is unlikely to provide information that is directly pertinent to the beliefs and stereotypes we measured (Roscoe & McMahan, 2014). In our institution, majors and minors are encouraged to take the Careers Seminar in their sophomore year. We did not ask our participants whether they had taken this course or the number of psychology hours they had completed to date. Both of these variables could provide insight into whether course content or academic progression is related to agreement with or frequency of hearing the beliefs and stereotypes.

Ideally, psychology teachers should want their upper-division students to be more knowledgeable about the field and its career options (Case, Miller, Hensley, & Jackson, 2014), either through advising or through discussion of the beliefs and stereotypes in their courses. However, the upper-division students did not report hearing any of the beliefs and stereotypes more often than the lower-division students. One possible explanation for this result is that, as they progress further through their academic program, upper-division students are no more likely to discuss career options with (or get feedback about these options from) their significant others than are lower-division students.

Major Status and Hearing Psychology Beliefs and Stereotypes

The hypothesis that psychology majors/minors would be more likely to report hearing the beliefs and stereotypes than non-majors/-minors or undecided students was partially supported. Our reasoning here was that non-majors/-minors would be less likely than majors/minors to have discussed the psychology field or major with others and have less interest in the psychology discipline compared to their own chosen or likely major. However, majoring or minoring in something other than psychology does not mean that students are unfamiliar with the academic discipline of psychology. For example, students who major in other fields could still take the general psychology course (e.g., as a general education option) and have friends or fellow students who are majoring or minoring in psychology. These experiences might increase the chances that non-majors/-minors hear some of the beliefs and stereotypes about psychology from other people.

It is also worth noting that students from each of the different major status groups tended to disagree, on average, with most of the beliefs and stereotypes. Only five of the 54 means were at or above the scale midpoint of 3 (see Table 1). In other words, few of the participants appeared to agree with the beliefs and stereotypes we presented to them. Their tendency to disagree with the items might be attributable to a lack of extensive knowledge about the field (among the non-majors/-minors) and knowledge or motivations that counter those beliefs and stereotypes (among the majors/minors). The knowledge that psychology is a popular major might have also worked against students' agreeing with the belief and stereotype items.

Sources of Information about Psychology Beliefs and Stereotypes

We found good support for the prediction that students would report more often hearing the various psychology beliefs and stereotypes from their friends/fellow students than from their family members. This finding was consistent with previous research (Brinthaupt et al., 2012) in which declared majors/minors who had taken an introductory psych course were surveyed. Combined with the significant major status X source interaction findings, the current results indicated that friends/fellow students were more frequent sources of belief and stereotype information than family members for nine of the 18 items. The interactions suggested that hearing them more often from friends/fellow students than family members was particularly true for majors/minors.

There are several possible explanations for why friends/fellow students are more frequent sources of information about the disciplinary aspects and career options of psychology than family members. First, college students are probably more likely to spend time with their peers than their family members, at least in person. If this is the case, information about their major or minor choices and options is just one of many other kinds of information that is more frequently shared with peers. Second, students may be more likely to discuss their specific academic plans and career options with their peers than family members. This tendency might reflect a mutual interest in what they and their peers want to or will be doing when they graduate. Third, discussions about academic and career plans may be more likely to occur with peers who are also majoring or minoring in the field than with peers who are not. It is conceivable that each of these tendencies could be operating in combination.

Knowing that friends/fellow students are more frequent sources of information than family members about disciplinary beliefs and stereotypes offers some intriguing possibilities for future research or interventions designed to address those perceptions. For example, psychology teachers could survey their students about the beliefs and stereotypes of peers as a way to provide more accurate perspectives to majors and minors about the discipline and careers in the field. These findings may be consistent with other research (Anderson, 2005; Mudhovozl, 2010) that friends or fellow students have an influence on choices about career and academic major. However, we did not collect data on the extent that friends and family members exert differential influence on career or major choice. Thus, it is unclear how hearing beliefs and stereotypes and experiencing influence from others might be related.

Implications for Psychology Teaching and Future Research

In terms of career advising and teaching practice, the results suggest at least two approaches. Because there were differences based on major/minor status, addressing beliefs about the consequences of majoring in psychology in the Introductory Psychology course might be an effective way to convey the nature of the discipline to both majors and non-majors. In this way, students can be better informed when deciding whether to major or minor in psychology. Instructors and advisors might also recommend that students carefully research and consider degree and career information before declaring a psychology major or minor. This approach might help to counter the potential negative effects of any biased cognitive strategies regarding the appropriateness of the major. Instructors might, for example, create class or small-group discussions or activities related to the various beliefs and stereotypes about psychology, with the goal of having students assess the accuracy or implications of those perceptions.

More attention might also be devoted to discussing degree and field beliefs and stereotypes with both lower- and upper-division psychology majors and minors. Researchers (e.g., Amsel, Ashley, Baird, & Johnston, 2014) have shown that students' knowledge of psychology as a science can be positively influenced by their psychology professors. Accordingly, professors' views about and their efforts to address, clarify, or counter psychology misconceptions are likely to have a positive effect on student knowledge and beliefs. Future research examining this possibility is warranted.

Another interesting study would be to examine how agreement with these beliefs and stereotypes is related to scores on measures of psychological myths and misconceptions (e.g., Furnham & Hughes, 2014; Gardner & Brown, 2013). We expect that holding a more negative or stereotypical view of the field and major of psychology should be associated with greater agreement with those myths and misconceptions. To our knowledge, no research has examined the possible relations between holding negative or stereotypical views of the field and the tendency to believe psychology myths and misconceptions.

We were unable to compare likely and actual majors/minors on the belief and stereotype items. Because they would have already taken formal steps to do so, students who have actually declared psychology as a major or minor presumably should activate more self-protective thinking with respect to the field (Kunda, 1990). In addition, they are likely to have taken more psychology courses than students who intend to formally declare it as major or minor but have yet to do so.

There were no gender differences in the frequency of hearing the beliefs and stereotypes from friends or family members and only one difference in the tendency to agree with the beliefs and stereotypes. That item (“psychology is not suitable as a major”) might relate to the perception of students and the lay public that psychology is more appropriate for women than men (e.g., Harton & Lyons, 2003) or that it is primarily a female discipline (Pion et al., 1996).

For the agreement data, we speculated that motivated reasoning theory (Kunda, 1990, 1999) might help account for the results. In particular, majors/minors might experience differential exposure to content in the field of psychology, receive information that addresses specific beliefs and stereotypes from psychology courses or teachers, and be susceptible to self-protective motivations as a result of declaring psychology as a major or minor. However, we did not directly measure any of these factors. There is some evidence (Amsel et al., 2011) that greater exposure to the discipline is associated with an increased understanding of the scientific nature of psychology. Future research should examine the extent to which student information and motivations affect agreement with and frequency of hearing psychology beliefs and stereotypes, as well as whether there are any differences between lower-division and upper-division students on their information or motivation.

There are several additional questions that could be addressed by future research on beliefs and stereotypes about the field and major of psychology. First, researchers could study how often and how vigorously family members and friends/fellow students try to convince psychology majors to change that major (Mudhovozl, 2010). Addressing student perceptions of the accuracy of the beliefs and stereotypes would also be useful for both majors and non-majors. Psychology majors and minors might differ from non-majors/-minors in the extent to which they assume psychology-related information and knowledge to be held by their peers or family members (Nickerson, 1999). It might also be worthwhile to examine possible differences between psychology students' experiences with friends compared to fellow students. Friends, particularly if they are non-students, might be more likely to propagate some of the beliefs or stereotypes we studied than one's fellow students.

Although the current results suggest that students are more likely to hear a variety of beliefs and stereotypes from their peers than their parents or family members, we did not examine the extent that different sources actually influence one's choice of major or minor. For example, it could be the case that students might simply talk more often to their peers than their family members about academic issues, whereas family members have a greater tangible effect on major or career decision-making. Exploring the extent that disciplinary beliefs and stereotypes are used for social influence purposes by significant others would be an interesting future study.

Another idea for future research might be to examine how the nature and amount of beliefs and stereotypes students report hearing are related to how recently they have declared their major. Another focus for future research could be to examine the different contexts or settings in which discussions of beliefs and stereotypes occur. In addition, because the current sample comes from the U.S., whether the beliefs and stereotypes used and the results found will generalize to students from other countries remains to be seen.

As we have noted earlier, studying whether or not agreement with the beliefs and stereotypes decrease with time spent in the major would also be an interesting extension to the present research. One way to study this research question would be to examine the effects of participating in a psychology Careers Seminar on students' agreement with different beliefs and stereotypes (Brinthaupt, 2010). For example, using a pre/post design, researchers could assess the effects of learning about career options and educational requirements for different jobs in the field on levels of belief and stereotype agreement. Taking a psychology careers course might be more important than whether a student is lower- or upper-division status. Finally, research that examines psychology beliefs and stereotypes that are positive rather than negative (e.g., that majors have good social or “people” skills or that they are good at explaining the reasons for other people's behavior) would be a useful step for future research.

In summary, there are many interesting questions about college students' perceptions of psychology beliefs and stereotypes. To the extent that agreeing with these beliefs and stereotypes affect students' choices about majoring or minoring (or taking elective courses) in the field, it might be beneficial for teachers to directly address the nature and accuracy of psychology beliefs and stereotypes. Research on disciplinary beliefs and stereotypes also could shed light on the major sources of information about one's chosen major or minor and the influence of those information sources on agreement with a variety of beliefs and stereotypes, both in psychology and in other disciplines.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We presented portions of this research at the 2014 annual meeting of the Southeastern (U.S.) Psychological Association annual meeting, Nashville, TN. We wish to thank John Pennington, Glenn Littlepage, Lynn Jones, and Wendy Hart for their comments on an earlier version of this paper and Bill Compton, Mary Beth Asbury, Justin Gardner, and Gloria Hamilton for their assistance with data collection.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biographies

Thomas M. Brinthaupt is Professor of Psychology and Director of Faculty Development for the Learning, Teaching and Innovative Technologies Center at Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN. He has published extensively in the areas of instructional technology, pedagogy, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. His additional research interests include self and identity, personality and individual differences, and exercise and sport psychology.

Jennifer R. Hurst earned her master's degree in Experimental Psychology at Middle Tennessee State University in 2013 and is currently a doctoral student in the Counseling Psychology program at Trevecca Nazarene University, Nashville, TN.

Quinn R. Johnson completed his master's degree in 2015 in Experimental Psychology at Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN.

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