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Department of Psychology

 
psychology department people around a meeting table

The study of psychology has been organised in various forms in Cambridge for over a century. In 1897 William H.R. Rivers was appointed University Lecturer in Physiological and Experimental Psychology. A proposal for the establishment of a psychophysics laboratory had been put forward as early as the 1870s by James Ward, but it was not until 1912 that a purpose-built Psychological Laboratory was opened on the Downing Site in the centre of Cambridge. Research and teaching in experimental psychology has continued in the Psychological Laboratory to the present day.

On the 1 August 2012, the Department of Experimental Psychology merged with the Division of Social and Developmental Psychology and the Centre for Family Research, to create a unified Department of Psychology within the School of the Biological Sciences. This merger provided an exciting new interface for some areas of social and developmental psychology with experimental psychology, neuroscience and biology.

Psychology can be studied either in the Natural Sciences Tripos or in the Psychological and Behavioural Sciences (PBS) Tripos. Both courses are accredited by the British Psychological Society.

The Department of Psychology is located on two sites in central Cambridge, Downing Site and New Museums Site. The administrative hub of the Department is housed in the Psychological Laboratory on the Downing Site.

The Head of the Department is Professor Mark Johnson.