STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION OF PSYCHOLOGISTS: THE MORE YOU KNOW ABOUT THEM, THE MORE YOU LIKE THEM

How do students of psychology and students of other disciplines perceive what a professional psychologist is and what s/he does? We investigated this topic by collecting data from psychology (N= 173) and non-psychology (N= 175) students enrolled in the 1st, 3rd (BA level), or 5th year (MA) of their program through a questionnaire. Here, we report the data on three of the six sections of the questionnaire: The personal characteristics attributed to psychologists, the level at which psychologists are assumed to operate (individual clients, couples, group, and/or community), and the sources from which knowledge about psychologists was gathered. The results show clear differences between psychology and non-psychology students on (a) how psychologists are perceived, psychology students attributing more positive characteristics; (b) the levels psychologists are believed to operate, with marked changes as a function of the year of enrolment for the student of psychology; (c) the sources of information about psychologists, with psychology students gathering information more from non-mediated sources (e.g. courses, books, professors) than non-psychology students who rely more on family and friends, movies, TV, and magazines