The Difference between Psychology and Business Psychology

Psychology is letters A to Z. Business Psychology is the letters L M N O P

We have all heard about psychology, many people study it. It discusses humans and brains and why we purchase “buy 1 get 1 free” cheesecake. But there is also an important side which is business and how people behave in those environments. But how is it different from a regular psychology study? Why is it more important today than ever? 

To understand business psychology better, we asked our Business Psychology program director Christine Fitzgerald to explain the key differences between a normal psychology study you would find and Haarlem Campus’ Business Psychology bachelors.

Business Psychology is

• More focused in key aspects of psychology like human behaviour in the work environment;
• It is specialised rather than generalised (you don’t learn about all pizza, you learn about pepperoni pizza and margarita pizza)
• You actually apply the theory in a real life situation through case studies and exercises, theory with the angle of how do we apply this;
• You don’t just learn about all personality types and human characteristics, but which personality type fits with a certain job or industry;
• Focused on change management (how to better yourself and the team around you), human resources (HR) and marketing (what triggers customers to purchase or look at your product).

Traditional Psychology is

• More clinical focused;
• Broad and surface level (it is like trying to cram 5L of water into a 2L bottle);
• Theory focused, no practise;
• General first and the specialisation (lots of fields to specialise in);
• Exams on exams on exams.

So these are the differences between a normal clinical psychology study and our Business Psychology study. Thanks to Christine for helping us out and making sure we know well why we “buy 1 get 1 free” – people like free stuff. 

If you are interested in exploring Business Psychology, you can read more about it here: