History and Psychology

History and Psychology bring together two ways of understanding human beings that are more complementary than they first appear. History examines people as collective actors, shaped by the structures, events, and ideas of particular times and places, and asks how change happens at the level of societies and cultures. Psychology examines individuals, asking how they think, feel, and behave, what drives motivation, how memory works, and how social contexts shape personal experience.

Taken together, they give you the tools to understand human behaviour at multiple levels of analysis.

At the University of Strathclyde, this four-year full-time programme includes a year abroad and is taught within a research-active university with strengths in both disciplines. You will study the major periods and themes of historical inquiry alongside core psychology, including cognitive, social, developmental, and biological psychology, and you will develop research methods in both disciplines, giving you the ability to investigate questions empirically as well as through documentary and archival sources. The year abroad broadens your intellectual perspective and develops your independence and adaptability.

Studying history develops your analytical, research, and writing skills, your ability to construct and evaluate arguments from complex sources, and your understanding of how human experience is shaped by context and circumstance. Studying psychology develops your scientific thinking, your understanding of individual and group behaviour, and your ability to work with evidence from controlled studies and experiments. Together these produce a distinctive graduate profile.

Graduates move into careers in education, research, mental health support, human resources, counselling (with further training), social work, journalism, public sector management, and policy. Some pursue postgraduate study in psychology, history, social sciences, or related professional training. The combination of analytical humanities skills and psychological science knowledge is genuinely valued by employers across a range of people-focused professions.