Psychology/Scottish Literature

Psychology and Scottish literature is an unusual combination that brings together the scientific study of the mind and behaviour with deep engagement with one of Europe's most distinctive literary and cultural traditions. Psychology is a broad discipline, examining how people think, act, react, and interact, and exploring how that understanding can help address issues both on an individual basis and at the level of wider society. Scottish literature gives you access to a rich and underappreciated body of work in English, Scots, and Gaelic, from the medieval period through the Enlightenment to contemporary writers, asking what that tradition reveals about Scottish culture, identity, and the imagination.

At the University of Glasgow, this four-year full-time programme develops your abilities in both disciplines with genuine academic depth. You will develop the scientific and analytical skills that psychology demands alongside the literary critical and historical knowledge that Scottish literature requires, engaging with both traditions in parallel and discovering what each illuminates about the other. A year abroad is built into the programme, giving you the opportunity to study at an international partner institution and to see both psychology and Scottish culture from a different perspective.

Graduates from this combination go on to work in mental health and wellbeing, community and social care, education, publishing, journalism, cultural organisations, and heritage, drawing on whichever strand of the degree is most relevant to their career direction. Many use psychology as the foundation for further professional training in counselling, clinical psychology, or educational psychology, while others move into the literary, cultural, and educational contexts that Scottish literature naturally connects to. Postgraduate study in psychology, Scottish literature, or a related field is available for those who want to deepen their expertise.