The Psychology Department and the Graduate Group in Psychology offer instruction on both the undergraduate (B.A.) and graduate (Ph.D.) levels. Resources and expertise are available for the study of a wide range of topics. Among them are behavioral and cognitive neuroscience, judgment, decision making and processes, developmental psychology, memory and learning, sensation and perception, evolutionary psychology, positive psychology, psychopathology and psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, and social and cultural psychology..
The department boasts the world's first psychological clinic founded in 1896 and the development of clinical psychology as a specialization. At present there is an APA-accredited clinical psychology program. The graduate program prepares students for scientific and scholarly research and teaching. Students are expected to develop scholarly breadth in psychology as well as a specific area of research competence.
Doctoral level students have the option to pursue joint degrees, such as the J.D./Ph.D. Psychology, the M.D./Ph.D. Psychology, and the joint Ph.D. in Marketing and Psychology. There is no terminal master’s degree within the Psychology department.
Penn programs outside of the Psychology department are also target audiences of psychology collections. Professional programs in the College of Liberal and Professional Studies include the popular Master of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) program and the Master of Science in Organizational Dynamics (MSOD) program. The former informs collections-based decisions in positive psychology, especially aided by the Howard R. Jachman Memorial Fund, and the latter in the realm of industrial-organizational psychology. In 2015, Penn initiated an undergraduate minor in Psychoanalytic Studies, with interdisciplinary faculty expertise in anthropology, English literature, history, psychiatry, philosophy, and other fields. The Fanny & Michael Pertnoy Endowed Fund for Psychoanalytic Studies supports collecting in this field.
The broad nature of the discipline is evident in the department's various collaborations. It plays a pivotal role in two important interdisciplinary efforts on campus — cognitive science and neuroscience. It has active ties to the Schools of Medicine (especially anatomy and psychiatry) and Engineering (especially computer and information sciences), the Wharton School (especially decision sciences, marketing, and statistics), the Graduate School of Education (especially the Language in Education and Psychology in Education Divisions), and to numerous Arts and Sciences Departments, most notably Anthropology, Biology, Linguistics, Music, and Philosophy. Research centers such as the Center for Neuroscience and Society, the Center for Cognitive Therapy, the Mind Center for Outreach, Research, and Education (MindCORE), and the Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics promote interdisciplinary research and graduate training.