70 Topic Ideas in the Psychology Research Proposal

A research proposal is a request you submit for joining a college research program, or for applying for the Master or Ph.D. dissertation. Many modern colleges and universities are powerful foundations running significant research programs. Students are eager to participate in such programs, as it helps to establish themselves as researchers. It is beneficial for your future career even if you don’t plan to work in the area of scientific researches after graduating.

If your field of research is psychology, then you should submit the respective research proposal. However, the proposal is just a formal request. When your college or university approves it – you will dedicate a lot of your efforts and many months and years to the research itself. As a result, a more essential question arises – which precisely subject you will examine.

The choice of a suitable psychology research proposal topic is crucial. It can even determine the eventual success of your work. So, the right is your first significant advantage. That’s why we’ve written this article. We hope it will help you to select a topic for research in psychology. It will be the topic of your research proposal too.

What to Consider when Choosing the Psychology Topic for a Research Proposal?

Speaking of the topic selection, we need to take several aspects into consideration. Some of them concern your personal preferences, while others deal with the nature of the research proposal itself. The thing is, the committee will review that proposal and decide if your topic is worth being researched and if they should spend the college resources on it.

You need to keep on mind several criteria when you consider what you will research.

• The field of your personal interest. If you study psychology in a college or university, you most likely focus on a particular aspect of it. The main factor is that it should appeal to you. The research proposal deals with a voluminous work – not a standard research paper you can do in a couple of days. Hence, your genuine interest will be the best motivation to support you on the way. 
• Transparency. It is unacceptable if you are not sure that you understand the topic entirely. You need to have a clear idea of the essence of your work.
• Relevancy. To get the proposal approved, you need to show that your research in psychology has a practical value. It should be essential for you, for the committee, and for the society. Psychology is an excellent area for this with its numerous branches. You should focus on the benefits that the community can get from the researches.
• Innovation. The goal of your research is to present some new data. You may build a theory (your thesis statement), and your studies should prove it. Or, you may debate with some already established statements. In any case, the results of your work can’t be just a repeating of the known data. The goal is to contribute in the area of knowledge with your conclusions.
• The presence of enough theoretical background. You need to use reliable sources to support your research in psychology. Though you will examine the subject, you need to ground it on a trustworthy foundation. If you want to be a pioneer in some entirely new area, it will take much more time. So, it’d be better to focus on some more achievable and practical topics while you are considering your psychology research proposal in a college.
• Feasibility. Your work should be realistic, and it concerns many aspects. For instance, the job might require complex experiments or interviewing hundreds of people. If you are ready to do it and already possess the necessary resources, then it’s okay. Otherwise, think about some other topic that is more realistic for your capabilities.

All of these criteria are crucial. A topic of your choice matching them all will undoubtedly help you to succeed in your research. Also, the right subject ensures that you reach the primary goal – get valid results and the degree.

Psychology Topic Ideas of the Research Proposal

The field of psychology is vast – it has numerous branches dealing with different aspects. In this section, you can find some ideas for your research proposal. You may take one as is or get inspired by the suggestion. In any case, we hope that these topics will be of help to you. 

Social Psychology

1. Social trends that are causing depression.
2. The most psychologically vulnerable social groups.
3. The problem of accepting physical disabilities in different social groups.
4. The leading causes of social discrimination support – why it still exists.
5. Racial prejudice in modern society and its moving forces.
6. The role of online communication in personal development.
7. The influence of cultural differences on communication in multi-national societies.
8. The remaining influence of the 19^th-century social issues on modern society in the USA.
9. The acceptance of grief in different social groups.
10. The influence of the opposite political beliefs among the family members on their family life.

Child Psychology

1. The necessity of games for child psychological development.
2. The role of colors during the child’s first years.
3. The influence of the parents’ divorce on child psychological maturing.
4. The positive and negative influence of remote school education.
5. The intergender communication between children and their role in pre-teen age.
6. The ways to detect and suppress the deviant behavior of a child.
7. The social layering in children’s groups in elementary school.
8. The children’s fears – the mechanisms of their forming.
9. Creative skills development of children.
10. The phenomena of a child prodigy.

Cognitive Psychology

1. The reasons for the Autism spectrum disorders’ growth in modern society.
2. Ways to help people with autism to adapt to society.
3. The problem of the attention span is reducing and ways to correct it.
4. The best ways of critical thinking skills development.
5. The influence of beliefs on cognitive skills.
6. The mechanism of the false memories’ creation.
7. The influence of the public judgment on making personal decisions.
8. The problem of dyslexia and its effect on psychological development.
9. The mechanisms of the memories suppressing.
10. The child’s psychological traumas and the effects they cause on cognitive development.

Clinical Psychology

1. Methods of detecting and treating panic attacks.
2. Psychological support for PTSD and its efficiency.
3. Reasons for the agoraphobia in modern life and ways to treat it.
4. Psychological traumas and their effects on abusive behavior development.
5. The influence of insomnia on mental health.
6. The side effects of the most popular medication for treating depression.
7. The role of psychotherapy in anorexia treatment.
8. The connection between a healthy lifestyle and mental health.
9. The differences in approaches to the psychological treatment of adults and children.
10. Psychological treatment of people attempting suicides.

Experimental Psychology

1. How do colors affect people’s moods and perceptions?
2. What is the role of healthy breakfasts for mental resources improvement among students?
3. What are the signs of clinical addition in people engaged in virtual lives?
4. Psychological conditions that are provoking the hikikomori lifestyle.
5. Does the culture of watching movies in cinemas provoke obesity problems?
6. Is the “feeling of being watched” a real phenomenon or an illusion?
7. Are there gender differences in the capability to keep the focus on some tasks?
8. Do the preferences in literature reflect the features of people’s personalities?
9. What are the most potent factors of manipulation for modern people?
10. How large is the volume of information that people can store in short-term memory?

Sports Psychology

1. The problem of eating disorders in high-performance sports.
2. The ways to treat the depressive states of professional sportsmen.
3. The psychological difficulties in communication that young sportsmen suffer.
4. The problem of mental pressure and abusive behavior in sports.
5. Psychological recovery of sportsmen after physical traumas.
6. Psychological aspects of switching from the high-performance sports to coaching.
7. Motivational methods in sports coaching.
8. The role of emotions in the sportsmen’s preparations.
9. Psychological grounds for the rules violation in taking doping in sports.
10. The role of routine and rituals for the top sportsmen. 

Educational psychology

1. The role of personal space in the first years in college.
2. Methods of psychological support for freshmen students.
3. The role of previous negative life experiences in the college adaptation.
4. The ways social media form the students’ opinions and ideologies.
5. The influence of home culture on foreign students’ adaptability in US colleges.
6. Psychological traumas and their effect on learning capabilities.
7. The causes of bullying in high school.
8. The influence of home education on psychological preparation to life on campus.
9. Approaches to motivating adult students to continue their education.
10. The ways to suppress aggression in colleges.

The Structure of the Psychology Research Proposal

The goal of this paper is to convince people that your ideas are worth researching. Also, you have to persuade other people that you can succeed in doing this project. These are the two crucial factors that define whether the committee approves your proposal. However, the correct format of this application is no less critical.

The following elements are mandatory for the psychology research proposal:

• The title of your research proposal  

Here you should present the topic of your research and define the key questions you are going to examine.

• The background of the problem

Define your discipline and give an overview of the question’s background in literature and scientific debates. In this section, you also need to provide the literature overview and summarize the opinions of the leading experts on your topic.

• The questions you are going to examine

It is a clear and precise explanation of the problem you research. In this fragment, you also define why this research is valuable and what advantages it can bring to the audience.

• Your research methods

You need to clarify the resources you already possess, and your approach to the practical research. The most essential is to stress that these methods are efficient, and you are capable of doing the successful examination of the problem.

• Your plan of work

In this section, you need to present the outline of your research planes: which stages you will cover, which methods you will use for them, and how much time you dedicate to each step.

• The bibliography

It should be the list of your references that support your point of view on the problem.

Choosing the most beneficial option of the psychology research proposal topics is essential. However, it is the first step only. You will have lots of other tasks waiting for you.

Our experienced performers can help you with choosing the right topic and composing the research proposal. If you plan to turn it into the dissertation, we can help you as well. Contact us for more information – McEssay can support you on the way.