Background and database coverage
Created and updated by the American Psychology Association, PsycINFO contains more than 1800 journals, books, reports, dissertations and theses. The database covers diverse psychology subjects such as applied psychology, physiological psychology and psychometrics and statistics among others. All together, PsycINFO’s cited references total more than 8 million (ProQuest, 2025).
Searching options
PsycINFO has searching options similar to other library databases. Users can search keyword terms in the search bar on the home page. Users can also use the advanced search page to search specific fields such as title, author and subject. PsycINFO also provides searching options relevant to psychology research. Users can activate unique filters include record type, methodology, and age group. In addition, users can conduct field searches relevant to psychology. These field searches include which country an article was published in and what testing & measurements the authors used in the study. If a researcher is searching for a study that uses a specific test, they could limit their search to studies which used the desired measurement. The users can also browse possible terms in a Look up window, accessible to the right of each search bar. These search options are available as filters on the left hand side of the results page.
Subject Terms
PsycINFO contains psychology subject terms in the database’s item records. Subject terms are keywords that are standardized across a given library catalog’s or database’s records. Subject terms can be found in a item records of library catalogs and databases. Incorporating a subject term into a search typically yields more relevant results. Users can look up subject terms in the Thesaurus feature, which is accessible from the Advanced Search page. Within the thesaurus feature, users can either search by keyword or browse for relevant terms.
Conclusion
As I hope you will see for yourself, PsycINFO is a fantastic tool for psychology students and faculty. PsycINFO is just one of the many databases the library provides. If you have further questions about library resources or would like to refine your search strategies, please reach out to one of our friendly librarians! Our staff is here to help with your research questions!
Charles Gallagher is a Research and Instruction Librarian at The Catholic University of America University Libraries.
Reference
American Psychological Association. (n.d.). About APA PsycInfo. American Psychological Association. https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/how-to-cite-chatgpt