PSYC 3101: Lab for General Experimental Psychology

PsycINFO is "the premier abstracting and indexing database covering the behavioral and social sciences from the authority in psychology" (APA, 2025.) PsycINFO gives you access to:

• over 5 million peer-reviewed records
• 600 years of content
• research from over 50 countries!

PsycINFO is one of the only databases where you can search by methodology. Here's how you can do it:

1. Open up the PsycINFO database in a new window or tab.
2. Before you put in your search terms, scroll down to the bottom of the page.  
3. Look for the box labelled Methodology. From the drop-down menu, select which psychology methodology you need (e.g., literature review, empirical study, clinical study, etc.) 
4. Before you finish the rest of your search, select the other limiters you need from the top of the page. For example, you might want to exclude dissertations or only select peer-reviewed resources. 
5. When you finally click Search, all of your results will now feature only that psychology methodology & your limiter preferences.

When you are unsure of which psychology terms to use, using the APA Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms can be quite helpful. The APA Thesaurus can help you learn the controlled vocabulary associated with your research concepts, but also improve your overall search accuracy. Each entry includes important dates and definitions, so you know the best terms to use in your search. Here's how to get access:

1. Open up the PsycINFO database in a new window or tab.
2. Find the tab labelled Filters toward the middle of the page. Select the tab two over, labelled Subjects.      
3. Look for the search box directly under Subjects. Here is where you can type in your term and see its entry. If your term doesn't have an entry provided, the thesaurus will give you a list of related entries to choose from.