How can you help society as a psychologist?

A psychologist studies how people think, feel and work together in society. This is the "lubricant" that makes the human species operate more smoothly. If you can understand people better and can help them function more effectively, you make society, on average, operate better. There are hundreds of books on psychology for that reason. I've found reading them, even though they overlap considerably, to be generally useful and almost always interesting. People are driven-- in general-- to understand each other. That's where psychology always comes in handy. Even though my field is engineering, I've taken many, many courses in psychology, experimental design, abnormal psychology, etc., and I'm very, very often finding all of that useful.

A counseling psychologist can help each patient become better versions of themselves through therapy, which is one way to help society. A psychology researcher can help society in a broader way--by influencing the way many people think about the world through contributing scientific evidence.

For example, we know because of psychology that loneliness may lead to severe health problems through increasing stress, demonstrating the importance of forming close friendships with others. We also now know that unconscious racism can exist-that people with measurable effects of racism are not aware they are racist. From here, researchers may attempt studies to identify ways to reduce racism. There are many possibilities for helping the world through these examples and others. If people are unsure of what they should do, or of which behaviors truly help them them improve their lives, psychology research can provide tested evidence for how to achieve their goal.

There are many fields of psychology studying real social problems--the criminal justice system, considering how people think about climate change, studying whether there is racism in police stops. This is sometimes called applied psychology.

It sounds like you might be interested in psychology, so I would recommend taking a psychology class if you are in college. I would also highly recommend reading the book The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil by Phillip Zimbardo. It describes his landmark Stanford Prison experiment, and touches on many important themes in psychology. Or you can watch his Ted Talk about it here.

Hope this helps!