Have you Considered Marketing or Organizational Behavior?
It is very rare for bachelors-level or masters-level psychology students to think about getting their PhD's in marketing or organizational behavior. This is very, very unfortunate. The fields of consumer behavior and organizational behavior are profoundly psychological in nature, and it is relatively easy for students with backgrounds in psychology to transition into these fields. But what are the advantages of getting a PhD in organizational or consumer behavior instead of a PhD in psychology?
First, your income potential greatly improves. Business professors make, on average, almost double what psychology professors make.
Furthermore, since 1999 and ongoing through 2002, there has been a severe shortage of students interested in getting PhD's in business-related fields. The reason for this is that you can make just as much money with an MBA as you can with a PhD. (The only thing a PhD is good for is landing an academic position.) As a result, students who aren't sure about academia often end up stopping with their MBA, and never think twice about going back for a PhD.
The fields of consumer behavior (or C.B.; which is a sub-field within marketing) and organizational behavior (or O.B.; which is a sub-field within management) are more psychological than many people realize. Are you interested in how different mood states shape people's perceptions of things? Guess what? Many marketing researchers study how mood shapes people's perceptions of products and advertisements. Are you interested in stereotyping? Guess what? Many organizational behavior researchers study stereotyping in the workplace. Are you interested in persuasion, or interested in decision making under risk? Guess what? Marketing and organizational behavior researchers both publish heavily in both of these literatures. So realize this: over in the business school, where there is lots more money than you will find in your psychology department, people are studying applications of psychology to real-world (business) problems.
But getting a PhD in psychology and then trying to find a business-school job is the hard way of doing things. While it is possible for you to get your PhD in psychology first, and then transition to C.B. or O.B. later in your career, why not get a business PhD while you still can? If you get your Ph.D. in C.B. or O.B. from the very start, you won't have to go through the difficult transition from teaching psychology classes to teaching business classes. Making the transition during grad school is easier than making the transition later in your career.
So you're wondering, what's the disadvantage of having a career in a business school? Well, the main disadvantage is that sometimes business students can be a tough bunch of students to teach. Some professors don't like teaching business students that much because many of them tend to be so focused on making money that they have little or no interest in theory and research. Of course, most professors base their careers on theory and research, so it's difficult to try to teach students who have so little patience for ideas that aren't immediately applicable to making money. Of course I am stereotyping business students in this description, but this is one of those stereotypes that has a kernel of truth behind it.
But on the other hand, at some business schools, you would have the opportunity to teach PhD students, and of course, PhD students are much more interested in theory and research than B.S. or M.B.A. students.
Alright, if you're still not sold at this point on the idea of getting your Ph.D. in consumer behavior or in organizational behavior, think of this: the stipends for Ph.D. students in business schools can be almost twice as high as the stipends in psychology departments. This reflects the fact that business schools just have a lot more money than psychology departments, so they may supply you with many more resources than you would get in a psychology department. Here's an example: A friend of mine, who just finished her masters in psychology, just got into an O.B. Ph.D. program. She will have her own office, equipped with a computer, and will be making a stipend of $15,000 (plus tuition waver) per year until the day she graduates. Her friends over the in the psychology department, on the other hand, share their offices with at least two other students, are given no computers, and have a stipend of $8,500 (plus tuition waver) per year, which is only guaranteed for the first four years.
In short, if you have interest in applying social, cognitive, or quantitative psychology to real-world problems, I would strongly recommend that you check out the possibility of getting a marketing degree (with a specialization in consumer behavior) or an organizational behavior degree. But of course, if you choose to go this route, make sure that you first identify which professors you might be able to work with on topics that are of interest to you. You want to make sure that your advisor is someone who is doing psychologically-oriented research, rather than someone who is doing work that is more closely related to economics or some other field that doesn't interest you.