The PsycINFO thesaurus helps you improve your search results by guiding you to the official terms used within the PsycINFO database. Sometimes the reason you can't find the right type of article is because you use less effective words.
Let's see how it works. Go to PsycINFO.
To access the Thesaurus click on Subjects Authority, under Research Tools.
1.) In the search box that is labelled, Search for terms in APA Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms (see below), you can enter your search terms.
In this example, enter eye-witness testimony. I want to use it as a search term but I don't know if eye-witness should be one word: eyewitness, two words: eye witness or hyphenated: eye-witness.
You can see from the result list in the thesaurus it says eyewitness use witnesses. So I learn that witnesses is a better search term to use (and I also see that eyewitness should probably be one word).
2.) So now click on the term witnesses in your result list. It will define the term "witnesses" and will provide you with broader terms and related terms. You can evaluate these terms and choose the best ones for your search.
Here in this example I have ticked the boxes for Witnesses and Bystander effect and clicked on Add to Search.
You will see in the search box DE "Witnesses" OR DE "Bystander Effect". All this means it that you are searching for the words Witnesses or Bystander Effect especially in the subjects.
3.) You will now see in your results list that the terms of bystander effect and witnesses is a major idea in the papers that have been found.
Hopefully you can see now how helpful the PsycINFO thesaurus can be as a search tool.