For those not choosing a career involving research, such as the psychological services fields, research provides the necessary background to be able to keep up with developments in psychological assessment and treatment. People who provide psychological services have the responsibility to stay abreast of current thought in their field, and they must be able to understand the research literature. Journal articles are nearly incomprehensible unless the reader has ample exposure to the research process.
Research teaches critical thinking.
Psychology is a field cursed by popular books espousing a wide range of explanations of human behavior, most of which have no empirical support. A research background provides the student with the abilities to critically evaluate popular explanations and separate fact from fiction. It teaches how science is done. It also confronts us with the limitations of the scientific method. Research experience shows us how to create questions that can be answered by scientific techniques, and helps us identify the types of questions that the empirical sciences can never answer.