Students will develop an in-depth understanding of the issues and debates within psychology: gender bias; culture bias; determinism vs free-will; nature vs nurture; reductionism vs holism; idiographic vs nomothetic; ethical implications and social sensitivity. Furthermore, students will be able to apply the issues and debates to the various other topics studied with the A level course as discussion and evaluation points.
An alpha bias refers to theories that exaggerate the differences between males and females.
Androcentrism refers to theories that are centred on, or focused on, males.
A beta bias refers to theories that ignore or minimise sex differences. These theories often assume that the findings from studies using males can be applied equally to females.
This refers to the idea that all human behaviour is influenced by innate processes such as genes and neurochemistry.
Science seeks to identify causal relationships to discover whether the independent variable causes changes in the dependent variable.
Cultural relativism is the assumption that behaviour can only be properly understood if the cultural context is taken into account.
This is the tendency to judge individuals in terms of one's own cultural assumptions.
This is the view that free will is an illusion, and that our behaviour is influenced by internal or external forces beyond our control.
This is the view that behaviour is influenced by forces external to the individual. It suggests that out behaviour is learned from previous experience through classical and operant conditioning.
Ethical implications consider the impact/consequences that psychological research has on the rights of other people in a wider context and not just the participants taking part in the research.
Ethnocentrism means seeing the world only from one's own cultural perspective, believing that this is normal and correct.
This is the idea that individuals can play an active part in their choice of behaviour and are self-determined.
Gender bias is the differential treatment and/or representation of males and females, based on stereotypes and not on real differences.
This is the view that forces beyond the control of the individual (biology or past experience) shape our behaviour. It is the opposite of free will.
This is the view that human behaviour should be viewed as whole integrated experience and not influenced by isolated forces.
Psychologists who take an idiographic approach utilise qualitative methods focusing on the individual, emphasising the unique personal experience of human nature.
An interactionist approach argues that several levels of explanantion are necessary to explain a particular behaviour, ranging from lower (biological) to higher levels (social and cultural).
The reductionist approach suggests that behaviour can be explained at different levels (e.g. social and cultural, psychological or biological).
This debate focuses on the relative contributions of genetic inheritance and environmental factors to human development and behaviour.
Psychologists who take a nomothetic approach are concerned with establishing general laws of behaviour, using quantitative methods studying large groups of people.
Psychic determinism claims that human behaviour is the result of childhood experiences and innate drives (id, ego, and superego).
Reductionism is the belief that human behaviour can be explained by breaking it down into simpler component parts.
Sieber and Stanley used the term social sensitivity to describe students where there are potential social consequences for the participants or the group they represent within research.
This is a position favoured by many psychologists which suggests that behaviour is influenced by biology or the environment only to a certain extent.
This refers to a theory which can be applied to all people irrespective of gender and culture.
Understanding the different issues and debates will allow students to develop balanced arguments in relation to behaviour they experience or witness in others.
Students will understand that differing views exist in society and develop a tolerance of these.
This is a continuation of the topics studied within Year 12 biopsychology. Students will study the following topics in Year 13: localisation of function in the brain and hemispheric lateralisation; plasticity and functional recovery; ways of studying the brain; and biological rhythms, including the sleep-wake cycle. The ability to outline and evaluate each of these topics will be developed and enhanced.
A branch of psychology concerned with how physiology and biology influence behaviour, thoughts, and feelings.
Adrenaline causes a number of physiological changes to prepare the body for fight or flight.
An area of the brain responsible for processing acoustic information.
This plays an important role in homeostasis, maintaining balance in internal processes such as body temperature, heart rate, and blood pressure. It consists of motor pathways and has two components.
These are cyclical patterns within biological systems that have evolved in response to environmental nervous systems such as day and night.
An area of the brain found int he left frontal lobe and is believed to be involved in language production
This consists of the brain and spinal cord.
A 24-hour biological rhythm which is reset by levels of light. Examples are the sleep-wake cycle and body temperature.
This works on the premise that information is processed in the brain as electrical activity in the form of action potentials or nerve impulses, transmitted along neurons. EEG scanners measure this activity through electrodes attached to the scalp.
The endocrine system works alongside the nervous system. It is a network of glands across the body that secrete chemical messages called hormones using blood vessels.
These are internal mechanisms that govern biological rhythms, in particular the circadian sleep/wake cycle. These can be affected by the environment.
ERPs use electrodes that are attached to the scalp. Unlike an EEG, they record activity when a specific stimulus is presented to a participant.
Excitatory neurotransmitters make the post-synaptic cell more likely to fire. If an excitatory neurotransmitter binds to the post-synaptic receptors, causing an electrical charge in the cell membrane, making the post-synaptic cell more likely to fire.
These influence biological rhythms. They are environmental events that are responsible for resetting the biological clock of an organism. They can include social cues such as mealtimes but the most important is light.
The amygdala is activated when an individual enters a stressful situation.
A brain-scanning technique that measures blood flow in the brain when an individual performs a task. It works on the premise that neurons in the brain that are most active during a task use the most energy.
This refers to the transfer of functions from a damaged area of the brain after trauma to other undamaged areas. It takes place through neural unmasking where dormant synapses open connections to compensate for a damaged area of the brain.
This is the idea that the two halves of the brain are functionally different and that each hemisphere has functional specialisations. For example, the left is dominant for language, and the right excels at visual-motor tasks.
Each gland produces a different hormone which stimulate a particular part of the body.
A biological rhythm which lasts longer than 24 hours and can occur weekly, monthly, or annually. An example of a monthly infradian rhythm is the menstrual cycle.
Inhibitory neurotransmitters make the postsynaptic cell less likely to fire. If an inhibitory neurotransmitter, such as GABA binds to the post-synaptic receptors it makes the post-synaptic cell less likely to fire.
This is the idea that certain functions such as language and memory, are correlated with certain parts of the brain
The motor area is responsible for voluntary movements by sending signals to the muscles in the body.
These are found int he central nervous system and control muscle movements. When motor neurons are stimulated, they release neurotransmitters that bind to the receptors on muscles to trigger a response, which leads to movement.
This is divided into two parts: the central nervous system; and the peripheral nervous system. It is a network of nerve cells that transmit messages between different parts of the body.
These are electrochemical messengers that transmit nerve impulses across the synaptic gap during the process of synaptic transmission.
The role of the PNS is to relax the body and return it to the 'normal' resting state. It slows down the heart rate, breathing rate, and reduces blood pressure. Any functions slowed down during fight-or-flight are started again.
This relays messages from the CNS to the rest of the body. It consists of two main components: the somatic nervous system; and the autonomic nervous system.
Barin plasticity refers to the brain's ability to change and adapt in reaction to the environment and through experience.
This can be used to allow researchers to study the physical brain of a person who showed a particular behaviour while they were alive that suggested possible brain damage.
Relay neurons are found between sensory input neurons and motor output neurons. They are found in the brain and spinal cord, allowing sensory and motor neurons to communicate.
These are found in receptors such as eyes, ears, tongue, and skin. They carry nerve impulses to the spinal cord and brain. When the nerve impulses reach the brain, they are translated into 'sensations' such as vision, hearing, taste, and touch.
This maintains communication between the CNS and the outside world. It is made up of sensory receptors that carry information to the spinal cord and brain, and motor pathways that allow the brain to control movement.
An area of the brain which receives sensory information from the skin to produce sensations related to pressure, pain, temperature etc.
Split-brain patients are individuals who have undergone a surgical procedure where the corpus collosum nerve fibres that connect the two hemispheres are cut. This is usually carried out to reduce the symptoms of severe epilepsy.
This is involved in responses that prepare the body for fight or flight. Impulses travel from the SNS to organs in the body to help prepare for action when we are faced with a dangerous situation.
This is the process by which one neuron communicates with the another.
These last for less than 24 hours and can be found in the pattern of human sleep.
This receives and processes visual information. The visual area contains different parts that process different types of information such as colour, shape, or movement.
This is found in the left temporal lobe and is thought to be involved in language processing and comprehension.
Students will learn about:
• Classification of schizophrenia. Positive symptoms of schizophrenia, including hallucinations and delusions. Negative symptoms of schizophrenia, including speech poverty and avolition. Reliability and validity in diagnosis and classification of schizophrenia, including reference to co-morbidity, culture and gender bias and symptom overlap.
• Biological explanations for schizophrenia: genetics and neural correlates, including the dopamine hypothesis.
• Psychological explanations for schizophrenia: family dysfunction and cognitive explanations, including dysfunctional thought processing.
• Drug therapy: typical and atypical antipsychotics.
• Cognitive behaviour therapy and family therapy as used in the treatment of schizophrenia.
Token economies as used in the management of schizophrenia.
• The importance of an interactionist approach in explaining and treating schizophrenia; the
diathesis-stress model.
A serious mental illness characterised by disturbances in thought, perception, emotion, and behaviour.
Second generation drugs used to treat schizophrenia. They concentrate on blocking the uptake of dopamine and carry a lower risk of side-effects.
A negative symptom of schizophrenia referring to the reduction in motivation to initiate and perform self-directed purposefull activities
Co-morbidity is when two, or more, conditions or illnesses occur at the same time. This can lead to problems in making a valid diagnosis as it is often co-morbid with depression, substance abuse, and anxiety disorders such as OCD.
Delusions are a positive symptom of schizophrenia which are false and often bizarre personal beliefs held with a very strong conviction, in spite of clear evidence to the contrary.
This model suggests that stressful life events might act as a trigger for schizophrenia in individuals who are already biologically vulnerable to develop the disorder.
The original version of the hypothesis proposed that an excess of dopamine in particular areas of the brain (e.g. the limbic system) was responsible for positive symptoms of schizophrenia.
Hallucinations are a positive symptom of schizophrenia and are unusual or unexplained sensations, which are mostly commonly heard (auditory and typically voices), but can be seen, smelt, touched or tasted. they occur in 50% of people with schizophrenia.
These reflect the loss of previous feelings and abilities. Examples include avolition and speech poverty.
These reflect new or unusual forms of thought and behaviour. Examples include delusions and hallucinations.
This is a negative symptom where the amount of speech is greatly reduced and sometimes can be vague or repetitous.
This refers to the fact that many of the symptoms (positive and negative) shown by people suffering from schizophrenia are also shown by people suffering from other disorders such as depression and bipolar disorder.
These are first generation drugs used to treat schizophrenia. They reduce dopamine activity at the synapse and help alleviate the positive symptoms of schizophrenia, as well as helping cognitive functioning and behaviour.
Students will understand the different explanations for schizophrenia, allowing them to form individual opinions of this behaviour.
Developing an understanding of the different explanations of schizophrenia will enable students to be tolerant of some forms of aggressive behaviour.
Students will learn about:
• Offender profiling: the top-down approach, including organised and disorganised types of offender; the bottom-up approach, including investigative Psychology; geographical profiling.
• Biological explanations of offending behaviour: an historical approach (atavistic form); genetics and neural explanations.
• Psychological explanations of offending behaviour: Eysenck’s theory of the criminal personality; cognitive explanations; level of moral reasoning and cognitive distortions, including hostile attribution bias and minimalisation; differential association theory; psychodynamic explanations.
• Dealing with offending behaviour: the aims of custodial sentencing and the psychological effects of custodial sentencing. Recidivism. Behaviour modification in custody. Anger management and restorative justice programmes.
Anger management programmes are cognitive-behavioural in nature and are designed to help people learn how to control their anger this reducing the likelihood or criminal behaviour.
These programmes make use of behavioural principles in order to rehabilitate offenders through operant conditioning, incorporating reinforcement and punishment.
This approach, sometimes known as the British approach, is data-driven making use of statistics on similar crimes to make predictions about the characteristics of an offender.
These are patterns of negative or exaggerated thought, which can reinforce maladaptive behaviour. Examples are hostile attribution bias and minimalisation.
This is a way of dealing with offender behaviour when a person is found guilty of a criminal act. An individual will be punished by being sent to prison or another criminal institution for a specific period of time.
This is an individual who conducts an unplanned crime where the victim has not been targeted and evidence is left at the scene of the crime.
This involves the analysis of the location of a series of connected crimes, looking at factors such as the spatial relationship between the different crime scenes and what these reveal in relation to the perpetrator.
This refers to the extent to which an individual interprets the actions of others as hostile and whether this makes them more aggressive and more likely to commit a crime.
This is linked to the bottom-up approach to profiling and proposes that profiling should be based in psychological research and theory.
This refers to the ways that people think about and perceive right or wrong. it is developmental in nature and considers how individuals grow in their understanding of moral decision-making and behaviour.
This refers to a type of cognitive bias where a person is more likely to minimise the severity of the crime they are committing, thus reducing their guilt.
Offending profiling refers to the investigative techniques used by the police to try to identify perpetrators of serious crime. it involves working out the characteristics of an offender by examining the scene of the crime and the crime itself.
This type of criminal is considered to plan their crimes and target their victim. They will make every attempt to remove any evidence from the scene of the crime.
This refers to the levels of reoffending after experiencing some form of punishment.
These aim to help restore relationships between the offender, victim, their family and the community at large. They attempt to improve the experience of the victim as well as encouraging the offender to take responsibility for their crime.
Also known as the American approach as it was adopted by the FBI, It is an intuitive approach which begins by considering the evidence found at the scene of a crime. Other cases are considered by the profiler to create a profile of a typical offender.
Students will learn about:
• Sex and gender. Sex-role stereotypes. Androgyny and measuring androgyny including the Bem Sex Role Inventory.
• The role of chromosomes and hormones (testosterone, oestrogen and oxytocin) in sex and gender. Atypical sex chromosome patterns: Klinefelter’s syndrome and Turner’s syndrome.
• Cognitive explanations of gender development, Kohlberg’s theory, gender identity, gender stability and gender constancy; gender schema theory.
• Psychodynamic explanation of gender development, Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, Oedipus complex; Electra complex; identification and internalisation.
• Social learning theory as applied to gender development. The influence of culture and media on gender roles.
• Atypical gender development: gender dysphoria; biological and social explanations for gender dysphoria.
The third and final stage of Kohlberg's cognitive explanation of gender development. It begins around the age of six to seven years, when a child starts to understand that gender remains the same across situations.
This is the first stage in Kohlberg's cognitive explanation of gender development. This stage is typically reached at the age of two years when they recognise that they are female or male and can correctly label their own and other peoples' gender.
This is where a person has strong, persistent feelings of identification with the opposite gender and discomfort with their biological sex.
These are societal norms that dictate the types of behaviour that are generally considered appropriate for individuals based on their biological sex. They are usually based on stereotypes regarding masculine and feminine behaviour.
This is the second stage in Kohlberg's cognitive explanation of gender development. It occurs around the age of four years and continues until approximately seven years. Children recognise that gender is constant over time but not across situations.
This is an atypical sex chromosome pattern which affects the development of males who have an extra X chromosome (XXY).
Proposed by Freud, this suggests that boys experience this during the phallic stage. Only if this is resolved will typical gender development occur for boys.
This hormone plays a major role during puberty for females promoting the development of secondary sexual characteristics and the menstrual cycle.
Females have been found to have higher levels of oxcytocin. This hormone has been linked to increased sociability and the formation of attachments and bonds between people.
This refers to the biological differences between females and males.
These are shared expectations within a society or social group regarding what is appropriate behaviour for men and women.
This sex hormone is present in larger quantities in males. It affects development and behaviour in men both before and after birth. Males have a second surge during puberty and is responsible for secondary sexual characteristics.
This occurs due to atypical sex chromosome patterns and affect the development of females who have an X chromosome missing (XO).
Students will follow a scheme of work based on their mock exam and assessment results.