PsychologyQ&A by dot point

The behaviourist approach, including classical conditioning and Pavlov's research, operant conditioning, types of reinforcement and Skinner's research.

The biological approach: the influence of genes, biological structures and neurochemistry on behaviour. Genotype and phenotype, genetic basis of behaviour, evolution and behaviour.

The cognitive approach: the study of internal mental processes, the role of schema, the use of theoretical and computer models to explain and make inferences about mental processes. The emergence of cognitive neuroscience.

Comparison of approaches: the views of the behaviourist, social learning, cognitive, biological, psychodynamic and humanistic approaches on key debates such as nature-nurture, determinism and reductionism.

Humanistic psychology: free will, self-actualisation and Maslow's hierarchy of needs, focus on the self, congruence, the role of conditions of worth. The influence on counselling psychology.

Origins of psychology: Wundt, introspection and the emergence of psychology as a science.

The psychodynamic approach: the role of the unconscious, the structure of personality (id, ego and superego), defence mechanisms (repression, denial, displacement), psychosexual stages.

Social learning theory, including imitation, identification, modelling, vicarious reinforcement, the role of mediational processes and Bandura's research.

Animal studies of attachment: Lorenz and Harlow.

Caregiver-infant interactions in humans: reciprocity and interactional synchrony. Stages of attachment identified by Schaffer. Multiple attachments and the role of the father.

Cultural variations in attachment, including van IJzendoorn.

Explanations of attachment: learning theory and Bowlby's monotropic theory. The concepts of a critical period and an internal working model.

The influence of early attachment on childhood and adult relationships, including the role of an internal working model.

Bowlby's theory of maternal deprivation. Romanian orphan studies: effects of institutionalisation.

Types of attachment: secure, insecure-avoidant and insecure-resistant. Ainsworth's Strange Situation. Research into types of attachment.

Biological rhythms: circadian, infradian and ultradian and the difference between these rhythms. The effect of endogenous pacemakers and exogenous zeitgebers on the sleep/wake cycle.

Localisation of function in the brain and hemispheric lateralisation: motor, somatosensory, visual, auditory and language centres; Broca's and Wernicke's areas, split-brain research.

The divisions of the nervous system: central and peripheral (somatic and autonomic). The function of the endocrine system: glands and hormones. The fight or flight response including the role of adrenaline.

The structure and function of sensory, relay and motor neurons. The process of synaptic transmission, including reference to neurotransmitters, excitation and inhibition.

Plasticity and functional recovery of the brain after trauma. Ways of studying the brain. (Plasticity, synaptic pruning, axonal sprouting and recruitment of homologous areas.)

Ways of studying the brain: scanning techniques including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), electroencephalogram (EEGs) and event-related potentials (ERPs), and post-mortem examinations.

Ethical implications of research studies and theory, including reference to social sensitivity.

Free will and determinism: hard determinism and soft determinism; biological, environmental and psychic determinism. The scientific emphasis on causal explanations.

Gender and culture in psychology: universality and bias. Gender bias, including androcentrism and alpha and beta bias; cultural bias, including ethnocentrism and cultural relativism.

Holism and reductionism: levels of explanation in psychology; biological reductionism and environmental (stimulus-response) reductionism.

Idiographic and nomothetic approaches to psychological investigation.

The nature-nurture debate: the relative importance of heredity and environment in determining behaviour; the interactionist approach.

Explanations for forgetting: proactive and retroactive interference and retrieval failure due to absence of cues.

Factors affecting the accuracy of eyewitness testimony: misleading information, including leading questions and post-event discussion; anxiety.

Improving the accuracy of eyewitness testimony, including the use of the cognitive interview.

The multi-store model of memory: sensory register, short-term memory and long-term memory. Features of each store: coding, capacity and duration.

Types of long-term memory: episodic, semantic and procedural.

The working memory model: central executive, phonological loop, visuo-spatial sketchpad and episodic buffer. Features of the model: coding and capacity.

The behavioural approach to explaining phobias: the two-process model, including classical and operant conditioning. The behavioural approach to treating phobias: systematic desensitisation and flooding.

The biological approach to explaining OCD: genetic and neural explanations. The biological approach to treating OCD: drug therapy.

The cognitive approach to explaining depression: Beck's negative triad and Ellis's ABC model. The cognitive approach to treating depression: cognitive behaviour therapy, including challenging irrational thoughts.

Definitions of abnormality, including deviation from social norms, failure to function adequately, statistical infrequency and deviation from ideal mental health.

The behavioural, emotional and cognitive characteristics of phobias, depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Correlations: analysis of the relationship between co-variables. The difference between correlations and experiments. Positive, negative and zero correlations.

Quantitative and qualitative data, primary and secondary data. Measures of central tendency and dispersion. Presentation of quantitative data, distributions, and the analysis of qualitative data.

Experimental designs: independent groups, repeated measures and matched pairs. Design of investigations, including control of variables, randomisation and counterbalancing.

Experimental method: laboratory, field, natural and quasi-experiments. Aims, hypotheses, independent and dependent variables, operationalisation, extraneous and confounding variables.

Introduction to statistical testing; the sign test. Probability and significance, the use of statistical tables and critical values, type I and type II errors, choosing a statistical test.

Observational techniques: naturalistic and controlled, covert and overt, participant and non-participant. Observational design: behavioural categories, event and time sampling.

Sampling: the difference between population and sample; sampling techniques including random, systematic, stratified, opportunity and volunteer; implications of sampling techniques, including bias and generalisation.

Self-report techniques: questionnaires; interviews, structured and unstructured. The design of questionnaires, including the use of open and closed questions.

Conformity to social roles as investigated by Zimbardo: the Stanford prison experiment, the power of social roles and situational factors such as deindividuation and loss of personal identity.

Types of conformity: internalisation, identification and compliance. Explanations for conformity: informational social influence and normative social influence, and variables affecting conformity including group size, unanimity and task difficulty as investigated by Asch.

Explanations for obedience: agentic state and legitimacy of authority, and the dispositional explanation of the Authoritarian Personality as proposed by Adorno.

Minority influence including reference to consistency, commitment and flexibility; the role of minority influence in social change.

Obedience as investigated by Milgram, including the baseline procedure and findings, and the situational variables affecting obedience: proximity, location and uniform.

Explanations of resistance to social influence, including social support and locus of control.

The role of social influence processes in social change, including minority influence, internalisation, snowball effect, social cryptomnesia and the role of conformity and obedience.