England · OCRSyllabus
Psychology syllabus, dot point by dot point
Every dot point in the England Psychologysyllabus, with a focused answer for each one. Click any dot point for a worked explainer, past exam questions, and links to related dot points. Written by Claude Opus 4.8, Anthropic's latest AI.
Component 3: Applied psychology - Option: Child psychology
Module overview →- How does psychology explain children's attachment, development and the influences that shape them?Child psychology option: attachment and deprivation, intelligence and development, autism, and external influences such as advertising and day care, with background, key research and application.15 min answer →
- What makes someone commit crime, and how can psychology improve evidence, courtrooms, prevention and punishment?Criminal psychology option: explanations of offending, collecting and processing evidence (eyewitness testimony, interviews), psychology in the courtroom, crime prevention and the effects of imprisonment, with background, key research and application.16 min answer →
- How has society understood mental health, and how is one specific disorder defined, explained and treated?Issues in mental health: the historical context of mental health, defining and diagnosing abnormality, and the characteristics, incidence, explanations and treatment of one specific disorder.16 min answer →
- How do arousal, motivation, personality and the presence of others affect sporting performance and exercise?Sport and exercise psychology option: arousal and anxiety, motivation, personality, performing with an audience and others, and exercise and mental health, with background, key research and application.15 min answer →
- Is mental illness best understood as a physical disease, or do psychological and social models explain it better?The medical model of mental health and its alternatives: biological, behavioural, cognitive, psychodynamic and humanistic explanations and treatments, and their evaluation.15 min answer →
Component 2: Core studies - Biological area (regions of the brain)
Module overview →- Is the ability to resist temptation linked to lasting differences in how specific brain regions work?Contemporary study: Casey et al. (2011), Behavioral and neural correlates of delay of gratification. Aim, method, results and conclusions, evaluation, and links to the biological area and Sperry.14 min answer →
- What happens to perception and awareness when the two hemispheres of the brain are surgically separated?Classic study: Sperry (1968), Hemisphere deconnection and unity in conscious awareness. Aim, method, results and conclusions, evaluation, and links to the biological area and hemispheric lateralisation.15 min answer →
- Can years of navigating a city physically change the size of a region of the adult human brain?Contemporary study: Maguire et al. (2000), Navigation-related structural change in the hippocampi of taxi drivers. Aim, method, results and conclusions, evaluation, and links to the biological area and Blakemore and Cooper.14 min answer →
- Does early visual experience physically shape how the brain develops?Classic study: Blakemore and Cooper (1970), Development of the brain depends on the visual environment. Aim, method, results and conclusions, evaluation, and links to the biological area and neuroplasticity.14 min answer →
Component 2: Core studies - Cognitive area (attention)
Module overview →- How much of an unattended message do we process when we focus our attention on something else?Classic study: Moray (1959), Attention in dichotic listening. Aim, method, results and conclusions, evaluation, and links to the cognitive area and theories of attention.14 min answer →
- Do we remember information better when we are tested in the same environment in which we learned it?Contemporary study: Grant et al. (1998), Context-dependent memory in the learning and retrieval of meaningful material. Aim, method, results and conclusions, evaluation, and links to the cognitive area and Loftus and Palmer.14 min answer →
- Can focusing our attention make us completely miss an obvious, unexpected event right in front of us?Contemporary study: Simons and Chabris (1999), Gorillas in our midst: sustained inattentional blindness. Aim, method, results and conclusions, evaluation, and links to the cognitive area and Moray.14 min answer →
- Can the way a question is worded distort what people remember about an event?Classic study: Loftus and Palmer (1974), Reconstruction of automobile destruction. Aim, method, results and conclusions, evaluation, and links to the cognitive area and eyewitness memory.15 min answer →
Component 2: Core studies - Developmental area (external influences on behaviour)
Module overview →- Can a toy-like reward built into an inhaler improve how reliably children take their asthma medication?Contemporary study: Chaney et al. (2004), A new asthma spacer device (the Funhaler) to improve compliance in children. Aim, method, results and conclusions, evaluation, and links to the developmental area and operant conditioning.14 min answer →
- Do children learn aggression by imitating an adult model they have watched?Classic study: Bandura, Ross and Ross (1961), Transmission of aggression through imitation of aggressive models. Aim, method, results and conclusions, evaluation, and links to the developmental area and social learning theory.15 min answer →
- Does moral reasoning develop through a fixed sequence of stages as children grow up?Classic study: Kohlberg (1968), The development of moral reasoning. Aim, method, results and conclusions, evaluation, and links to the developmental area and stages of moral reasoning.15 min answer →
- Do children in different cultures judge lying and truth-telling in the same way?Contemporary study: Lee et al. (1997), Cultural differences in children's moral evaluations of lying and truth-telling. Aim, method, results and conclusions, evaluation, and links to the developmental area and Kohlberg.14 min answer →
Component 2: Core studies - Individual differences (measuring differences)
Module overview →- Can intelligence tests be biased and misused to make unfair claims about whole groups of people?Classic study: Gould (1982), A nation of morons. Aim, method, results and conclusions, evaluation, and links to the individual differences area and the misuse of intelligence testing.14 min answer →
- Do adults with autism have a specific difficulty reading complex mental states from the eyes?Contemporary study: Baron-Cohen et al. (1997), Another advanced test of theory of mind (the Eyes Task). Aim, method, results and conclusions, evaluation, and links to the individual differences area and Freud.14 min answer →
- Do psychopaths reveal their distinctive way of thinking in the language they use to describe their crimes?Contemporary study: Hancock et al. (2011), Hungry like the wolf: a word-pattern analysis of the language of psychopaths. Aim, method, results and conclusions, evaluation, and links to the individual differences area and Gould.14 min answer →
- Can a childhood phobia be explained by unconscious conflicts described in psychodynamic theory?Classic study: Freud (1909), Analysis of a phobia in a five-year-old boy (Little Hans). Aim, method, results and conclusions, evaluation, and links to the individual differences area and the psychodynamic perspective.15 min answer →
Component 1: Research methods - Conducting and reporting research
Module overview →- How do psychologists plan, carry out, report and critique a piece of research scientifically?Planning and conducting research, report writing and sections of a report, peer review, the features of science, and evaluating research for reliability, validity and ethics.15 min answer →
- How do psychologists summarise data and decide whether a result is statistically significant?Descriptive statistics (central tendency, dispersion, graphs) and inferential statistics: choosing and interpreting the sign test, Mann-Whitney U, Wilcoxon, Spearman's rho and chi-square.16 min answer →
- How do psychologists choose a research method, design a study and frame testable hypotheses?Research methods and techniques: experiments, self-report, observation and correlation; variables and operationalisation; experimental designs; hypotheses; and the strengths and weaknesses of each method.15 min answer →
- How do psychologists select participants, work ethically and turn raw observations into usable data?Sampling methods, ethical considerations, reliability and validity, levels of measurement, and recording, analysing and presenting data.15 min answer →
Component 2: Core studies - Social area (responses to people in need)
Module overview →- Does helping a stranger depend on the culture, pace of life and economy of the city you are in?Contemporary study: Levine et al. (2001), Cross-cultural differences in helping strangers. Aim, method, results and conclusions, evaluation, and links to the social area and Piliavin.14 min answer →
- Why do some people disobey an unethical authority and blow the whistle while most comply?Contemporary study: Bocchiaro et al. (2012), Disobedience and whistle-blowing. Aim, method, results and conclusions, evaluation, and links to the social area and Milgram.15 min answer →
- Why do ordinary people obey an authority figure even when ordered to harm someone?Classic study: Milgram (1963), Behavioral study of obedience. Aim, method, results and conclusions, evaluation, and links to the social area and debates.15 min answer →
- What makes bystanders more or less likely to help a stranger in need?Classic study: Piliavin et al. (1969), Good Samaritanism: an underground phenomenon? Aim, method, results and conclusions, evaluation, and links to the social area and bystander behaviour.15 min answer →