Psychology

Course summary

Psychology is the study of the mind, behaviour and experience. It considers what it is that makes us the person we are: our personality, intelligence and behaviour. During the course, we consider the thought-provoking and, often controversial, theories of psychologists such as Skinner, Freud, Bowlby and Rogers. Year 12 • Social Influence: conformity, obedience and social change. • Cognitive psychology: memory, forgetting and eyewitness testimony. • Developmental psychology: attachments in development. • Research methods including basic maths. • Psychopathology: explanations and treatments of various disorders including depression, phobias and OCD. • Approaches: perspectives used by psychologists to explain human behaviour. Year 13 • Biological psychology builds on the Approaches topic of year 12 and considers the brain and nervous system and the role of biological rhythms. • Eating behaviour will consider biological and psychological explanations of anorexia nervosa and of obesity. • Gender will look at biological and other influences that determine our gender identity. • Issues: A synoptic section that revisits many of the issues common to all topics in psychology such as the extent to which behaviour is determined by nature and nurture. • Addiction looks at risk factors in developing addictive behaviour and focuses on smoking and gambling addictions. • Research methods and statistical analysis build on the work covered in year 12 and introduce students to a variety of statistical tests designed to measure statistical significance.