National Year 12 Psychology
Chapters: 7
1. 4.1.1 Social influence
4.1.1 Conformity · 4.1.1 Obedience · 4.1.1 Resistance and minority influence
- Groups: How They Form and How They Change Us – A group is two or more people who interact, share a goal, follow norms and feel 'we'. People join groups for security, status, self-esteem, needs and goals. Groups grow through stages: forming, storming, norming, performing, adjourning. Their structure has roles, norms, status and cohesiveness. Types: primary/secondary, formal/informal, in-group/out-group. Groups also change our behaviour: in social loafing each person tries less in a shared task; in group polarisation the group's view becomes more extreme after discussion.
- Social Influence: Crowds, Saying No and Changing Minds – Social influence is how other people change what we think and do. In groups, two crowd effects appear: social loafing (each person tries less when effort is hidden) and deindividuation (feeling anonymous in a crowd lowers self-control). Personality and morals change how much a crowd affects someone. People resist pressure better with social support (one ally) and an internal locus of control. A small minority can change the majority if it is consistent, committed and flexible; this leads to social change through the snowball effect.
2. 4.1.2 Memory
4.1.2 Models of memory · 4.1.2 Forgetting · 4.1.2 Eyewitness testimony
- Human Memory: How We Keep Information – Memory keeps information over time. It works in three steps: encoding, storage and retrieval. The stage model says information passes from sensory memory (huge, about a second) to short-term memory (about 7 items, about 20 seconds) and, with rehearsal, to long-term memory (unlimited, years). Short-term memory works as working memory. The levels of processing view says deeper, meaning-based processing gives longer memory. Long-term memory has declarative memory (episodic and semantic) and procedural memory.
- Forgetting and How to Remember Better – Forgetting is fast at first and then slow (Ebbinghaus curve). Three main reasons: trace decay (unused traces fade), interference (old and new learning block each other: proactive and retroactive) and retrieval failure (the memory is there but the right cue is missing). We can improve memory with mnemonics using images (keyword method, method of loci) and organisation (chunking, first-letter technique, categories), plus deep processing, less interference, spaced revision and the PQRST method.
- Eyewitness Testimony – Eyewitness testimony (EWT) is the account a witness gives of a crime or accident they saw. Because memory is rebuilt each time we recall it, EWT can be changed by misleading information: leading questions that hint at an answer, and post-event discussion with other witnesses. Anxiety also matters: moderate stress may sharpen recall, but very high stress, especially with a weapon present, can reduce accuracy. The cognitive interview uses four techniques (context reinstatement, report everything, change order, change perspective) to help witnesses recall more correct detail without adding errors.
3. 4.1.3 Attachment
4.1.3 Caregiver-infant interaction · 4.1.3 Animal studies and explanations · 4.1.3 Types of attachment · 4.1.3 Deprivation and later effects
- Attachment – Attachment is a strong, lasting emotional bond between an infant and a caregiver, shown by staying close, distress on separation and joy on reunion. It grows through caregiver-infant interaction (reciprocity and interactional synchrony) and develops in stages (Schaffer). Animal studies (Lorenz's imprinting, Harlow's cloth mother) suggest bonding is about comfort, not food. Learning theory says we attach to whoever feeds us; Bowlby's monotropic theory says the drive is inborn, focused on one main carer during a critical period, and forms an internal working model. Ainsworth's Strange Situation finds secure, avoidant and resistant types, whose mix varies across cultures. Deprivation and institutional care can harm later development.
4. 4.2.1 Approaches in psychology
4.2.1 Origins and learning approaches · 4.2.1 Cognitive and biological approaches
- Learning by Conditioning – Learning is a fairly lasting change in behaviour that comes from practice or experience. In classical conditioning (Pavlov), a neutral stimulus paired with one that naturally causes a response starts to cause that response by itself. In operant conditioning (Skinner), behaviour is shaped by its consequences: reinforcement makes it more likely, punishment less likely. Timing, strength and type of stimuli, and the amount, delay and schedule of reinforcement decide how well learning happens. Key processes are acquisition, extinction, spontaneous recovery, generalisation and discrimination.
- Approaches in Psychology – An approach is a set of ideas about what causes behaviour and how to study it. Psychology became a science in 1879 with Wundt's lab. Behaviourism studies only observable behaviour learned through conditioning; social learning theory adds imitation. The cognitive approach sees the mind as an information processor using schemas, studied with models and brain scans. The biological approach explains behaviour through genes, neurochemistry and evolution. The psychodynamic approach (Freud) stresses the unconscious, the id, ego and superego, defence mechanisms and psychosexual stages. The humanistic approach (Maslow, Rogers) stresses free will, self-actualisation and congruence. Approaches differ on free will vs determinism, nature vs nurture, reductionism and scientific method.
5. 4.2.2 Biopsychology
4.2.2 Biopsychology basics
- Biopsychology: How the Body and Brain Shape Behaviour – Biopsychology studies how the body, especially the nervous and hormone systems, shapes what we think, feel and do. The nervous system has a central part (brain and spinal cord) and a peripheral part (somatic and autonomic nerves). Neurons pass messages electrically along their length and chemically across a synapse using neurotransmitters, which can be excitatory or inhibitory. The endocrine system uses glands and hormones; in danger the sympathetic branch and adrenaline produce the fight-or-flight response. Some jobs are localised in particular brain areas, and some are lateralised to one half, as split-brain studies show. The brain can rewire itself (plasticity) and recover after damage. Scientists study it with fMRI, EEG, ERP and post-mortems. Our bodies also run on cycles: circadian (about 24 hours), ultradian (shorter) and infradian (longer), kept by inner pacemakers and reset by zeitgebers such as light.
6. 4.1.4 Psychopathology
4.1.4 Definitions of abnormality · 4.1.4 Phobias, depression, OCD
- Abnormality and Classification of Psychological Disorders – Behaviour is called abnormal when it shows the 4 Ds: deviance (very unusual), distress (it hurts the person), dysfunction (daily life breaks down) and sometimes danger. Long ago people blamed spirits; the Greeks blamed the body; later reformers brought kind care; today we use the biopsychosocial view. Experts classify disorders with two manuals: DSM-5-TR (American Psychiatric Association) and ICD-11 (World Health Organization). Disorders come from biological, psychological and sociocultural factors together. The diathesis-stress model says an inborn weakness plus enough stress can trigger a disorder.
7. 4.2.3 Research methods
4.2.3 Methods · 4.2.3.1 Scientific processes · 4.2.3.2 Data handling and analysis
- Goals and Steps of Research in Psychology – Psychological research has four goals: description (what happens), prediction (what will happen), explanation (why it happens) and application (using findings to solve problems and improve life). Scientific research follows four steps: conceptualising a problem (topic and a testable hypothesis), collecting data (participants, method, tools, procedure), drawing conclusions (statistics) and revising conclusions (fitting results into theory). A variable is anything that can change; the independent variable is changed by the researcher and the dependent variable is measured. Besides the scientific (quantitative) paradigm, there is an interpretive (qualitative) paradigm that seeks meanings in people's own words. Psychological data may be demographic, physical, physiological or psychological, and are never fully free of their context.
- Analysis of Data, Limitations and Ethics in Psychological Research – Psychological data are analysed in two ways. Quantitative analysis uses numbers and statistics (like the mean) to find patterns. Qualitative analysis uses words, images and stories and sorts them into themes to find meanings. The two are often combined. Psychological enquiry has limits: its scales have no true zero point, its tools are relative to the culture in which they were made, and qualitative data can be interpreted subjectively. Research must be ethical: participation must be voluntary, participants must give informed consent, they should be debriefed after the study, the results should be shared with them, and their data must be kept confidential.