3. Introductions
• Drop me a message on
Moodle and tell me
• Why do you want to study
Psychology?
• Have you studied before
and if so, what did you learn
about?
5. What is psychology?
• The scientific study of behaviour
and experience. (Glassman and Hadad, 2013: 2)
6. Why do we behave the way we do?
• People behave the way they do because they’ve
learned to by responding to their environment.
• People behave the way they do because of the way
they think, the way their brain is programmed to, like a
computer.
• People behave the way they do because they are
driven to by unconscious conflicts and things that
happened in their childhood.
• People behave the way they do because it’s in their
genes, their physiology and their biochemistry.
9. Why do we behave the way we do?
• People behave the way they do because they’ve
learned to by responding to their environment. –
Behaviourist!
• People behave the way they do because of the way
they think, the way their brain is programmed to, like a
computer. – Cognitive!
• People behave the way they do because they are
driven to by unconscious conflicts and things that
happened in their childhood. – Psychodynamic!
• People behave the way they do because it’s in their
genes, their physiology and their biochemistry. –
Biological!
10. What does a psychologist do?
• What you think psychologists do?
12. Aiming for Psychology
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpS8g34vPGQ
&list=PLCkLQOAPOtT2ATuX2Kz0tApFp-UUFwlIZ
13. Higher Psychology
• Understanding the Individual
o Memory
o Stress
• Investigating behaviour
o Experimental methods
o Non-experimental methods
o Research Project
• Individual in the Social Context
o Conformity and Obedience
o Atypical Behaviour
o Optional Unit?
14. Internal Assessments
• Understanding the Individual
o Internal assessment of 30 minutes
o One single re-sit opportunity
• Investigating Behaviour
o Part 1 - Practical Portfolio of a piece of research
o Part 2 - Internal assessment (one single re-sit opportunity)
• Individual in the Social Context
o Internal assessment of 30 minutes
o One single re-sit opportunity
19. Further reading online
• British Psychological Society
o www.bps.org.uk
• Simply Psychology
o http://www.simplypsychology.org/
• S-Cool Psychology
o http://www.s-cool.co.uk/a-level/psychology
• OCR Psychology
o http://www.holah.net/
• Revision World
o http://revisionworld.co.uk/a2-level-level-revision/psychology
Hello and welcome to the Higher Psychology course.
My name is Lorraine and I’m going to be your tutor for this course. Mainly we will be working through the college’s virtual learning environment which is called Moodle, but if you need to contact me outside of Moodle, the best way to do it is via email and here is my email address. I you prefer to phone my phone number is 0131 559 4667. I’m usually out in class, tho’, so there is a voicemail attached to this number and I’ll respond as soon as can. If you prefer to contact via skype, my skype id is lorraine.psychology.
Now you know all about me, I’d like to find out a bit about you. Drop me a message on Moodle or skype and tell me a bit about yourself. Why do you want to study psychology, what is it about the subject that interests you? If you’ve studied it before I’d be interested to know what you learned about.
If you’ve never studied psychology before you might be wondering what it is all about. What do you think psychology is, what are you hoping to learn about. You might want to pause the lesson just now and write down your thoughts.
There have been a lot of different definitions of what psychology is over the years, the science of brain and behaviour, the science of the mind and many more here is a very recent on which says that it is the scientific study of behaviour and experience. Do you agree?
There have been many reasons suggested about why people behave the way they do. Some psychologists have suggested that we behave the way we do because we are responding to cues in the environment. Others think it is because of the way we think and our brain is just like a computer with input from the environment and then we think about it and then we behave accordingly. Some psychologists have suggested it is because we are driven to do so by unconscious conflicts and childhood traumas and still others have suggested we behave the way we do because it’s in our genes or our biochemistry.
Each of the definitions we’ve looked at on the previous slide are called one of the names on this slide. Can you guess which one matches with which definition? You might want to pause the lesson here and have a break to think about it.
Well done if you guessed right. Don’t worry if you got some mixed up. This is what we’re here to learn about.
Another question you might want to think about just now as you embark on your studies in psychology is what do psychologists do. What do you think they do – try to answer just from your own life experience and what you’ve heard about. Pause the lesson to write down what you think psychologists do.
Well, there are a lot of different types of psychologists, working in all these different areas. I think a lot of you will have thought about clinical psychologists who work in hospitals along side psychiatrists to help people who have a range of mental health difficulties. I am guessing that many of you will also have said a forensic psychologist who works with the police to help them solve crimes. If you click on the link on this slide here, it will take you to the website of the British Psychological Society where you can read about what all the different types of psychologist and what they do and if you would like to become one of these types of psychologist you can find out what you need to do to get there.
You might also want to visit this website which has been made by some colleagues at different universities throughout the UK for people who are about to study psychology at university. This could be you next year, if you want it to be…
But now, something specifically about this course. Like all the other Highers you’re studying it is in three units …Und, Inv, Ind. Units 1 and 3 tell us about what psychologists have found out and Unit 2 is about how they have found it out. In unit 1 …
We already know that the exam will be on Tuesday 3rd June at 9am. You will be taking the exam in your school unless other arrangements have been made for you. If you’re not sure, get in touch and we’ll let you know.
As well as the course material we have prepared for you here on Moodle, you might want to check out these other resources. Many of you might find they are already in your school library because previous students have requested them. This one was published in 2007 and is very clear and concise. Be careful, however that there is one part of the course that has changed slightly since this book was published. We no longer do mnemonics in memory but we do eye witness testimony instead and the course material we’ve prepared for you here on Moodle will support you for that.
This is also a useful book. It goes into a lot of detail and covers the options in Unit 3 that we teach here at the Granton Campus of Edinburgh College.
This book is also really good, especially for revision. If these books are not already in your school library, let your librarian know and I’m sure he or she will be only too happy to get a few copies in for you.
If you can’t wait to get started – here are some websites to look at. Remember to stick to the topics I’ve mentioned in this introduction if you want to keep to the Higher program
Thanks for listening and don’t hesitate to be in touch if you’ve any questions. The study material for memory is available already, so you can get stuck in right away if you want to. Check out the course schedule and keep referring to it, so that you know when the tutor marked assessments (TMAs) and the internal assessments (NABs) are due. Good luck and looking forward to working with you!
