Unit Three Syllabus

Biological influences/bases of behaviour

 * ====structure and function of the nervous system====


 * central nervous system
 * brain
 * spinal cord
 * peripheral nervous system
 * somatic nervous system
 * autonomic nervous system – sympathetic, parasympathetic


 * process of neural transmission


 * role of synapses
 * role of neurotransmitters – serotonin, dopamine


 * roles of the four lobes of the cerebral cortex


 * frontal lobe – Broca's area, primary motor cortex
 * parietal lobe – primary sensory cortex
 * occipital lobe – primary visual cortex
 * temporal lobe – Wernicke's area, primary auditory cortex


 * factors that affect behaviour, emotion and thought, including:


 * heredity – the role of genetics
 * hormones – the effects of adrenaline and noradrenaline
 * psychoactive drugs – the effects of depressants, stimulants and hallucinogens\

Cognition

 * psychological concepts and processes associated with memory and their relationship to behaviour
 * multi store model of memory – Atkinson and Shiffrin, 1968
 * sensory register
 * duration, capacity, encoding
 * short-term memory (working memory)
 * duration, capacity and encoding
 * working memory model – Baddeley and Hitch, 1974
 * long-term memory
 * duration, capacity and encoding
 * procedural memory
 * declarative memory – semantic and episodic
 * recall, recognition, re-learning
 * forgetting: retrieval failure, interference, motivated forgetting, decay
 * theories and processes of learning
 * classical conditioning
 * operant conditioning
 * observational learning
 * techniques for modifying behaviour
 * token economies
 * systematic desensitisation
 * Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT)
 * positive and negative reinforcement, including rewards and punishment

Relational influences

 * ====types of solutions to resolve conflict====
 * imposed
 * distributive
 * integrative
 * techniques for resolving conflict
 * mediation
 * negotiation
 * counselling
 * socialisation processes observed within families
 * attachment – Harlow, Bowlby, Ainsworth
 * features of different parenting styles – authoritative, authoritarian and permissive

Communication

 * communication styles
 * impact of social background – Bernstein, Labov
 * examples of gender differences – Tannen
 * features of persuasive communication
 * source of the message
 * nature of the communication
 * characteristics of the audience
 * features and limitations of theories of language development
 * innate and learned behaviours – Chomsky, Bruner

Planning and conducting psychological research

 * research terminology
 * experimental, non-experimental
 * scientific, non-scientific
 * sample
 * population
 * ethics in psychology research
 * role of the experimenter
 * participants’ rights – privacy, anonymity, confidentiality, voluntary participation and withdrawal rights
 * informed consent procedures
 * deception in research
 * professional conduct
 * practical issues associated with planning and conducting research
 * difference between sample and population data
 * features of experimental research methods
 * independent and dependent variables
 * operational hypotheses
 * controlled and uncontrolled variables
 * experimental and control groups
 * placebo and experimenter effects
 * reliability and validity
 * longitudinal and cross-sectional designs
 * features of non-experimental (descriptive) research methods
 * case studies, surveys, correlational studies and archival research
 * behavioural variables (not dependent and independent variables) in correlational studies
 * qualitative methods of data collection
 * objective quantitative measures in research – physiological measures
 * subjective quantitative measures in research – checklists and rating scales, such as Likert scales

Processing and evaluating psychological research

 * methods of displaying quantitative data – tables, graphs and diagrams
 * data interpretation
 * measures of central tendency – mode, mean and median
 * measures of dispersion – normal curve, range, variance and standard deviation
 * role of probability
 * use of correlation to establish association between variables
 * sources of error in data and ways of reducing these
 * the concept of statistical significance
 * evaluation of and ways of improving research