Unit Two

Developmental psychology

 * ====aspects of human development across the life span====


 * cognitive
 * physical
 * social
 * emotional


 * nature/nurture debate


 * twin studies
 * adoption studies
 * intelligence as measured by intelligence quotient (IQ)


 * role of play in physical, cognitive, emotional and social readiness and skill development

Personality

 * definition of personality
 * historical perspectives


 * psychodynamic – Freud
 * trait – Eysenck, Allport
 * humanistic – Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs


 * approaches to measuring personality


 * projective – Rorschach, thematic apperception test (TAT)
 * non-projective – self-reportsOthers

Social psychology

 * definition of a group and its purposes
 * individuals and groups


 * self-concept and group membership
 * social identity


 * behaviour within groups


 * cooperation
 * competition
 * deindividuation
 * social loafing
 * brainstorming
 * impact of group size


 * social categorisation


 * stereotypes
 * social values and behaviour

Culture and values

 * ====attitude formation – Tripartite model====
 * tools for measuring attitudes


 * observational methods
 * qualitative self-report methods – interviews and focus groups
 * quantitative self-report measures – rating scales


 * racism


 * causes of prejudice
 * reducing prejudice


 * cultural influences on attitudes


 * individualistic cultures
 * collectivist cultures

Planning and conducting psychological research

 * ====research terminology====


 * experimental, non-experimental
 * scientific, non-scientific
 * sample
 * population


 * ethics in psychology research


 * informed consent
 * confidentiality
 * voluntary participation and withdrawal rights
 * deception in research


 * steps in the scientific method
 * differences between sample and population data
 * experimental research methods


 * independent and dependent variables
 * operational hypotheses
 * controlled and uncontrolled variables
 * experimental and control groups
 * reliability and validity


 * 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
 * quantitative methods of data collection – fixed response, rating scales

Processing and evaluating psychological research

 * ====methods of displaying quantitative data – tables, graphs and diagrams====
 * interpretation of the following forms of data:


 * mode
 * mean
 * median
 * range


 * role of probability
 * use of correlation to establish association between variables
 * sources of error in data and ways of reducing them
 * evidence-based conclusions related to the hypothesis