Author: jilleccles

Mrs J Eccles

Sixth Form Open Evening

Psychology AS

18th January 2012

Psychology AS

AS Examinations
Unit 1
50% of the total AS marks,
1 hour 30 minutes
Unit 2
50% of the total AS marks,
1 hour 30 minutes

Who is leading the course?
Mrs J Eccles will be leading the course. Mrs Eccles has a first class Bsc honours
degree in psychology .

Unit 1:
Human Memory
Explores the structure of human memory. This will look at various models of how the memory work as and look at what happens when the memory goes wrong.
Early Social Development
Explores the nature of early childhood attachments. How are we attached to our mothers ? What happens when these attachments are unstable ? Does putting children into nursery affect them as a child or in later life ?
Research Methods
Using real psychological experiments to discover how psychologists research the human brain.
Unit 2:
Biological Psychology - Stress
Explores the causes of stress, the relationship between stress and physical illness as well as methods of stress management.
Social Influence
Studies psychological explanations of conformity and obedience. Looking specifically at Milgram’s research done after WW2 into why people follow authority.
Individual Differences –
Psychopathology
Looking at mental health problems and ways in which these can be treated with psychological and drug therapy.

Teaching Methods
The course will be taught in a very practical way with an emphasis on real experiments and hands on materials to really understand the
methods used by psychologists.

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Psychology A2

At A2 we will be building on the work done at AS but the course is more practical looking at real life
applications of psychology.

A2 Examinations
Unit 3
25% of the total A Level marks
1 hour 30 minutes
Unit 4
25% of the total A Level marks
2 hours

Unit 3
Perception
How we see and organise the world around us. How do we know who we are? How do we recognise people’s faces? What can go wrong– what happens when people loose the ability to recognise faces ? : Prosopagnosia
Aggression
Social explanations for aggression : including Institutional aggression and group display in humans, for example sport and warfare.
Eating behaviour
Actions influencing attitudes to food and eating behaviour including eating disorders In relation to either anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa or obesity.

The research methods
sections of the syllabus do
contain maths (statistics)
elements.
Make sure you have discussed this with Mrs Eccles if you are
uncertain about the maths
content.

Unit 4
This unit develops an understanding of
schizophrenia,
phobic disorders
or obsessive compulsive disorders. (OCD)
You can research one of the following
Media psychology (anti
social behaviour, video games, celebrity and stalking),
Psychology of addictive
behaviour
Anomistic psychology (superstition, ESP and near death experiences)

Psychopathology

Psychology in Action