Psychology AQA A PSYA3 11th June 2012!

Issues/debates/approaches.

In terms of the first issues can include ethics, methodological, gender bias and cultural differences.
Debates can be reductionism - when phenomena is broken down into simple terms and may also neglect other aspects, free will/determinism - do people have an influence over their behaviour or is it predetermined?, nature vs nurture - are we a product of our genes or does our environment shape our behaviour?
Approaches can be any - Biological, Developmental, Evolutionary (under biological yes), behavioural, Psychodynamic etc.

In order to gain effective A02/A03 credit you can't just say for example something is reductionist you need to explain how and is this a positive aspect or negative.

Let me give you an example; I don't know what topics you're doing but here goes:

A debate that arises when explaining biological rhythms is free will or determinism? Dr Katharina Dalton has often acted as an expert witness and argued that severe Premenstrual Syndrome was akin to a mental disorder and therefore individuals should not be held responsible for their actions. This suggests that biological rhythms may be beyond our control.
On the other hand there is evidence that we can 'will' our biological rhythms to change. For example, in one study people who were told to wake up at times earlier than usual during the night had higher levels of ACTH, which contributes to the waking up process than normal at the designated time and they woke up earlier (Born et al 1999).

Hope that hasn't overloaded you. The key to it all is expansion.

Thanks! That's a lot of help. I don't remember learning any of this and Now, I guess I've gone up a grade
Thanks again! How are you finding revision?

Evolutionary comes to mind

Hey guys I was just on the AQA website looking at the grade boundaries and the UMS and for the A2 exams it shows that 90 ums is an A*? I always thought that you could get an A* as an overall grade and not on individual units. Anyway I am trying to calculate what i might get.
So far:

Psya1: 67
Psya1: 54
Psya3: 79
Psya4: n/a

Now if i place the "90" (which is what i am aiming for) in for psya 3 and psya 4 it should look like:

Psya1: 67
Psya1: 54
Psya3: 90
Psya4: 90

so the total is 301
now the grade for that is a B but i am confused about what AQA say about the A*. Here's the link to support what i am saying! (i sound like a proper psychologist saying that lol)
http://web.aqa.org.uk/UMS/index.php

Hey guys I was just on the AQA website looking at the grade boundaries and the UMS and for the A2 exams it shows that 90 ums is an A*? I always thought that you could get an A* as an overall grade and not on individual units. Anyway I am trying to calculate what i might get.
So far:

Psya1: 67
Psya1: 54
Psya3: 79
Psya4: n/a

Now if i place the "90" (which is what i am aiming for) in for psya 3 and psya 4 it should look like:

Psya1: 67
Psya1: 54
Psya3: 90
Psya4: 90

so the total is 301
now the grade for that is a B but i am confused about what AQA say about the A*. Here's the link to support what i am saying! (i sound like a proper psychologist saying that lol)
http://web.aqa.org.uk/UMS/index.php

you Will get a grade B as to get an A* you need to average 80% in your As grade also which you haven't I'm afraid.
you need to hit 320 points with average 160 for AS which is grade A and then average 90% in your A2 exams which is 180 ums to get A*.

Anybody got an essay for discuss the role of genetic factors in human aggression?

Ah that's alright. Yeah you can get a B grade without IDA's but in order for you to get into the top band they are required.
Got an A for AS so need B's this year for an A overall but it would be nice to get A's in these exams so I'm going for it.
Revision...meh slowly but surely haha. What about you?
What topics are you doing?

You would get a B yes, as 301 is just over 75% of 400 (the maximum UMS from the 4 Psychology exams). 70% is a B, 80% is an A.

Does that make sense?

Hi everyone, anyone else doing aggression, eating behaviour and social cognition?


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