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Synopticity

Hi, im having trouble with including synoptic information into the questions on schizophrenia, depression and OCD. Can anyone help? thanks
Reply 1
Avatar for pripal_7
pripal_7
You don't have to include any synoptic information in the 1st section as far as i'm aware. I havent done so in pratice exam questions in school and i've got 25-28 marks. You need to show synoptic information mainly for section B and parts of section C.
Reply 2
Avatar for Possum1
Possum1
Synoptic links are needed in the first section too, you may not even know you're doing it. I don't think they have to be as obvious as clearly linking a point back to other areas of the course.

Synoptic links could include how explanations of depression for example contribute to the debates in psychology.

eg. The learned helplessness theory suggests that behaviour is determined, and thus depression is determined, whereas Beck's cognitive model of depression suggests that more free will is involved as individuals actively form negative views of themself, their future, and their circumstances.
Reply 3
Avatar for Snakedragon
Snakedragon
Synopticity for section B is pretty easy, because for Q's 4&5, you've covered most of the the related studies at AS

e.g. Ethics with humans - zimbardo, asch, any conformity studies
Cross cultural - most of the psychological studies are conducted in america
gender bias - most of the participants of milgram's and asch's studies were university student males
For 1A criticising the methodolgies counts as a synoptic skill. So saying studies are unethical, culturally biased, socially sensitive.

Also, if you use the criticisms for teh approaches in general that counts as synoptic I think.

So you could say 'The biological explanation of schizophrenia is, as with most biological explanantions, reductionist, so perhaps teh use of psychological explanantions are better for explaining schizophrenia.''

I believe if you criticise an approach by 'drawing on another area of psychology' you are being synoptic, you've just gotta be explicit about it.

I might be wrong so could someone confirm the above? Would be well good!
Reply 5
Avatar for Snakedragon
Snakedragon
My teacher told us, even if we're asked to write about say the Biological approach, in the evaluation, compare it with other approaches to get more synoptic marks and evaluation marks. Also at the start of say an essay about Biological treatments, just have a few sentences saying what the biological approach assumes about psychological illnesses (they're caused by an imbalance of chemicals in the brain, or they're genetically transferred from parents)

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