Higher Psychology 2013

Is anyone stressing about attachment theory for children? The dates etc?

Could anyone help me with the Aytpical section? Could they ask you a question on the definitions of aytpical behaviour!? I have basically taught my self the whole course, my teacher has been.. well, not very good and managed to get 87% on the prelim. Any help would be fantastic. Thanks!

yes they could. id probably learn like 2 definitions and atleast strengths and weaknesses of one. Most likely it will just ask for definitions without S n W though.
i know how you feel. I got a new teacher in the middle of my course and i mainly relied on study books!

Hi has anyone got any tips on how to pick up evaluation marks. I feel that thatis my weak point aswell as Atypical .

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i really dislike atypical. what are you learning for atypical? i hope theres no applying therapy to ED/Depression thing

sorry i cant really help you on the evaluation marks thing. Have you got any study books?

I am learning depression and prejudice. I have got the nelson thrones higher textbook and the leckie and leckie one too. I have been going through them today looking at the evaluation sections.

Can anybody help me about the 3 stages of memory which according to the exam paper instructions is encoding storage and retrieval but my teacher said its probably the same as encoding, capacity and duration?

Thanks to anybody who replies

Hi has anyone got any tips on how to pick up evaluation marks. I feel that thatis my weak point aswell as Atypical .

i really dislike atypical. what are you learning for atypical? i hope theres no applying therapy to ED/Depression thing

sorry i cant really help you on the evaluation marks thing. Have you got any study books?

Atypical behaviour will come up as a 20 marker at the end of the paper. Remember though that you'll only have to write about either depression or an eating disorder, but not both (although it would be pertinent to state that someone with an eating disorder is often also depressed). The two types of therapy/treatment that are easiest to learn are:

Medical approach:

Anti-depressants to address the chemical imbalances within the brain that this approach believes are responsible for the depression.
&
Artificially feeding an Anorexia Nervosa sufferer when they become so weak that they are in a life-threatening condition.

Cognitive Behaviourist Therapy:
The good thing about this is that it covers two approaches to AT Behaviour: Cognitive AND Behaviourist.

(Cognitive part) It seeks to address the irrational thought processes that sees someone think about themselves as they do, which this approach believes is the source of the depression/eating disorder.
&
(Behaviourist part) It seeks to change irrational behaviour by reinforcing new, healthier behaviour (operant conditioning), where the sufferer will learn to associate this new behaviour with a happier/healthier life (classical conditioning).

Hope it's helpful.

I think a disambiguation is required here. Hope this helps:

Encoding = the creation of a memory
Storage = the storage of a memory within a memory store
Retrieval = retrieving a memory from a memory store
(At least two of these are self-evident imo)

Capacity = the amount of stuff a particular memory store can hold. It's widely believed that LTM has an infinate capacity, whereas STM can hold approximately 7 + or - 2 items
Duration = the length of time a particular memory store can retain information. It's widely believed that LTM can retain memories for a lifetime, while STM has been shown to only retain memories for typically less than 30 seconds.


So capacity is not the same as storage, because storage is the actual process of storing the memory, while capacity refers more to the amount of stuff it can hold.

Likewise, retrieval is not the same as duration, because retrieval refers to the actual process of recalling information from a memory store, while duration refers to the period of time a memory store can remember something for.

Analysis and evaluation marks are picked up for outlining strengths and weaknesses of a study. There are other ways, but they are a bit more complex and since the exam is a week and a half away you should probably just focus on the strengths and weaknesses.

What does that mean? Well think about the below, because almost every research study can be criticised by asking these questions about them to yourself and then answering them:

1) Does the experiment reflect real life situations well? (i.e. high or low ecological validity?).

2) Is the experiment too simplistic? (i.e. does it consider all the factors?)

3) Are the results valid/reliable? (i.e. could you repeat the experiment and get the same results? And has that been done?)

4) Can the results be generalised to the population as a whole? (i.e. if the participants were all American male students then is this representative of everyone? - other cultures, females, non-students?)

5) Is the experiment ethical? (i.e. are people being deceived/harmed in any way?)

There are others, but if you tackle the above then you'll collect marks. Here's ways to start an analysis/evaluation point:

"However, this experiment can be criticised. The research was conducted in an artificial environment and so lacks ecological validity. Further, the participants were all male American students, and so the results cannot be generalised to the population as a whole. Moreover, participants were not told the true purpose of the study until the end, and were therefore deceived. This is unethical because they were unable to give informed consent to take part."

Okay, it really is as simple as that. They aren't trick questions. What I'm doing above is picking something about the experiment and explaining why it's a strength or a weakness. This single paragraph would collect 6 A+E marks, because I've mentioned three core points and explained each.

Remember the above and you'll nail it.

Hope it helps.

Thankyou so much!!! Just wanted to know would it be necessary to include names and dates everytime you do an a&e question ie do you always have to include research evidence or is things such as ecological validity fine. Im finding it difficult trying to remember almost the names and dates in my revision.