AS Psychology AQA PSYA1/2 Revision Thread 2015!

So who here is single anyways?

I am really finding the approaches to abnormality hard to remember
I think abnormality is what is knocking my confidence for this exam

sooo.... hoping one of these hasn't already been started. i was looking for one and didn't find one

SO how's everyone finding psya2 ????

thought this thread would be quite useful for us, i saw the a2 guys had one so we need one too

Do you keep completely forgetting them or keep mixing them up?

I've just finished research into conformity and explanations of conformity

I'm now on to obedience. But I'm not sure if I can just use Milgram as a study.... Are there other studies? I can't seem to find them


Posted from TSR Mobile

I evaluated Milgrams study by saying he deceived the participants, also that the participants (although told) were not sure whether they had the right to withdraw ... As the experimenter forced them to carry on


I need 1 more AO2 point ...


Posted from TSR Mobile

Major ethical issues with this study because of stress caused to participants. 14/40 had nervous laughing fits, etc.

Also issues regarding lack of both internal and external validity.

I'd answer it like this.

Stress has the ability to lower the effectiveness of the immune system. For example: Kielcolt glazer carried out a study on first year medical students (49 male and 26 female) whose important exams were coming up. He took blood samples from the students a month before the exam and on the day of the exam. Their level of T-cells was measured. Also, a questionnaire was given to the students to evaluate their psychological state. Kiecolt-glazer found that the level of t-cells in the blood on the day of the exam was much lower than a month before. Also, those students who rated themselves as lonely and depressed had even less t-cells than those who didn't. This suggests that stress from important exams has the ability to lower the effectiveness of a human's immune system by reducing T-cell production meaning a person is more likely to get cancer.

Strength: natural experiment, stress occurs naturally from exams was not manipulated, high ecological validity

weakness: natural experiment so lack of control over extraneous variables such as age, personality etc, cannot determine cause and effect

weakness: bias sample only used medical students, could be more prone to stress than others, lacks population validity

if the question stated what has research SHOWN us about the link between stress and and the immune system, only findings and conclusions are credit worthy so then you would have to include other studies like:

marucha et al: discovered that the healing process is slowed down significantly by stress. For example on his 11 dental students, the time it took for the small wound on the inside of their mouth to heal 2-3 days before the exam was 40% (3 days) longer than in college vacation

Riley et al: discovered that lymphocyte production lowered with high stress. For example, mice which were put under high stress tasks went on to develop cancerous tumours but those in low stress did not

Russek et al: split doctors into high stress occupations (GPs) and low stress (dermatologists). Discovered that 11.9% of GPs went on to develop CHD but only 3.2 dermatologists went on to develop it

Hope this helps, sorry if it's a bit long but thought it would be better than you having to research it all

So who here is single anyways?

everyone