Psychology

Course summary

This course provides students with a broad introduction to Psychology as a Science. The core topics are social influence, memory, attachment, psychopathology, approaches in psychology, biopsychology, issues and debates in psychology and research methods. The emphasis is on applying knowledge and understanding and developing the skills of analysis, evaluation and critical thinking. As well as being asked to describe the procedures and findings of many key pieces of research, students will be required to think critically about the research itself and suggest ways that it could be improved. Candidates will learn to question and challenge research findings, suggest the real world applications of research and be able to justify their ideas. As a result class work will often take the form of discussions and debates and will occasionally involve small-scale investigations. There is also a heavy emphasis on essay writing within each topic. In addition, students select topics to be covered in the second year. These include: relationships, gender, cognition and development, schizophrenia, eating behaviour, stress, aggression, forensic psychology and addiction.