Psychology

Course summary

e course presents ve of the conventional approaches to explaining human behaviour, from Freud to the Humanists, and everything in between. e History of Psychological thought can be tracked through examination of these approaches and applied to the various topics studied. In the rst year of the course, topics under examination focus mainly on the techniques of investigation and the ‘classic’ studies that shaped Psychology as we know it today. e focus alters slightly in the second year of the course, when the theories are applied to the three topics of Cognition and Development (how thought processes change throughout childhood and early adulthood, and the impact of this knowledge on education); Stress (the positive and negative eects of stress on the human organism and how to deal with prolonged stress) and Addiction (how and why people develop addictive behaviours such as smoking and gambling, and therapeutic techniques and their effectiveness).