Return to the Strange Situation

For Tuesday's lesson review the work you did last year on the Strange Situation, and the link between the three attachment types and adult relationships revealed by the Love Quiz. Specifically:

• Name the three original attachment styles and briefly outline the behaviours associated with them.
• Outline and evaluate the 'Love Quiz'.

We practised some evaluative writing today, looking at theories of maintenance of relationships and writing the evaluation to go with this start to an answer:



Here is an article (actually a draft chapter for a psychology textbook) which applies economic theories more specifically to sex - worth a read.http://web.mit.edu/wangfire/pub9.00/essay3.pdf

Schizophrenia intro.

We looked at some issues and debates relevant to psychopathology -the ppt is here.

We also started to examine some of the symptoms of schizophrenia. You need to be able to list the clinical characteristics - this means the symptoms necessary for diagnosis. The schizophrenia powerpoint is here and we will continue this on Thursday.

Theories of the maintenance of romantic relationships

We looked at the four economic theory of the maintenance of relationships today. All agree with the basic idea of Social Exchange theory, which is itself very similar to the Reward / Need theory (which you can use as a theory of maintenance as well as a theory of formation, as long as you're clear). This is that relationships can be understood from the behavioural perspective - they form and are maintained according to the principles of reinforcement.

Your task for homework is to prepare for a timed essay question on Thursday which will involve the evaluation of theories of maintenance and breakdown. The second page of this sheet which we went through in the lesson (I haven't given you the second page on paper yet) has prompts for evaluation - have a go at these and we will review quickly at the start of Thursday's lesson. I will upload here later today.

And bring your story! (See post below)

Work for Mr Lawrence - Monday 5th December

I'm still not back I'm afraid - maybe tomorrow.

Your work for today - a piece of creative writing. Tell the story of a relationship, from the first meeting of a young psychology student with some other person. This could be in the form of a short story of around 500 words, or a cartoon strip if you prefer. The psychology student has an annoying habit of constantly analysing their relationship in terms of the following theories: the filter model, reward/need theory, social exchange theory, interdependence theory, the investment model and equity theory. Perhaps because of this the relationship doesn't last long before he/she is able to apply Duck's dissolution model to it's unhappy demise. Your task is to weave the seven theories into your story.

Work for Mr Lawrence - Thursday 1st December

I'm not in school today due to illness. You need to look at theories of why relationships fail - we will review all of this next week.

We introduced theories of maintenance of relationships last week - you should be able to outline four 'economic' theories of why relationships continue - Social Exchange, Interdependence, Investment and Equity. Each of these can be used to give a different reason why a relationship ends. Have a go at answering the following question for each of the four:

"According to the .......... theory, a relationship will come to an end if ....."

Duck has a four-stage theory addressing the questions 'how do relationships end?' (rather than 'why?'). You need to be able to give a fairly detailed outline of this and evaluate it. Have a go at the questions on this sheet, and bring all this to next Monday's lesson.

Work for Mrs Watson - 29th November

Apologies all - I am ill and not in today.

Please could you have a go a this sheet - you need to know about the issues involved with identifying and diagnosing schizophrenia (you will see that there are many). There is a web-link on the sheet and some questions to aid you in making notes. The textbook covers this well - see pages 317-324 or thereabouts.

To have thorough notes you need to fully answer every question on the sheet. Any problems, send me an email.

Relationships - review of evolutionary theories and look ahead to economic theories

In today's lesson we reviewed the evolutionary theories which use the concept of sexual selection (behaviour which leads to successful reproduction, and offspring which will themselves reproduce successfully) to explain differences in male and female reproductive behaviour. There is lots of overlap here with the evolutionary aspects of gender we've already looked at - Parental Investment Theory and Sexual Strategies can be used for both.

Here is the presentation we looked at for the evolutionary theories.

You need to know some research studies that show there are differences between male and female reproductive behaviour, and some that can be used to support these theories (Clark & Hatfield, Buss & Schmidt).

The other theories we briefly looked at are dealing with a different set of questions: why do relationships form between some pairs of people but not between others? What factors lead to two people moving beyond casual 'dating' to become an established couple? Why do some relationships break up while others are maintained?

You need to know two theories of the formation of relationships - use the Filter Model and Reward / Need theory. Here's a presentation.

For the maintenance of relationships there are four different theories, but they are all similar to the simple idea of reward / need, and are given the general term 'economic theories' because they use the idea of a 'balance sheet'. Here's a presentation on them.

Work for Mr Lawrence - Tuesday 22nd November

I'm not back to school yet I'm afraid, but am confident I will be in time for our lesson on Thursday. We will then review the Evolutionary approach's explanations for human reproductive behaviour, and will look at theories of the formation and maintenance of relationships (the first section in your textbook).

Read this, and make notes on the Filter Model, and Reward/Need Theory of relationship formation.

Reward/need is basically the behavioural approach applied to relationships - a relationship forms if the needs of both parties are met, and they are rewarded for spending time together, with primary reinforcers (hopefully just food on the first date) and secondary reinforcers (laughing at each other's jokes, compliments on hair etc). This idea is developed into a theory of the maintenance of relationships (having got together, will the couple stay together?), called Social Exchange Theory. This basic idea (that costs as well as rewards need to be taken into account) is adopted by other so-called 'economic' theories. Read about these and make brief notes on the following:

Social Exchange Theory
Interdependence Theory
Investment Model
Equity Theory

Work for Mr Lawrence - Monday 21st November

I'm afraid I'm not going to be in school today - I have a sore throat and a bad head.

Make notes from the section in your textbook on Sexual Selection and Human Reproductive behaviour - if you can in time for our lesson tomorrow which I expect to be back for.

You need outlines of the methods and findings of studies which show there are differences in sexual behaviour and mate choice preferences between human males and females, and ideas as to how you can evaluate these (e.g. in terms of sample bias, culture bias, participant reactivity). These include the research by Clark and Hatfield (into enthusiasm for casual sex) and Buss (into differences in sexual jealousy) which we looked at briefly as part of the Gender topic.

You also need to make sure you can explain how Parental Investment Theory and Sexual Strategies Theory explain each of these differences. Sexual Strategies isn't really an alternative to PIT - more of an update which suggests that both sexes could benefit from 'cheating', and adopting different 'strategies' for reproduction at different times.

Once again the key debates, which should feature in your notes, are reductionism and Nature vs Nurture - make sure you can see how to use these to evaluate the theories.

Relationships - Sexual Selection and Human Reproductive Behaviour

Here is the presentation from today's lesson.

Final sleep essay

Outline and evaluate restoration theory as an explanation for the function of sleep (8 + 16 marks)

Due in to me by Tuesday 29th November

Insomnia

Apologies - insomnia ppt is here

Narcolepsy & sleepwalking

A fairly easy topic to finish off the sleep module. Don't forget to make use of the diathesis-stress model in your explanation of narcolepsy.

The powerpoint is here.

Psychological Androgeny and Gender Dysphoria

A final essay for Gender - to be handwritten in no more than 30 minutes but you can use notes - just get ready before you start!

a) Discuss explanations of psychological androgyny (4 + 6 marks)
b) Discuss explanastions of gender dysphoria (5 + 10 marks)

For Monday 21st November.

Here is the presentation on Androgyny and Gender Dysphoria. Note the spelling of androgyny, which was wrong on the title slide of the presentation! When evaluating these issues, think about which material you can use from the rest of the topic. Gender dysphoria in particular allows you to bring in lots of issues related to the biological/evolutionary and social learning approaches, as these are the two ways of explaining it.

A2 reports

Student information entry sheet is here.

The Cognitive Developmental Approach to Gender

Hopefully we all agree that nature and nurture are both important in the development of gender identiy, role and behaviour, but how and when do children acquire information about their own gender and associated behaviours? Developmental psychologists study how the way children think changes and, er, develops, and this impacts on their gender role.

In this video young Ernest Lawrence participates in a couple of 'conservation' experiments. Typically for a three year old, he apparently lacks the cognitive ability to understand that cuperficial changes don't affect the underlying nature of things.


In this video we chat about gender, and his answers suggest that while he has definitly reached Kohlberg's first stage - gender identity - he is only starting to acquire gender stability and definitely doesn't have gender consistency.


Here is the presentation on Kohlberg's theory of Gender Constancy. The fact that children move through these three stages, at approximately these ages, is well supported by evidence. Kohlberg's controversial idea was that children need to reach the stage of gender consistency before they start to actively acquire information about behaviours associated with their own gender.

Theories of sleep

We've discussed sleep a lot - now we move on to WHY we sleep. Evolutionary accounts include energy saving and predator avoidance - these are satisfactory up to a point. Restoration accounts are similarly overly simplistic but straightforward - we sleep to restore our body and brains after the demands of the day. The ppts are here and here.

We also looked into the dangerous world of sleep deprivation.

The Biosocial Approach to Gender

The answer to the question 'nature or nurture?' is almost always 'both', but this poses another important question; 'how exactly do the two interact?' The Biosocial approach essentially says that the main factors shaping our gender behaviour are the 'nurture' processes of the Social Learning approach (see previous post), but that biological differences need to be taken into account. These lead to children being labelled as male or female, and society 'interprets' these differences and 'constructs' (this kind of approach is called 'social constructionist') ideas about gender. These then lead parents / peers / the media / schools to reinforce and model appropriate behaviours.

Here is the presentation from the lesson.

Cross Cultural Gender Research and Homework for Monday 31st October

We've now looked at the cross cultural research into gender development. Here is the presentation from the lesson. This contributes to the nature/nurture question, because if gender roles / behaviour are genetic / hormonal in origin we'd expect every culture to show the same differences. Anthropologists like Margaret Mead went looking for cultures which didn't fit, and found them, providing seemingly strong evidence for the Social Learning explanation of gender. However there are big methodological issues with anthropological research, particularly investigator effects (seeing what they want to see) and participant reactivity (trying to please the investigator).

Here's the question, for Edmodo submission on Monday please:

a) Discuss the social learning explanation for the development of different gender roles / behaviour. 6 AO1 + 8 AO2
b) To what extend does cross cultural research support the importance of social learning in gender development? 3 AO1 + 8AO2

I need some sleep

We looked at the nature of sleep (ppt here) - what can we say about sleep in general? It involves being still, unresponsive, quiet and the time spent asleep varies. As there's costs involved and it is so widespread, sleep is assumed to be adaptive.

TV alert

This looks great - if you missed the first episode like I did, catch up on i-player

Social Learning Explanations of Gender Development

The presentation from today's lesson is here.

This is the nurture side of the nature/nurture gender debate. Behaviourism assumes that humans (and other animals) are 'blank slates' with nothing inherited or innate except for some very simple reflexes (automatic responses to stimuli). Everything else is learned according to this approach. Extreme behaviourism is highly reductionist, denying the importance of mental processes and explaining all behaviour through classical and operant conditioning. Social Learning Theory (sometimes called Social Cognitive Learning Theory) uses the same ideas of association and reinforcement, but is less reductionist as it includes 'mental' or cognitive learning, for example Modelling.

For Monday's lesson, watch this video compilation of adverts, and if you can some current adverts on TV. Make a list of behaviours and psychological characteristics which are presented as desirable or 'normal' in men and women and bring to the lesson.

Evolutionary Explanations of Gender Behaviour

Here is the presentation from last week's lesson. You need to be able to outline the key assumptions of the evolutionary approach - that our behaviour is controlled (or at least influenced) by genes, and that it has evolved to be adaptive in the EEA. There is important general evaluation here - that is, evaluation of the whole approach (in terms of nature over nurture, reductionism and determinism, and in terms of scientific testability).

Useful explanations of gender behaviour are the 'division of labour' theory (not in your textbook) which focuses on hunting / gathering and child rearing roles, and the 'parental investment' theory and its effects on mate-choice and reproductive behaviour.

Disrupted rhythms

We looked at ways in which humans have attempted to override our natural rhythms. The shift work ppt is here and the jet-lag one is here. Most of what we learnt is AO2 ie interesting stuff to say about the facts - research, applications, commentary.

More pacemakers and an ESSAY - now corrected

Today's ppts here (endogenous pacemakers) and here (exogenous zeitgebers).

Some fairly technical stuff so well done everybody for keeping up.

Essay: 'Discuss the role of endogenous pacemakers and exogenous zeitgebers (24 marks)'. Remember discuss means describe and evaluate.

Due in to me by Tuesday 11th October.

Since it's your first A2 essay for me I've written a plan for you to follow if you wish (AO1 is in red and AO2 is in blue).

Endogenous pacemakers

Some more discussions about the pacemaker of the body's circadian rhythms today. Ppt is here and some extra info about the bagpipe-playing Kate Aldcroft is here.

I will be setting an essay next week about endogenous pacemakers and exogenous zeitgebers so now would be a good time to do some advance reading. There are lots of A2 textbooks are in the sixth form study room.

Biological eplanations of gender development - exam question

a) Outline the biological explanation for the development of gender identity. (5 marks AO1)
b) Assess the evidence supporting this explanation. (4 marks AO1 + 16 marks AO2/3)
For part a) you need a fairly brief (one paragraph) summary of the chromosoms/genes > hormones > neuroanatomy explanation of gender development.
Part b) needs to be around 600 words. Organise it into paragraphs dealing with the three strands of evidence we have looked at (animal, case study and correlation). Description of these needs to be very brief - it's all about the evaluation.
You need to include a research methodology issue (e.g. reliability, validity, generalisability, cause & effect) and an IDA (issue, debate or approach) related discussion for higher mark bands.
Word processed and turned in via Edmodo in time for our next lesson on Thursday 29th September please.

REM - paradoxical sleep

Today we started to look at infradian rhythms - these are shorter than 24 hours. We looked into the stages of sleep as an example of this. A link to a web-page showing the EEG readings from the different stages is here, and my powerpoint is here.

TEXTBOOKS

If you have a copy of this book at home please return it to me ASAP!

Biological Rhythms and Sleep

Apologies that this is a little late - on Tuesday we started our first unit 3 topic, Biological Rhythms and Sleep. We looked at circadian (24 hr) rhythms (powerpoint here) and infradian (longer than 24 hrs) rhythms (powerpoint here). The spec content is here and the essay titles are here. I'm hoping to issue you with textbooks on Tuesday.

Gender Key Terms

On Thursday we reviewed key terms associated with Gender and began to discuss psychological gender differences and where their origins might lie. In Thursday's lesson we will look in detail at the biological determination of sex and possibly gender, and the different strands of evidence on which it is based.
Here is the presentation which covers both lessons. It would be useful to have a look ahead at it.

Homework for Thursday which I didn't set in the lesson:
Research human sex chromosome abnormalities. What syndromes / conditions are caused by unusual combinations of sex chromosomes? What are these people like? How useful is this as evidence for tackling the nature / nurture question of gender development? Collect your findings / thoughts on a piece of paper and bring it on Thursday.