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    • Curriculum

    Psychology (A level)

    At Guru Nanak Sikh Academy our all-through vision for Psychology is to equip students with knowledge and understanding of how a person’s experience based upon biological/psychological/social factors can impact their day to day behaviour. This is because in today’s society topics in relation to one’s behaviour are often discussed. For example, attachment, a concept that tells us why some are more than others. Hence, suggesting that psychology has a vision to provide an understanding of human behaviour/society in a very non-bias as well as relative manner.

    Through the journey from EYFS to KS5 pupils will progressively acquire the knowledge that gives them an understanding into human behaviour. This is because students will be able to make links from their life studies  content to some of the psychology syllabus. For example, stress. Thus suggesting that, the students learning about ‘stress’ during life studies lessons, will give them a quicker understanding of relatable psychological concepts.

    Pupils will achieve familiarisation with psychological explanations of the following content, social influence, biopsychology, schizophrenia, attachment, memory, forensics,  and approaches, to name some. Via such topics students will be able to build better decision-making skills as they will be compelled to think relatively.

    Guru Nanak Sikh Academy
    Key Stage 5 Curriculum Overview

    Key Stage 5 Autumn 1 Autumn 2 Spring 1 Spring 2 Summer 1 Summer 2
    Year 12 Introduction to Psychology : Topic 1
    Social Influence
    To what extent do others in society
    influence our behaviour?
    1. Types of conformity:
    internalisation, identification
    and compliance. Explanations
    for conformity: informational
    social influence and normative social influence, and variables affecting conformity including
    group size, unanimity and task difficulty as investigated by
    Asch.
    2. Conformity to social roles as
    investigated by Zimbardo.
    3. Explanations for obedience:
    agentic state and legitimacy of authority, and situational variables affecting obedience
    including proximity and location, as investigated by
    Milgram, and uniform. Dispositional explanation for
    obedience: the Authoritarian
    Personality.
    4. Explanations of resistance to
    social influence, including social support and locus of
    control.
    5. Minority influence including
    reference to consistency,
    commitment and flexibility.
    6. The role of social influence processes in social change.    		 Topic 2 : Research Methods
    What is the best way to investigate
    human behaviour?
    1. The Experimental method,
    2. Types of experiment, laboratory and field experiments; natural
    and quasi experiments.
    3. Observational techniques Types
    of observation: naturalistic and
    controlled observation; covert
    and over observation;
    participant and non-participant observation.
    4. Self-report techniques.
    Questionnaires; interviews,
    structured and unstructured ,
    Correlations ,
    5. Analysis of the relationship
    between co-variables ,
    6. The difference between correlations and experiments , Content analysis. and Case studies.    		 Topic 3 : Issues and debates
    How are the key issues in psychology debated
    in modern academia ?

    1. Gender and culture in Psychology – universality and bias. Gender bias including androcentrism and alpha and beta bias; cultural bias, including
    ethnocentrism and cultural relativism.
    2. Free will and determinism: hard determinism and soft determinism; biological, environmental and psychic determinism.
    3. The scientific emphasis on causal
    explanations. The nature-nurture debate: the relative importance of heredity and environment in determining behaviour; the interactionist approach.
    Holism and reductionism: levels of explanation in Psychology.
    4. Biological reductionism and
    environmental (stimulus-response)
    reductionism. •
    5. Idiographic and nomothetic
    approaches to psychological
    investigation.
    6. • Ethical implications of research
    studies and theory, including
    reference to social sensitivity.

    Topic 4: Psychopathology

    How do we define what constitutes a healthy mental state, when there are issues how should we treat such issues?
    1. Definitions of abnormality, including deviation from social norms, failure to function adequately, statistical infrequency and
    deviation from ideal mental health.
    2. The behavioural, emotional and cognitive characteristics of phobias, depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
    3. The behavioural approach to explaining and treating phobias: the two-process model, including classical and
    operant conditioning; systematic desensitisation, including relaxation and use of hierarchy; flooding. •
    4. The cognitive approach to explaining and treating depression: Beck’s negative triad and Ellis’s ABC model; cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT), including challenging irrational thoughts.
    5. The biological approach to explaining and treating OCD:
    genetic and neural
    explanations; drug therapy.
    Revision for the Mock Exams

    		 Mock Exams
    Topic 5 :Attachment.
    How and with whom do we form
    relationships with over the course of
    our lifespan.
    1. Caregiver-infant interactions
    in humans: reciprocity and
    interactional synchrony.
    Stages of attachment
    identified by Schaffer.
    2. Multiple attachments and
    the role of the father.
    3. Animal studies of
    attachment: Lorenz and
    Harlow.
    4. Explanations of attachment:
    learning theory and
    Bowlby’s monotropic
    theory.
    5. The concepts of a critical
    period and an internal
    working model.
    6. Ainsworth’s ‘Strange
    Situation’.
    7. Types of attachment:
    secure, insecure-avoidant
    and insecure-resistant.
    8. Cultural variations in
    attachment, including
    vanIjzendoorn.
    9. Bowlby’s theory of maternal
    deprivation.
    10. Romanian orphan studies:
    effects of
    institutionalisation.
    11. The influence of early
    attachment on childhood
    and adult relationships,
    including the role of an
    internal working model.    		  
    Year 13

    Memory
    What have we learnt about human
    memory? How do these discoveries
    influence the real world.
    1. The multi-store
    model of memory:
    sensory register,
    short-term memory
    and long-term memory.
    2. Features of each
    store: coding,
    capacity and duration.
    3. Types of long-term
    memory: episodic,
    semantic, procedural.

    4. The working
    memory model:
    central executive,
    phonological loop,
    visuo-spatial
    sketchpad and
    episodic buffer.
    5.
    Features of the model:
    coding and capacity.
    6. Explanations for
    forgetting: proactive
    and retroactive
    interference and
    retrieval failure due
    to absence of cues.
    7. Factors affecting the accuracy of eyewitness testimony: misleading information, including leading questions and post-event discussion; anxiety.
    8. Improving the
    accuracy of
    eyewitness
    testimony, including
    the use of the
    cognitive interview.

    		 Biopsychology
    How does our biology influence our
    behaviour?

    1. The divisions of the nervous
    system: central and peripheral
    (somatic and autonomic).

    2. The structure and function of
    sensory, relay and motor
    neurons.

    3. The process of synaptic
    4. transmission, including
    reference to neurotransmitters,
    excitation and inhibition.

    5. The function of the endocrine
    system: glands and hormones.
    6. The fight or flight response
    including the role of adrenaline..    		 Topic 1: Forensic
    How does psychology shape the law
    and the lives of offenders within the
    criminal justice system.
    1. Offender profiling: the
    top-down approach,
    including organised and
    disorganised types of
    offender;
    2. the bottom-up approach,
    including investigative
    Psychology; geographical
    profiling. •
    3. Biological explanations of
    offending behaviour: an
    historical approach
    (atavistic form); genetics
    and neural explanations.
    • Psychological
    explanations of
    offending
    behaviour:
    4. Eysenck’s theory of the
    criminal personality;
    cognitive explanations
    5. level of moral reasoning
    and cognitive distortions,
    including hostile attribution
    bias and minimalisation
    6. differential association
    theory; psychodynamic
    explanations.
    7. Dealing with offending
    behaviour: the aims of
    custodial sentencing and
    the psychological effects of
    custodial sentencing.
    Recidivism.
    8. Behaviour modification in
    custody.
    9. Anger management and
    restorative justice
    programmes.    		 Topic 2: Schizophrenia
    What is Schizophrenia how can we
    improve the lives of those with the
    condition?
    1. Biological explanations for
    schizophrenia: genetics and
    neural correlates, including
    the dopamine hypothesis.
    2. Psychological explanations for
    schizophrenia: family
    dysfunction and cognitive
    explanations, including
    dysfunctional thought
    processing.
    3. Drug therapy: typical and
    atypical antipsychotics.
    4. Cognitive behaviour therapy
    and family therapy as used in
    the treatment of
    schizophrenia. Token
    economies as used in the
    management of
    schizophrenia.
    5. The importance of an
    interactionist approach in
    explaining and treating
    schizophrenia; the
    diathesis-stress model.

    Revision
    Topic 3 : Relationships
    How do we choose who we spend
    our lives with and what makes a
    relationship last ?
    1. Evolutionary explanations
    for partner selection ,
    2. Factors affecting attraction
    in romantic relationships
    failure to function
    adequately
    3. statistical infrequency and
    theories of romantic
    relationships
    4. Virtual relationships in
    social media
    5. parasocial relationship,.

    		 Exams
     
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