AQA A-Level Psychology

Ways of studying the brain: scanning techniques, including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI); electroencephalograms (EEG’s) and event related potentials (ERP’s); post-Mortimer examinations.

Plasticity and functional recovery of the brain after trauma.

Hemispheric lateralisation and split-brain research

Localisation of function in the brain: motor, somatosensory, visual, auditory and language centres; Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas.

The structure and function of sensory, relay and motor neurons. The process of synaptic transmission including reference to neurotransmitters, excitation and inhibition.

Humanistic psychology: free will, self-actualisation and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, focus on the self, congruence, the role of conditions of worth. The influence on counselling psychology.

The psychodynamic approach: the role of the unconscious, the structure of personality, that is I’d, ego and superego, defence mechanisms including repression, denial and displacement, psychosexual stages.

The biological approach: the influence of genes, biological structures and neurochemistry on behaviour. Genotype and phenotype, genetic basis of behaviour, evolution and behaviour.

The cognitive approach: the study of internal mental processes, the role of schema, the use of theoretical and computer models to explain and make inferences about mental processes. The emergence of cognitive neuroscience.