When you are writing an essay on etiologies, keep it simple to begin with. Find one basic etiology (brain abnormalities, appraisals or socioeconomic status) and explain how and why that’s linked with PTSD. Use simple studies to begin with, and then later in your essay explore the interactions of bio, cog and socio-cultural influences. Etiology – Socioeconomic status A common finding …
Cognitive Etiology of PTSD: Appraisals
Updated July 2020 You can prepare for Paper 2 – Abnormal Psychology – by getting ready to answer any question from just the “Etiologies of abnormal psychology” topic. If you are using this strategy, you need to make sure you can explain biological, cognitive and sociocultural etiologies. Etiology – Cognitive appraisals (and re-appraisals) Cognitive Appraisal: In the context of PTSD, …
Biological Etiology of PTSD: Abnormalities in the brain
Updated, July 2020 After teaching my unit on PTSD (Chapter 4), I found that my students developed a really good understanding of how PTSD is not explainable by a single etiology, but rather it is the product of multiple-interacting factors. While this is great, it does mean that when the question asks about “one” specific etiology, they found it difficult …
Key Study: Mate preference across cultures (Buss, 1989)A cross-cultural study on attraction and mate preference
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” This classic saying means that we all have a different opinion about what is beautiful. When it comes to romantic relationships, is this really the case? A common field of study for psychologists is attraction and mate preference: what do people look for in a husband, wife, or lover? Buss’s classic study shows …
Key Studies: Reconstructive memory
False Memories and the Misinformation Effect Background Information Elizabeth Loftus is a prominent memory researcher whose work has had significant impacts on the legal system in the United States. She is often called on to testify in legal cases against eye-witness testimony. In the past, if an eyewitness claimed that they saw someone commit a crime they would almost definitely …
Key Study: The Primacy and Recency Effects (Glanzer and Cunitz, 1966)
The following has been adapted from IB Psychology: A Student’s Guide Evidence for MSM: Serial position effect (primacy and recency effects) The serial position effect (aka primacy and recency effect) is a cognitive phenomenon whereby people tend to remember the first (primacy) and last (recency) items in a series. This provides evidence for the MSM: people tend to remember the first items …
Key Study for the Dual Processing Model (Thinking and Decision Making)
The following is adapted from: “IB Psychology: A Revision Guide.” Tversky and Kahneman spent many years studying people’s thinking and decision making. As a result, they devised a dual processing model that attempts to explain two systems people use when processing information: system one and system two. The system used to process information can affect our decision making. System one …
Genetic similarities – twin and kinship studies on antisocial behaviour and aggression
Clarifications to the new IB Psychology guide (first exams May 2019) has said that students might be asked specifically about twin and/or kinship studies to discuss “genetic similarities.” This blog post can be used as supplementary information if required. How and why twin studies are used in psychology Twin studies gather groups of monozygotic (MZ – identical) and dizygotic (DZ – …
Why do marriages end in divorce? A cognitive explanation
The material in this post will help students who are studying for the Human Relationships option and want to make sure they can answer any possible question about the topic: “Personal relationships.” Understanding why marriages may deteriorate and end in divorce is key in preparing to answer questions relating to the topic “why relationships may change or end. Perhaps the …
Review Idea: Key Study Jenga
I’m sure this idea has probably been around for years, but I’ve never seen it so here’s what I came up the other day as I spied a jenga set in a classroom. This review idea would work well at the end of the course before exams. It might be an idea to give to students to do for themselves …
Lesson Idea – Understanding Etiologies With a Case Study
This lesson is designed to help students understand how reduced function in the vmPFC might be connected with symptoms of PTSD. As with other similar lesson ideas, it tries to make the abstract more concrete by giving real-life examples. The Activity Students are to read the following summary of Due, a fictionary Vietnamese War vetern. After reading the summary, they …
Lesson Idea: Kahn the Caveman
This lesson comes from the PTSD unit/chapter and will help students understand an evolutionary explanation of the effects of stress (emotion) on memory. It also helps consolidate learning about fear conditioning, which is a key concept in the study of PTSD. Kahn the Caveman! Kahn is living 40,000 years ago. He’s part of a hunter-gatherer tribe living in Southern Europe. …
Paper 1 Review Activity
The review document linked below could be used at many different times in the course. I have just had my first lesson in Year 2 of my course and so I used it to review what we’ve done in Year 1. Download the Paper 1 Review Documents HERE! Group Review Idea I created mixed groups of 3 students and passed …
FREE Teacher Support Pack (TSP) Now Available – Introduction to Psychology
Last year I published a number of resources to support teaching Chapter 1 of IB Psychology, A Student’s Guide. Twelve months later and our website has developed so we can now offer the complete set of resources completely free. Find the Intro TSP and more HERE! Like all our TSPs, this one comes with: Lesson plans Complete unit plan (ready to be …
Key Study: FBM across cultures by Kulkofsky et al. (2011)
Relevant Topics: Emotion and Cognition & Cultural Dimensions This study compares flashbulb memory (FBM) formation across different cultures. It can be used to show the effects of one cultural dimension (individualism and collectivism) on behaviour (FBM formation). If you’re using FBM theory to explain how emotion can affect cognition, this could also be used in an essay as a counter-argument …
IA Tip: How to begin your report…
Sometimes the hardest part about writing a good Internal Assessment report in IB Psychology is knowing how to begin. With this simple exercise, students can (hopefully) figure out how to write a great opening couple of lines and really get their introduction off to a flying start. Students can read the following examples and see if they can come up …
Essay Writing Tips: Three Rules of Three
If you’re learning how to write essays in IB Psychology or looking for good tips to pass on to your students, I would suggest the following “Three Rules of Threes.” #1: Three Parts to an Essay Every good essay has three parts (excluding the introductions and conclusions): Central argument/s Supporting Evidence Counter argument/s The central argument is where you address …
Not happy with your IB results? Here’s what you can do about it.
The IB has a process called Enquiry Upon Results, or EUR for short. If you’re not sure about this process, this post will give you some key details. Just remember that everything should go through your IB Co-ordinator. Here are the categories for EURs: Category 1 re-mark: This is the re-marking of externally assessed material for an individual candidate. The …
Can perceptual illusions teach us tolerance?
Warning: This post is me rambling and thinking out-loud. “I don’t know how on Earth you can see a black and blue dress, when that’s clearly white and gold.” “Are you mad. What? What? You’re messing with me, right? They’re definitely grey and blue sneakers. Where the heck are you seeing pink and white?” These were some of the things …
An idea for the next IB Psych’ curriculum…
Originally posted to the MyIB Psychology forum, May 18th, 2018 One thing I think is missing from the new IB Psychology guide in the guidance column is some suggested studies. I know Christos and others would like to see a prescribed list of studies, but I can see some issues with this (e.g. it doesn’t allow for adapting one’s …
So you want to assess ethical considerations?
One way of evaluating studies in psychology is to consider whether or not the study might have ethical issues. When evaluating ethics, many students want to jump straight to condemning studies by saying something like, “This study was unethical because…” I would refrain from making such condemnations and using this definitive language because it’s often very hard to completely write-off …
What should we include in a mock exam? (Year One)
The guidance in this post is going to be most helpful for teachers who are: teaching a two year course using our textbook, IB Psychology: A Student’s Guide …and are following a similar course structure to the one I’ve proposed here. (i.e. Criminology, Social Influence and Quantitative Methods covered in Year One). Here’s what I include in my End-Of-Year Exam for …
Free flashcard maker
When it comes to revising for tests and exams, it’s hard to go past flashcards as an excellent way to review. While digital versions, such as quizlet, have their benefits, I personally have always preferred to have hard-copies in my hands. But who has the time to spend hours and hours writing out flashcards? What if you’ve got messy handwriting? …
Exam Review: Why I’m pleased I didn’t teach the command terms (Paper 2)
I realize that critiquing the inconsistent use of command terms in IB Psychology assessments is like shooting very confused fish in a very small barrel, but I just can’t help myself. Was anyone else surprised to see the command term “Explain” in Paper 2 this year for the Abnormal Option? Here’s the question in question: Explain, with reference to psychological …
How to go beyond “describing” and into “application” of studies
One of the most common mistakes IB Psychology students make is they don’t explain studies, i.e. they don’t apply the study to show how the study is relevant to the question. Instead, students summarize aims, methods and results and that’s it. This is description. What’s missing? An applied conclusion. Describing a study = summarizing aims methods conclusions Explaining a study = summary …