Psychology paper 1 🧠

• CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGY


  Eysenck's Criminal Personality Theory
• EXTRAVERSION


  • High Escapescale, very and sensation seeking
  • Brain has a low level of arousal and her need for stimulation on the leading activity and behaviour
• NEUROTICISM


  • High Coaxial
• NATURE (biological) vs. NURTURE (environmental)


  Eysenck's theory says genetics determines criminal behaviour
• FREE WILL


  Person chooses their behaviour
• SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY OF CRIMINALITY

  1. Role models & identification

  2. Observation

  3. Imitation
• PSYCHOTICISM


  • High Psychoticism, impulsive, aggressive behaviour due to an imbalance of dopamine and lead to less inhibitions & are aggressive behaviour
• Eysenck believed that criminality develops due to a combination of biological and social factors and does not solely rely on free will
• Eysenck's theory is a nature-based explanation of criminality
• Heaven (1996) study into delinquency & extraversion, psychoticism & self-esteem
• Internalisation is a limitation of Eysenck's theory as it doesn't directly address the cognitive processes that lead to criminal behaviour, despite the concept, has issues like brain induction & biology
• The first person to commit a crime would be tough to explain using conditioning theories of Eysenck
• Cooper & Mackie (1986) study into video games & aggression in children
• Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development has 4 stages: Sensorimotor, Preoperational, Concrete Operational, Formal Operational
• Piaget's (1933) study into the conservation of number aimed to see at what stage of development children understand that the number of objects remains the same even when their spatial arrangement changes
• Blackwell et al. (2007) study into fixed and growth mindset
• Learning occurs through meaning, not just learning styles
• Intelligence Quotient (IQ) tests have limitations in fully capturing intelligence
• Schizophrenia


  A psychotic disorder where people lose touch with reality
• Clinical depression


  A mental health condition characterized by persistent feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and loss of interest
• Key debates in psychology


  • Nature vs. Nurture
  • Reductionism vs. Holism
  • Free will vs. Determinism
• Nature


  The biological and genetic factors that influence behavior and development
• Nurture


  The environmental and social factors that influence behavior and development
• Schizophrenia affects around 1% of the population
• Dopamine hypothesis


  The theory that schizophrenia is caused by an overactive dopamine system in the brain
• The dopamine hypothesis suggests that schizophrenia is caused by brain dysregulation and reduced activity in the hippocampus
• Social drift theory


  The theory that people with mental health problems drift down the social ladder due to their condition
• The social drift theory has limitations in explaining the causes of mental health problems
• The mental health continuum model has limitations in fully capturing the complexity of mental health
• The ABC model of depression has limitations in explaining the causes of depression
• The Daniels et al. (1991) study found that amphetamines improved performance on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test in people with schizophrenia
• The Tandoc et al. (2018) study found that increased Facebook surveillance was associated with increased feelings of depression
• Neuropsychological tests and brain scans can be used to assess cognitive functioning in mental health conditions
• Psychotherapy can be used to change how individuals think and behave in order to treat mental health conditions
• The limitations of the Tandoc et al. (2018) study include potential social desirability bias and the inability to determine causality
• The brain is the control centre of the nervous system
• The spinal cord connects the brain to the rest of the body, it carries messages between the central nervous system (CNS) and peripheral nerves.
• Cognitive psychology focuses on understanding human thought processes, including perception, memory, attention, language, problem-solving, decision making, creativity, and reasoning.