Resources for A-level teachers and students following the AQA spec A syllabus

This post is for A-level students and teachers in the UK following the new AQA Specification A for psychology. It provides a taste of relevant material available from the Research Digest blog and The Psychologist magazine (marked with a 'P'). For more material, use the Digest blog's search facility (see box to the right) and The Psychologist magazine's search facility (see box in top left-hand corner of its website), and please remember that new material is being added all the time.

AS topics

Memory

• State of the art: Working memory (P)
• Identifying people caught on video (P)
• How to improve your memory (P)
• Link to Digest items on memory

Attachment

• State of the art – attachment theory (P)
• Childhood neglect leaves its mark

Research Methods

• The Psychologist has regular columns and sections on ethics and methods. Particularly relevant to a student audience is "The use and abuse of student participants"
• Link to methods-related Digest items

Stress

• Examination stress and test anxiety (P)
  
• Protection from the stress of being a long-term carer
  

Social influence

• Obedience and the banality of evil (P)
• Identifying the tools of persuasion used by the BNP

Psychopathology

• Beliefs about delusions (P)
• Link to mental health related Digest items

A2 Topics

Biological Rhythms and sleep

• State of the art: Sleep (P)
• Link to Digest items related to sleep 

Perception

• One brain two visual systems (P)
• Looking for longer but seeing less

Relationships

• Lovesickness (P)
• Why you should take extra care when buying gifts for a man

Aggression

• Bullying in prisons (P)
• Patients on secure wards more likely to be aggressive to staff of the same sex

Eating Behaviour

• Special issues on eating (P)
• How a dentist visit can trigger anorexia

Gender

• Testosterone and male behaviours (P)
• Women need female role models

Intelligence and learning

• Thinking about intelligence (P)
• Has average intelligence started to decline?

Cognition and development

• Social cognition in teenagers (P)
• Another look at a mistake babies make

Psychopathology

• Special issue on diagnosis (P)
• Link to related Digest items 

Media Psychology

• Celebrity worship (P)
• Winning gold - comparing media coverage in America and Japan

Anomalistic Psychology

• Parapsychology (P)
• How experimenters influenced participants in the ganzfeld paradigm