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Good Luck in your AS Psychology Exam (and some last minute tips!)

ALevelPsychology.co.uk would like to wish everyone who is sitting tomorrow's AS exam the best of luck. To help you along, I have compiled a list of exam tips:

Bonus Resource: Ainsworth Strange Situation Video

In the run up to the AS exams on Friday, here is a video of Mary Ainsworth's Strange Situation procedure.

Resource of the Week: Edward Thorndike's Puzzle Box Video

This week's resource is a video clip showing one of Edward Thorndike's experiments with his puzzle box. Thorndike put hungry cats in these boxes and put pieces of tasty fish outside them to motivate them to escape. To escape, the cats had to push a lever and pull on a string. When first put in the box, the cats would behave in a fairly random way, pacing up and down, scratching at the sides etc., but eventually, by chance, they would push the lever and pull on the string in the correct sequence. They would then be rewarded by being able to eat the fish.

Liar Liar

There is an interesting story out today, that 15 local councils in the UK are to start using lie detectors to combat benefit fraud. They plan to use a "voice risk analyser" to detect changes in people's voices when asked questions during telephone conversations. Harrow council introduced the equipment last year and have saved £420,000 because one-third of people who were contacted using the equipment admitted that their circumstances had changed and they were no longer eligible for the benefits they were receiving. However, there is doubt over whether these lie detectors actually work.

Resource of the Week: Psychometric Tests

This week's resource of the week is TESTdex, which is an INdex (get it?) of personality and intelligence tests, including the Eysenck Personality Inventory, Cattell's 16 factor test, the F-scale Authoritarian personality test, a visual fluid intelligence test and a number fluid intelligence test, as well as various IQ tests.

Resource of the Week: FreeMind

This week's resource is an open source software application for creating Mind Maps. A great resource for A level Psychology exam revision. Because FreeMind is open source it is completely free; it is free to download and use with no restrictions and you are even free to modify the source code and make it better if you are a programmer.

Resource of the Week: Social Influence Activities

This week's resource is a set of classroom activities for teaching social influence.

Asch Video 

Here is a very good video clip of the Solomon Asch conformity study:

Albert Bandura's Social Learning Theory and Bobo Doll Video

Albert Bandura proposed that most behaviour develops through imitating others, although some develops through conditioning. Unlike behaviourism, however, Bandura’s theory also takes into account the role of cognition; learning can occur without a corresponding change in behaviour. Social learning theory also suggests that reinforcements and punishments merely determine whether a learned behaviour is exhibited.

Operant Conditioning and Remote Controlled Rats

This week's resource of the week is this very interesting video clip showing how the decisions of rats can be controlled by directly manipulating the reinforcements they receive through stimulation of the pleasure centres in their brains. In essence, this produces a remote controlled rat. As well as being an interesting example of operant conditioning, it also raises issues regarding free will and determinism.

Zimbardo's Prison Simulation

This weeks resource of the week is this video of the prison simulation by Zimbardo et al. It is in 3 parts, scroll down for each one.

Can You Help: Psychology Music

I am trying to put together a list of songs that are related to different topics in psychology.

E.g., Brain Damage by Pink Floyd relates well to Schizophrenia

Big Girls (you are beautiful) relates well to Eating Disorders

Zombie Eaters by Faith No More relates brilliantly to attachment

The songs can relate to any area of any A Level Psychology specification

If you would like to contribute to the list, which will be published on this site, please comment below

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture 

If you were a lecturer and knew that you were going to die, what would you say to your students in your last lecture?

Test Your Mental Health 

This week's resource has been sent in by someone who wishes to remain anonymous, so I would like to thank them for this very interesting resource. You can use this to help you learn about and understand the symptoms of a number of psychological disorders, such as Attention Deficit Disorder, OCD, Eating Disorders, Depression and Schizophrenia.

Music for Psychology Lessons

I hope you like this week's resource of the week as much as I do.

Free Full Length Psychology Videos 

This week's resource of the week is a fabulous website that gives you free access to good quality abnormal psychology videos. These 30 minute videos are perfect for display on interactive whiteboards.

Stress Response is Gender Specific

Photo credit

The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine is reporting research published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience that shows that different parts of the brain are activated in males and females when confronted with a stressful situation. The researchers examined the activity of participant's brains using fMRI and measured levels of cortisol while they attempted difficult arithmetic problems (high stress) or counted backwards (low stress).

Schizophrenia Video 

A video about schizophrenia made by people suffering from the disease

Hans Selye Video

Video interview with stress researcher Hans Selye...