Psychology

This module concerns the study of basic mental processes, such as memory, attention, learning, and categorisation. You will explore the current issues, debates and approaches in many key areas of cognitive psychology. We will see how research has evolved in these fields, both in terms of the practical challenges, and the development of psychological theories. We will also investigate how basic findings in cognitive psychology can have a wider application to society, such as in treatments for psychological disorders, or in the influence of misinformation in belief formation.

By the end of the module, you will understand more about these core topics, and will be able to show a critical appreciation of research methods, approaches and outcomes in cognitive psychology. You will develop skills to write about a topic in cognitive psychology in an informed and reflective way.

This module will explore cutting-edge topics in developmental psychology, including the latest development in foetal research, new theories of communication and learning in infants and children, social cognition, face perception, perception of elementary physic and the theory of the mind.

You will explore empirical research evidence from classic as well as contemporary research sources in developmental psychology, with a particular focus on the early stages of human development, from foetal studies through to toddlerhood. This module will also provide you with invaluable insights into how to conduct research into issues concerning developmental psychology

The module will introduce you to the fundamental neuronal principles underlying cognition and behaviour, with particular emphasis on perceptual, cognitive, and emotional processes. You will be provided with basic knowledge about the anatomy, physiology, and functions of the central and peripheral nervous systems.

You will become acquainted with a range of theories and research methods in cognitive neuroscience and explore how knowledge of physiological processes can aid our understanding of a wide range of human behaviour. The module provides you with the essential preparation for neuroscience-related advanced modules in your third year.

Whilst aiming to expand on your knowledge and skills on research methods acquired in the Part I modules, this module aims to develop knowledge and skills on experimental research methods employed across the different topics in psychology, such as social, developmental, and cognitive approaches. This will involve learning about how to plan, conduct and report research and how to evaluate research studies. You will learn conventions in writing and presentation styles in psychology, and your writing and method skills will address the complexities and confounds in experimental studies.

This module will develop your ability to be clear, accurate, complete, and concise in writing up research. You will build these skills as an individual, but also through collaborative work. You will develop the ability to generate and explore hypotheses and research questions, and will carry out empirical studies drawing on a variety of psychological methods. Additionally, you are required to plan, conduct and report empirical research including defining a research problem, formulating testable predictions, choosing appropriate methods, planning and conducting data gathering, demonstrate evaluation of data, and producing a professional report. You will employ evidence-based reasoning when presenting, interpreting and evaluating psychological research, and will use some psychological tools such as experimental software and computer packages including at least one statistical package.

This module provides you with an introduction to non-experimental methods by which psychological research is conducted, data collected and analysed, whilst also addressing the ethical issues relevant to a range of experimental and non-experimental methods. You will undertake blocks of exercises in which they design, report and evaluate different forms of psychological research through questionnaires and surveys, in addition to interviewing and qualitative analysis.

Working in small groups, you will design and implement research projects on a given topic, followed by independent analyses and interpretation of the results, which are then written up in the research reports. You will also engage with the various ethical issues affecting psychological research on human participants and the strategies for addressing those issues in conducting psychological research with integrity. The module will support further your abilities to be clear, accurate, complete, and concise in writing up research. You will also develop the ability to use appropriate software and online resources in the generation and analysis of qualitative as well as quantitative data.

Expanding on the knowledge gained in Part I, you will further develop your knowledge of theory and research in a number of core areas in this field. Starting with the history of social psychology, you will explore topics such as social beliefs and judgements, intergroup relations, and applying social psychology to everyday life.

The lectures will cover contemporary and empirical developments in the key areas of social psychology, and the accompanying seminar programme will help develop a range of your academic and transferable skills in relation to social psychological subject matters, including the use of technical language, integrating knowledge, analytic skills, argument construction, and presentation.

In this module, you will gain the knowledge and skills to understand how psychological research findings reported in journals and textbooks have been obtained; carry out your own analysis of data collected during practical classes and report the results; and analyse and report the results of your own research project.

You will come to identify the appropriate form of analysis for different data types, and will use the statistical package R to conduct the analysis of variance (ANOVA) appropriate for different research designs.

Building on learning from your first-year statistics modules, we move into more complex forms of regression (linear and non-linear), moderation and mediation. The classes in this module extend your knowledge and understanding of correlation and simple regression to the area of multiple regression. We consider more than one influence on a behaviour and when thinking about how those influences may work together, and possibly how they are ordered in time, whether we can say that the influence “causes” a behaviour. We also consider alternative forms of analysis for data that do not fit the methods learned so far that are needed for considering causes of behaviour.

The practical sessions in this module take a further step in growing your independence for writing and performing your own statistical analyses. By solving problems across many different datasets, we prepare you for working with your own data and analysis for your third-year project.

On successful completion of the module, you will have broadened your skills and understanding of statistics such that you can choose from among a range of methods which best suits a research question and its dataset. Also, you will have developed skills so that you can interpret the results of studies with confidence and express how general these results are likely to be across different samples and populations.

The project is a piece of empirical work that will be completed under the guidance of a member of the lecturing staff. Exploring a topic of your choice, you will gain significant knowledge and understanding of how to develop and conduct psychological research, and will learn how to operationalise a manageable research problem.

In collaboration with a supervisor, you will develop the ability to formulate specific research hypotheses and carry out and write up an independent piece of research. This will equip you with in-depth and specialised expertise in a specific area of psychological inquiry, and transferable skills in project management, data skills, and reviewing literature.

This module will examine a wide variety of human behaviours, and attempt to show how psychological models and principles can make apparently bizarre or bewildering actions and judgement more understandable and interpretable. More specifically, the module discusses various theoretical models of attention, as the springboard for learning how attentional concepts have been used in areas as diverse as preschool cognitive development, children with autism & ADHD, anxiety disorders and the perception of flavours and tastes. The module combines psychological research into attentional topics with applications for a variety of more applied phenomena, drawing on research papers, videos, online blogs and other sources. As a result, coursework for example involves an applied element (an analysis of a contemporary media piece) where you can choose, under staff guidance, what real-world phenomena to analyse.

In this module, you will explore current trends in cognitive neuroscience research, including topics such as speech perception, emotion and language, decision-making, brain plasticity, cognition in multilinguals, and the neural representation of concepts. You will also develop skills for critically evaluating different neuroscientific methods and designing your own experiment in cognitive neuroscience.

This module is designed to provide you with a cross-cultural/linguistic framework to critically evaluate the application of culture in cognition and development. You will engage with debates between universalism and relativism in cognition and perception, which also relates to the nature and nurture debate in developmental psychology. As part of this module, you will be required to synthesise and critically evaluate a wide range of topics, formulate arguments that are substantiated by empirical evidence, and present your evaluations and arguments to others.

By the end of this module, you will be able to critically evaluate the role of culture in cognitive and developmental psychology, evaluate the research methods used to investigate cross-cultural/linguistic similarities and differences, and identify and critique literature in the field of cognitive and developmental psychology from a cross-cultural/linguistic perspective.

The module will enable you to engage critically and constructively with social psychological research and theory. The module encourages a broad range of skills that include the ability to critically evaluate academic arguments and to creatively apply social psychological theories and knowledge to real-world issues. The innovative assessments you will take involve the application of social psychological knowledge within a practical exercise. The topics covered in this module reflect current topics in social psychology that reflect active research interests among the lecturers, and have recently included: the psychology of religion, animal treatment, the moral self, online behaviour, smartphone use and social media, and the psychology of genocide.

This module focuses on how psychology can help in forensic settings, including police investigations and dealing with antagonists and courtrooms. Specific topics discussed include offender profiling, lie detection and hostage negotiation.

You will gain an appreciation of what can be learned from studying the behaviour of criminals in a scientific framework, and will be able to discuss different explanations and theories of crime and criminal behaviour. The module will explain how to apply psychological theories of behaviour to explain criminal case studies and experiences in criminal contexts, including within the court.

You will also gain an understanding of the strengths and limitations of classifications of criminal behaviour. This module will equip you with the skills to discuss the merits of different approaches to offender treatment, interviewing, and detecting deception, plus the capacity to think critically about a range of controversial issues within forensic/investigative psychology.

This module will introduce the concepts of human psychopharmacology, as will the theoretical background of drug-induced modification of nervous system function and behaviour. The module provides insight into psychoactive drugs and how they act upon the brain to influence behaviour.

You will be taught about the biological bases of drug actions and how these might contribute to our knowledge of psychological function in general, the acute and long term consequences of psychoactive drug use, and current pharmacological treatment strategies for Alzheimer's, depression and schizophrenia.

The module will explore why individuals differ in responsiveness to psychoactive drugs and discuss current controversies in the area of psychopharmacology.

This module will equip you with the knowledge and skills to understand the role of different psychological processes in our understanding and appreciation of art.

The module will begin by exploring visual arts and how its development through history has focused on different aspects of psychology such as sensation and perception, cognition (learning and memory) and emotions.

During this module, you will come to recognise that different forms of artwork (such as visual art, literature and music), are all multi-dimensional and can be analysed, evaluated and experienced from various psychological perspectives.

This module will enhance your knowledge of developmental psychology building on knowledge gained during Year Two. Specifically, you will gain a better knowledge of current developmental theoretical debates in developmental psychology, such as Nativist versus Empiricist accounts of development, and how the study of diverse settings can inform such arguments.

The module samples specialisations in topics as diverse as perception, number, social understanding, memory development, moral reasoning and the emerging understanding of moral and social rules in later childhood.

In this module, you will examine and explore striking instances of hallucination, delusions and disorders of consciousness in the normal, clinical and pathological population. A wide variety of case studies of specific examples, approaches and methods will be explored in relation to over-arching theoretical concepts which influence neurocognitive theory and our understanding of brain function.

A specific recurring theme running through the module will be for you to ask yourself why certain types of hallucinations/delusions are occurring as opposed to any other random possible alternative experience. This will facilitate a more processes/mechanisms approach to understanding rather than a basic neurophrenology approach of simply knowing which parts of the brain are active.

In this module you will discover what clinical psychology is - learning about key theoretical frameworks and treatment approaches, and developing an understanding of how research is related to practice. Covering various populations (including children, adults and older adults), this module will discuss various psychological disorders in terms of their assessment, aetiology, research background and interventions. A small series of guest lectures delivered by experienced practitioners will introduce issues in professional practice and confer a realistic appreciation of the work of clinical psychologists.

By the end of the module, you will recognise and be able to discuss several specific and overarching aspects of clinical psychological practice, as well as a range of prominent psychopathologies.