4.3 Proximity and familiarity
Proximity means geographical closeness. An obvious and basic requirement for forming a relationship is that the people involved need to be geographically close enough to have opportunities to interact...
View Article4.2 Attraction
What is it that attracts us to other people for these more romantic relationships? Psychologists have identified a number of factors to explain why we might be attracted to one person but not to...
View Article4.1 Introduction
As young people in the UK grow into adulthood the potential for establishing more intimate relationships opens up considerably when they leave home for university, enter vocational training, or move...
View Article3.4 Schemas
A schema is the word psychologists use to describe a mental framework in which you would file all your knowledge about certain objects, situations, groups of people and even yourself. It would include...
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3.3 Forming concepts
When we think about the world one of the ways that we organise our thoughts is by putting them into categories. This process of developing categories is called concept formation. For example ‘animal’...
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3.2 Using mental images
As adults, we tend to do most of our thinking in words. However numerous experiments have been carried out that support the suggestion that we will remember verbal or written information better if we...
View Article3.1 Organisation and improved recall
This section will concentrate on thinking and specifically how we organise our thoughts, how we make sense of our world and how we remember (or sometimes forget) what is relevant.Psychologists who...
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2.2 The story of the split brain patients
A surgical procedure that cuts through the corpus callosum has provided evidence to support the different specialisations of the left and right hemispheres of the brain. This procedure is used very...
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2.1 Introduction
If you are not too squeamish, imagine you have lifted the top off someone's skull and peeled back a thin protective membrane. You are now looking down on the brain sitting in a pool of liquid. You have...
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1 Studying people
The British Psychological Society defines psychology as:The scientific study of people, the mind and behaviour.(British Psychological Society, 2007)If you are reading this you are probably interested...
View ArticleLearning outcomes
After studying this course, you should be able to:analyse a range of factors within and outside individuals which influence mind and behaviourconsider multiple influences in case studiesdescribe the...
View ArticleIntroduction
What makes us who we are? This course will look at a number of different explanations that psychologists put forward in their attempts to understand why people feel, think and behave the way they...
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