Psychology (Conversion)

This module blends the two core areas of cognitive psychology and biological psychology to help you gain a comprehensive understanding of the brain, mind and behaviour. You will focus on the scientific concept of metacognition and the act of thinking about thinking, critically exploring topics such as memory, attention, problem solving, language and decision-making. You will learn about the function and structure of the brain and critically explore some of the mysteries that influence the way we think, feel, and behave. You will also critically evaluate the role of genetics and the environment and how the two operate to affect behaviour. Have you ever wondered why we sometimes get a physical response to psychological problems? Well, neuroscience may hold some answers for you and this module will help you understand through the scientific study of the nervous system. The relationship between the brain and our behaviour is complex and you will empirically test some of these links by undertaking practical sessions with specialist equipment in our psychology lab. These small group sessions will help you contextualise your theoretical learning from lectures, and you will be able to develop your understanding of how much ‘nature’ has to do with how we think, feel and behave.

Our Individual Differences and Personality module critically explores the diverse ways in which individuals vary in their thoughts, feelings and behaviours. You will consider the contextual and historical psychological approaches and bring debates up to date with contemporary application to the modern world. Celebrating the uniqueness of people will be central to your work in this module as you critically explore the intricacies of human nature and how and why individual’s psychological traits differ. One exciting aspect of this module is the constant self-discovery the learning offers, where, as you critically evaluate different personality theories and approaches, you will gain valuable insights into your own traits, tendencies and quirks that make you unique. This will enhance your critical reflection and awareness of the diversity of humans, with topics around gender, intelligence and attitudes sparking life into the content, and encourage you to delve into the differences in peoples’ cognitive make-up and the role of areas such as emotion, motivation and mood. Once you have grasped the fundamental theory, this module will continue to apply it to the world around us and you will critically explore the use of psychometrics to make sense of the challenges around this, both practically and morally, across a range of contexts. You will apply your knowledge to real-life situations, where you will develop skills such as communication, empathy, and conflict resolution by engaging in meaningful debates and discussions with your fellow peers to appreciate the beauty of human diversity.

Research is a core component across psychology, with this module essential to strengthening your understanding of the importance of scientific research across all related topics and critically exploring how research helped us move things forward to challenge some of the conceptual and historical issues in psychology. This module guides you through a numerical approach to working with data and you will develop skills to critically explore the importance of identifying and evaluating patterns in behaviour, psychological functioning and experience. You will generate and explore hypotheses and research questions, drawing on relevant theory and research. To consolidate your theoretical understanding, you will spend time in the psychology lab, both designing and conducting empirical studies involving a variety of data collection methods, including experiments, observation and questionnaires. You will get some hands-on experience using specialist software, laboratory equipment and psychometric instruments so that you can apply psychological knowledge ethically and safely to real-world problems.

This module critically explores qualitative approaches to undertaking psychological research and you will learn through a variety of lectures, workshops, practical tasks and computer-based sessions. Here, you will develop a rich appreciation of research questions that may be best answered by taking a qualitative approach, and from there, critically evaluate the different methodological options to answering such questions. Qualitative research is becoming increasingly appreciated in psychology, as it really helps us answer the why? questions. It allows us to gather a wealth of data in diverse ways, which rather than numbers, is usually words. It may even be images or rigorous interpretation of multimedia sources. Different approaches to understanding research from a qualitative perspective will be introduced to you and you will get the opportunity in class for critical debate and practical-based work, where you not only devise project ideas, but will collect qualitative data using a choice of methods. Here you can try out your skills of interviewing and conducting focus groups and use the data you collect to make sense of a complex problem. You will then analyse data using a specialist software package in our computer lab and interpret it in line with your chosen approach.

This module critically explores a range of external factors at play which can help explain behaviour and introduces you to social cognition, and the factors around us that can affect us and how we attribute meaning and value to things. By studying this module, you will critically explore the role of psychology across diverse cultural, ethnic and social communities. Here, you will study contemporary topics within social psychology such as cultural influences on mental health, the impact of marginalisation, the dynamics of intergroup relations, societal attitudes and bias, and social influence. Within this, you will be able to focus on the application of human behaviour, cognition and emotion and how these may differ across populations and the unique challenges presented by these. These topics play a big part in how society operates, where you will be able to equip yourself with the knowledge and awareness of working across diverse communities and populations with genuine empathy.

This module introduces you to key developmental psychology approaches to understanding people from birth through to older adults, with a wide range of developmental stages inbetween. Much of the traditional developmental literature focuses on babies and children, yet this module will use those approaches to bring our understanding right up to date and critically apply contemporary research to development at all stages of the lifespan. You will critically explore typical development and what that may look like, but psychologists are often concerned more with atypical development as a better understanding of this can help inform how we work with and support people whose development may have caused problems for them and others. This module will critically evaluate key learning and core psychology covered in other modules you have completed so far, and you will explore attachments that we form to others, emotional development and theory of mind.

This 60-credit module allows you to showcase your research knowledge and skills developed over the course so far. Here you will select a topic of interest which is worthy of further study, and you will design a research project to help you answer a specific question. Through critically applying your skills in literature searching, synthesis of findings and appreciation of selecting the best methodology, you will devise your research plan and then carry out this research. You will then critically report on the findings, robustly interpreting them through analysing and making logical recommendations for future work. This dissertation is something we will support you to be ready for over your course, and you will be allocated an academic supervisor who will be there to help you. This research project can be related to any area of psychology you choose, so it allows for you changing interests over the course. After all, we will be opening your minds to question different approaches and to inform you about areas of psychological work you never knew existed. Over your previous modules of study, you will have been exploring ethical guidelines, frameworks and practice and across your research, you will be demonstrating your application of these by making ethical decisions about the route you take and ensuring participant safety. You will also have studied modules in both quantitative and qualitative research methods and so the choice is yours as to which approach you take. You may even combine the two and take a mixed methods approach to answering your question. This project will help you bring together your skills of problem solving, critical thinking, analysis and communication, ready for the next stage in your studies or career journey.