1. AICE psychology as level Big ideas
Approaches & Perspectives
Issues & Debates

2. Approaches and Perspectives Summarize
Cognitive Psychology
Cognitive psychology studies our mental processes or cognitions. These mental processes that cognitive psychologists focus on include memory, perception, thinking and language.
Cognitive processes are examples of hypothetical constructs. That is, we cannot directly see processes such as thinking but we can infer what a person is thinking based on how they act.
Cognitive psychology has been influenced by developments in computer science and analogies are often made between how a computer works and how we process information. Based on this computer analogy cognitive psychology is interested in how the brain inputs, stores and outputs information. 
However we are much more sophisticated than computer systems and an important criticism directed at the cognitive approach is that it often ignores the way in which other factors, such as past experiences and culture influence how we process information.
Approaches and Perspectives Summarize

3. Approaches and Perspectives Summarize
Social Psychology
Social psychology (or the social approach) is interested in studying individuals in a social context, such as family, friends, institutions, and wider society. Social behavior may involve activity within a group or between groups. 
According to social psychologists our behavior is influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of others. 
One of the debates in psychology is whether an individual's behavior is a result of their personality or their social context; the authors of the studies emphasize the importance of the social context in shaping behavior.

4. Approaches and Perspectives Summarize
Developmental Psychology
Developmental psychology is interested in discovering the psychological processes of development. The studies in this section all focus on how children develop. It is worth noting that developmental psychologists also study adulthood as well.
The main assumption of the developmental approach is that cognitive, emotional and behavioral development is an ongoing process and that such changes result from an interaction of nature and nurture.

5. Approaches and Perspectives Summarize
Physiological Psychology
Physiological psychology focuses on the relationship between our biological makeup and our behavior and experiences.
This area of psychology can be very convincing. For example we do know that the structure of our nervous system (including our brains) and the action of chemicals can have an effect on our behavior. However, an important question is how much does our biology affect us?
Some physiological psychologists take a reductionist argument to answer the above question. They argue that behavior and experiences can be explained in terms of brain structure and chemicals.
However, other psychologists (including many physiological psychologists) take the view that we cannot explain complex human behavior and experience just in terms of brain structure and chemicals. There are other psychological variables which need to be considered, for example, such as how we act alone compared to how we behave in groups.

6. Approaches and Perspectives Summarize
Psychology Of Individual difference
Psychology often makes generalizations about people. Depending upon your point of view this can be seen as a great strength of psychology or a weakness or probably both.
It is important that we recognize that there are as many differences between people as there are similarities
The main assumption of the individual differences perspective is that to understand the complexity of human behavior and experiences it necessary to study the differences between people rather than those things that we all have in common. For example the individual differences approach largely focuses on things such as personality differences, and abnormality.

7. APPLY: link the definition of each Approach to each of the four cognitive studies!
For example…

8. Your goal: to look at each study in the Cognitive Psychology unit…
And, using the info in the soft text, explain HOW and WHY this study is classified as a study in Cognitive Psychology.
You can do this by relating Cognitive Psychology to various parts of the study, such as the context, aim, method, and so on. Make sure you explain and justify fully WHY and HOW this study is a part of the Cognitive Psychology unit.
For example…

9. Example I:
“ Mann, Vrij, and Bull, core study 3.1, on lying behavior, clearly represents a study in Cognitive Psychology. This point can be supported due to a number of reasons; MVB’s aim was to investigate lying behaviors of those in police custody. Cognitive psychology focuses its emphasis on things that cannot be observed, such as memory and mental processes, and lies do fall into the category of cognition and mental processing. Cognitive Psychology also supports the position that observing how an individual acts is important; this can give us insight of what an individual is thinking, through their actions. In MVB’s case, during the study’s procedure, participants were recorded in criminal interviews. These recordings were then coded to identify behaviors suspects engaged in when lying. This analysis of behavior to shed light on unseen processes is why MVB’s study is a part of Cognitive Psychology. Finally, Cognitive Psychology argues the brain works similar to a computer; this is supported by the idea of “cognitive load” in CS 3.1, which argues that when cognitive load is increased, liars cannot as accurately deceive an interviewer convincingly, because they show signs of their deception (blinking less and pausing more)”

10. Homework due Tuesday: Complete ½ page/large paragraph answer for Apply Question ON SLIDE SEVEN BASED ON THE APPROACH For THAT STUDY (EXAMPLE: DEVELOPMENTAL) All Studies in Cs chapter 3 This means: Cs 3.1, Cs 3.2, Cs 3.3, Cs 3.4

11. CS Chapter 3: Cognitive Psychology