Stress in the Workplace and how personality modifies the effects of stressors

We covered Workplace Stress today - make sure you can explain how research has shown a variety of aspects of the workplace to be stressful, including social isolation, lack of control, work overload and environmental factors e.g. noise and temperature.

There are two key studies - Marmot et al's 'Whitehall' study (actually two studies) of high- and low-grade civil servantes, and Johannson's Swedish saw-mill study.

Here is the presentation.

For the Mock on Friday you will also need to cover how personality modifies the effects of stressors. The key ideas here are Type A / Type B - Friedman and Rosenman's classic study into Coronary Heart Disease, and Kobasa's concept of the 'Hardy' personality.

Here is the presentation.

Year 12 reports

The sheet for writing your comments, grades and scores on is here.

Theories of attachment

Why do babies become attached to their parents? How does this process happen? Is it only the mother who is important for attachment?

We have now looked at two very important theories of attachment that seek to answer these questions. These are the learning theory and Bowlby's evolutionary theory. You need to make sure you can define the following concepts/terms:

Learning theory:

Classical conditioning

Operant conditioning

How each form of conditioning can lead to attachment

Two research studies that challenge the learning theory

Bowlby's theory:

Adaptive

Social releasers

Elicit

Monotropy

Primary caregiver

Internal working model

Imprinting

Critical period

Temperant hypothesis

Continuity hypothesis

The powerpoint on the learning theory is here and the one on Bowlby's theory is here. The list of questions on Bowlby's evolutionary theory is here.

Life Changes and Daily Hassles

Here is the homework for friday:

Make notes on and revise:

• Rahe et al’s study of US Navy personnel 
• Hassles and Uplifts as an alternative to Life Changes. 
• Evaluation of this research.

And here is the presentation from today's lesson.

Psychology book club

Psychology book club meets next on Monday 21st Jan (postponed from Mon 14th). We have been reading 'Bad Science' by Ben Goldacre - I have a few copies left so see me if you want to join in this week.

Our next book will be 'Opening Skinner's Box' by Lauren Slater, an investigation of the twentieth century through a series of ten fascinating, witty and sometimes shocking accounts of its key psychological experiments. These include classics from the AS and A2 course, Milgram, Zimbardo, Harlow & Rosenhan, and many more. Well worth a read for any A'level psychologist.

1.30pm, Monday 21st Jan, R23, tea & cake provided.

Mrs Watson

The learning theory of attachment

Today we started to look at explanations of how and why attachment happens. We looked at the learning theory, which explains how attachment could happen through classical or operant conditioning. We revised the principles of both of these and then evaluated whether or not they are sufficient to explain attachment.

Attachment is about much more than food provision. Schaffer & Emerson and Harlow both provide evidence to suggest that food, comfort and responsiveness are equally important.

Make sure you have finished writing up the stages of attachment formation from last lesson. Today's powerpoint is here. 

Attachment

Attachment is a reciprocal emotional bond between two people that endures over time. We looked at behaviours that characterise attachment in all ages, but you need to know the characteristic behaviours shown in infancy. We looked at three videos showing separation anxiety, stranger anxiety and reunion behaviour - make sure you are familiar with all these terms. These are signs of a healthy attachment relationship.
Schaffer & Emerson (1964) thought that babies formed their main attachment at around 7 months of age. Schaffer & Emerson also proposed a stage-based theory of attachment formation. You need to make notes on the different stages for homework:

• Asocial stage
• Indiscriminate attachments
• Specific attachments
• Multiple attachments

I handed out schedules for the attachment topic today. These are vital in keeping on top of the work and show homework tasks for every week as well as the main essay questions that we will be working through. An electronic version is here.

Today's ppt is here with lots of info on the Schaffer & Emerson study that I didn't get time for in class.

The body's response to stress

Our new topic - Physiological Psychology: Stress - begins with a look at the biological changes that we call a 'stress response'. Your textbook gives you lots of background detail about the brain, nervous and endocrine (hormone) systems - this is useful if you enjoy biology, but you won't be asked directly about it. What you do need to be able to do is describe two ways in which the body responds to stress - the acute (short term) and chronic (long term) stress response systems.

Learn the details of these for a test on Friday.

Here is the presentation from the lesson.