← Psychology syllabus

TASPsychology

Unit 3: Individual Behaviour

9 dot points across 9 inquiry questions. Click any dot point for a focused answer with worked past exam questions where available.

Which behaviours happen without any learning?

Distinguish behaviours that do not depend on learning, including reflexes, fixed action patterns and maturation.
Reflex actions, fixed action patterns and maturation as innate or growth-based behaviours, contrasted with learned behaviour for TCE Psychology.
6 min answer →

How do the nervous system and the brain produce behaviour?

Explain how neurons, the nervous system and brain structures underpin human behaviour.
How neurons, neurotransmitters, the nervous system and brain regions produce behaviour, drawing on Phineas Gage, split-brain research and the lock-and-key model.
7 min answer →

How do mental processes contribute to learning?

Explain cognitive learning, including insight, latent learning, cognitive maps, learning sets and transfer of learning.
Insight learning, latent learning, cognitive maps, learning sets, transfer of learning and problem solving, drawing on Kohler and Tolman, for TCE Psychology.
7 min answer →

What are consciousness and sleep, and how are they studied?

Compare states of consciousness and explain sleep and dreaming, including how they are measured.
Normal waking consciousness and altered states, measuring consciousness with EEG, EOG and EMG, sleep stages, circadian rhythms, sleep deprivation and theories of dreaming.
9 min answer →

How do psychologists summarise and interpret their data?

Describe and apply descriptive statistics and data-analysis techniques to psychological data.
Qualitative and quantitative data, measures of central tendency and spread, distributions, graphing, and interpreting correlation coefficients in psychological research.
7 min answer →

Why do we forget, and how reliable is memory?

Explain theories of forgetting and factors affecting the reliability of memory, including eyewitness testimony.
Decay, interference, retrieval failure and motivated forgetting, plus the reliability of memory and eyewitness testimony using Loftus and Palmer, for TCE Psychology.
8 min answer →

How did psychology become a science, and what perspectives explain behaviour?

Describe the origins of psychology and the major perspectives used to explain behaviour.
The philosophical roots of psychology, Wundt and the move to a science, and the biological, behaviourist, cognitive, psychodynamic, humanist and sociocultural approaches.
8 min answer →

How do humans learn behaviours and store information in memory?

Describe theories of learning and the multi-store model of memory with supporting research.
Classical and operant conditioning, observational learning, and the Atkinson-Shiffrin memory model, using Pavlov, Skinner, Bandura, and Peterson and Peterson.
8 min answer →

How do psychologists design valid, ethical research?

Apply research methods, variables, sampling and ethics to evaluate psychological studies.
Experimental and non-experimental methods, variables, hypotheses, sampling, validity, reliability and ethical guidelines for evaluating psychological research.
8 min answer →