Sample psychology Essay Questions

• Apply a model of job characteristics to - Knowledge workers ie. University lecturers. Analyse the key occupational issues for university lecturers carrying out that job and make recommendations for improving their work situation. You may wish to consider the implications of the recent financial cuts to universities.
• Apply Myers Psychological type theory to yourself.
• Can looking at Depression from an Integral Perspective reduce the prejudice present in society and more specifically within the psychotherapeutic relationship?
• Compare Freuds Psychoanalytic theory with Piagets Cognitive Development theory on the assumptions they make about the nature of human development.
• Critically discuss the major ethical problems involved in researching human behaviour with reference to psychological research?
• Critically explore some of the issues that should be considered when conducting research in the social sciences.
• Describe (b) how each of the 7 Edinburgh principles would be addressed at a policy and practice level in your own organisation or service, or in a service to which you have access
• Describe the ways in which play is said to promote childrens development.
• Discuss evidence that Piaget underestimated infants understanding of objects.
• Discuss how the measurements derived from questionnaires differ from measures used in the pure sciences. Do these differences undermine psychologys claim to be a science?
• Discuss the importance and interplay of social, psychological and biological factors in the course of heroin addiction. What therapeutic approaches can be used to treat this form of drug dependence?
• Discuss the way in which your chosen cognitive ability develops.
• Do tolerance to, and dependence on, psychoactive drugs always develop together?
• Evaluate the role of hormones in governing aggression?.
• Exhibitionism and Sexual Perversion in Young Males.
• How does the media influence our identities?
• In such a context critically discuss what you consider to be the major effects and challenges on psychological contracts in contemporary organisations.
• Is it useful to have a classification system of mental disorders- Discuss and critically evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of such a system and refer to empirical data in your answer.
• Life-history theory enables us to account for early and late reproduction in many species. Outline this theoretical perspective and show how animal models can be applied to humans.
• Many depth cues are monocular. So why do we have two eyes rather than one?
• Outline the main similarities and differences between Piagets and Vygotskys explanations for cognitive development in children.
• Outline the two major theories of hypnosis underlying the state versus non-state debate and consider the research findings related to each position.
• Qualitative analysis for the module Research Methods in Psychology.
• Reflect on your employability skills, identify your own career strategy and relate it to the job market.
• St. Claire, L. (2000). Measuring communication skills of medical students to patients with cancer. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 73, 99-116.
• To what extent can modern western family structures be explained by evolutionary psychological theory?
• To what extent does contemporary evidence on the origins of personality differences support Galtons idea of the lexical hypothesis?
• Using evidence from the empirical and theoretical literature, critically examine context and mood dependent memory.
• Using the factors identified as crucial to mental wellbeing in the North West Wellbeing Survey (2009) critique the use of diagnostic categories to define different expressions of mental distress.
• What is qualitative research interview?
• What should the age of criminal responsibility be?
• Make a quantitative analysis for the module Research Methods in Psychology.
• Concisely state the theory that the authors present as being put up to tes.
• Critically discuss the strengths and limitations of using psychological interventions as a treatment for psychotic disorders.
• Evaluate the claim that Person-Centred Therapy offers the therapist all that he/she will need to treat clients".
• An evaluation of some of the fundamental theoretical concepts underpinning psychodynamic practice.
• Can attitude ever be relied upon as a predictor of behaviour?
• Conditioned Emotional Reactions.
• Consider the evidence on whether the pre-frontal cortex is more important in anxiety and fear than the amygdala.
• 'Considering the role of biopsychosocial factors in health and illness, and discuss the idea of self responsibility in health.'
• Critically discuss realism within psychology.
• Critically evaluate the proposition that majority influence is unavoidable and inevitable.
• Discuss the evidence that phonological awareness is an important skill in learning to read.
• Discuss the psychological effect of terminal illness and bereavement on both the terminally ill themselves and their family, friends and carers.
• Evaluate the usefulness of the psychometric approach for understanding personality and human intelligence.
• Evaluate what synaesthesia tells us about the brain.
• Health psychology challenges the assumptions underlying the biomedical model.
• How did mental health become socially constructed? Why?
• Introducing the Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, Freud writes at the beginning of the first essay.
• 'It takes more than a change in dopamine levels to produce schizophrenia.'
• 'Memory is not ONE function but a number of different functions'.
• Produce a critical evaluation of one journal article chosen from the following list, concentrating particularly on the method and analysis sections of the work.
• Review and discuss the evidence base regarding the importance of the therapeutic alliance in CBT with reference also to treatment outcomes.
• Using psychological research, critically discuss the advantages and disadvantages of retaining this practice in organisations.
• What is the relationship between drug addiction and other addictive behaviours? Consider the mechanisms that might underlie these conditions.
• What shapes your self concept of who you are? Discuss in relation to theories of self in a social world.
• What will you do and why? Explain how social psychology is helping you in this and explicitly link theory to what you propose to do.
• Write a critical evaluation of three assumptions employed by Hunt and Carlson (2007a) in their analysis of the study of group differences in intelligence.
• Write an essay about Crime and Psychology.
• Write experimental report and conduct SPSS analysis on the data provided.

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