One of the most commonly studied communication styles in married couples is “demand-withdraw.” It’s often called the “wife demand, husband withdraw” because this is the common trend. However, this phenomenon has mostly been reported in Western countries. This raises the question if it has the same negative effect on marriages across cultures or even if the same pattern even exists. …
Key Study: Why do people get divorced? (Scott et al. 2013)
Understanding what makes some marriages work and others fail is the life’s work of many psychologists. This simple study uncovers at least 5 common reasons why couples might divorce. It’s no surprise that getting divorced has massive negative consequences – psychological, physical, emotional and even financial. Divorced individuals are more at risk for substance abuse, depression and poor overall health. …
These famous psychologists would fail their IAs!
I can barely get through a psychology TED™ Talk by a psychologist these days without sighing at the blatant manipulation being presented. In class, I can’t help but pause the video and comment. My students know what’s coming and I’m sure I annoy the heck out of them. But I think it’s important. Here’s why these psychologists would fail their …
Example SAQ – How agonists affect behaviour
The “additional terms” that have been added to Paper 1 SAQs in IB Psychology can be a nuisance. However, there are ways to address the potential questions without adding too much content to your course. This post shows you an example SAQ that uses Passamonti et al.’s study on neurotransmission for a potential answer on agonists and behaviour. An agonist …
3 Examples of how to write excellent EE questions
The key to writing an excellent EE research question isn’t to begin with the perfect question in mind. Far from it. You have to begin broad and continually work on evolving your question so it gets more and more focused. In this post we look at three examples of how a broad topic can evolve into an excellent research question. …
How to write the perfect EE question
With so much riding on the EE question itself, it’s important to get it right. But I often disagree with a lot of advice offered on EE questions, so here’s my advice for writing the perfect EE question. The best EE questions are clear and focused. It’s important to have a focused EE research question because it’s stated in the rubric (see …
What Rebecca Black’s story can teach us about resilience
If you’re an old fogey like me the name Rebecca Black probably won’t mean much. And to be honest, to kids in high school today in 2020 it might not mean much either. But she was the most googled person in 2011 and she can teach all of us a lot about an important psychological concept – resilience. In 2011, …
The best topics for Paper 2
The IB Psychology guide is a little, shall we say, clunky. One benefit of the clunkiness of the guide is that we can exploit some of the oversights to our advantage. For example, there’s guaranteed one exam question per topic in Paper 2. This means you only need to study one topic per option (SL write one essay on one …
Exam Topics in IB Psychology Paper Two – Overview
The most important thing to know when studying for the IB Psychology exams are the topics. The IB Guide published by the IB has these listed. Unfortunately, the guide is a bit confusing in its layout and it’s not easy to see quickly and easily what the topics are. That’s why I put them in this post. Download the following …
How to study for Paper 2 in IB Psychology
Revising or Paper 2 in IB Psych can be challenging because it’s not always clear what the questions will be. Unlike the Paper 1 topics, Paper 2 topics are bit more ambiguous. However, the same requirements as Paper 1 essays are still needed. This means we can approach studying for Paper 2 in a similar way as Paper 1, we …