SYNOPTICITY

The synoptic criteria has been dropped from the mark scheme. It is essentially equivalent to IDA.

ISSUES, DEBATES AND APPROACHES (IDA)

• The AO2 mark scheme includes a criterion regarding IDA.
• IDA is not credited in Psychopathology, nor in AO1 (if a question is parted and a student puts IDA in the AO1 part there is no credit).
• The mark scheme indicates that a student who only presents superficial IDA should gain a maximum of 8 out of 16 marks … however
  • In January on Unit 3 the Grade A boundary was 43 out of 75 marks which means 14.3 was a Grade A, which further means that students were probably getting Grade As with only superficial IDA. This boundary may of course rise.
  • I gather from people marking this summer that they were instructed to give a maximum of 12 AO2 marks for essays lacking IDA, and that in essays with poor IDA they should move the mark to the bottom of the band otherwise appropriate.
  • I think what this means is that Grade C candiidates should forget about it!
• In the report on January’s exam it pointed out that IDA must be elaborated and relevant, sustained and effective to gain any credit. Candidates should focus on answering the question set. Just identifying a debate or issue gained no extra marks.
• I think that 1 good issue or debate or approach paragraph per essay will be plenty. Often approaches offer the best kind of commentary e.g. contrasting a theory with an alternative approach. In some areas e.g. relationships, cultural bias would make an excellent point – but look for the obvious IDA points.

HOW SCIENCE WORKS – HSW (AO3)

• There are no special AO3 marks for the essays. AO3 is incorporated in AO2 and now called AO2/AO3.
• If a student presents evaluation in terms of methodology, that will gain AO2/AO3 points (as it always has done).
• If a student provides no evaluation in terms of methodology, they will not lose marks. There is no mention of HSW in the mark schemes. It is good AO2 but not required.
• If methodological comments are included they must be sustained and relevant and effective in order to gain credit. Just saying ‘This study had a poor sample’ would attract little or no credit.

Any comments or further queries are welcome!

So maybe if you do have your own lucky mascot it could be a good idea to keep it by you when you are competing or doing exams.

Good luck!

* from old stuffed animals, and stones to wedding rings

That experiment was adapted from one using fruit smoothies where participants were shown either a small or a large portion of fruit ‘used’ to make their smoothie. Their perception of satiety was directly linked to their perception of the quantity of fruit seen.

These findings, if reliable and valid, have real implications. When we consume a diet drink or food, or a reduced calorie or reduced sugar/fat food, does this affect how we feel afterwaards?  Do we feel hungry again much sooner because of our perception? If this is so, then using different descriptions might have a beneficial effect on those people who are trying to lose weight. One famous firm has for some time been marketing ‘hearty’ soups – this may have been a very smart move!

Now research suggests that many depressed people really do eat more chocolate. These findings came from both men and women who scored high on a psychometric depression scale but who were not receiving medication. There were no reported increases in other antioxident-rich foods, or other sources of caffeine, fat or sugar, between these depressed adults and non-depressed adults, just the increased chocolate consumption. What is not known is why the chocolate intake increased.

The evolutionary hypothesis explains our liking of chocolate as a combination of pleasures – the sweetness, the creamy texture in the mouth perhaps in some way reminiscent of breast milk – with the high energy-denseness of this food. But there is a complete lack of evidence that breast milk, even in mothers who do eat a lot of chocolate, has any chocolate flavour! So this does not explain why consumption of chocolate rather than any other sweet and creamy food increased in depressed people. Is it the pleasure which is the key factor? Or is it the cultural perception of chocolate as a reward food? Or is there another reason?

*PO=prolyl oligopeptidase

A recent interesting finding in rats shows that females are definitely more sensitive to stress. Their brain cells respond far more strongly to the precursor to corticosteroid stress hormones, a neurochemical called corticotropin-releasing factor, CRF. Female rat neurons are activated by CRF, male rat neurons adapt to it and less stress hormones are produced.

But does this rat behaviour also happen in humans? Well, we don’t know; but we do know that CRF regulation gets disrupted in human stress-related psychological disorders, so there could be a similarity, although one needs always to be very careful in generalising between species.