Only 3% of IB Psychology students get 7s. There’s very little room for error if you’re aiming for top marks.  The biggest error I see some students making is using the wrong studies. For example, the question might ask about social identity theory and someone writes about Bandura’s bobo doll study, or about Loftus and Palmer’s car crash study on a question about emotion and memory. While you might not score a zero, you definitely won’t score top marks. That’s why it’s important you practise matching up what study goes with what topic. An easy way to do this is to take the list of topics i ..read more

At first glance the working memory model can be very complicated and overwhelming. This post will break it down into four simple steps so you can understand it. Step One: What is “working memory?” Step Two: What are the “slave systems?” Step Three: What is the “central executive?”  Step Four: What is the “episodic buffer?” The Working Memory Model Don’t be intimated by the complicated sounding names. They’re quite easy to understand if you try hard enough. 1. What is “working memory”? The working memory model is an explanation for how short-term memory works. Working memory is another ..read more

Whether it’s for an extended essay, a test or an exam, writing about psychological studies can be a challenging task. This post is designed to help you focus your attention and efforts so you can write the best explanations possible. We’ll begin by breaking down the studies and then look at some examples.  The Short Answer Unless you’re talking about research methods or ethics, the methods are the least important part of a study. Get to the good stuff – the results and conclusions. 100-200 words Focus on the results and conclusions Don’t overdo the aims and methods Use the study to m ..read more

Looking for a study that supports the working memory model? Here’s a good one. Working memory is the stuff we’re thinking about right now. The working memory model (WMM) was an elaboration of the multi-store model of memory (MSM) as it zooms in on the short-term store and explains how our short-term (working) memory actually works. If you can comprehend what working memory is and you can diagram the model, the next step is to understand the supporting evidence. Let’s look at one study that supports the working memory model.  Before we look at the study, let’s quickly review the model. The ..read more

The common explanation for increased rates of depression for boys and men is because they’re unwilling to seek help and talk about their feelings. Personally, I have my doubts about this explanation. An alternative explanation is that men are becoming physically weaker, and this is leading to the psychological problems. But what does the research say? A hand-held dynamometer used for testing grip strength. Before we get to treatments and interventions, let’s first see if there’s a correlation between strength and depression. A common measure of physical strength is grip strength – how much p ..read more

Why do people help others? It’s a simple question but it intrigues psychologists because it doesn’t make sense evolutionarily speaking. In this post we look at one simple explanation: empathy.  If we feel empathy towards someone who needs help, we are more likely to help them. That’s the empathy-altruism hypothesis. Why do we humans help one another when there’s nothing to be gained for ourselves? This seems to contradict what we know about evolutionary psychology – that we instinctively look out for our own best interests. According to Batson, psychologists have long believed that all ..read more

Only 3% of IB Psychologists will get a 7. That means if your goal is a 7, you need to be working harder than 97% of all other IB Psychologists. Are you? If you’ve read the other 9 exam tips, you might be. Following this final tip could be the decider.  In my experience, there seems to be one factor that separates the 3% – their notes. Students of mine who got top marks all had comprehensive, hand-written notes. They took the time to go through the course materials and textbooks, topic by topic, to write detailed study notes. They didn’t just rely on pre-existing revision guides, flashcard ..read more

The following is adapted from our textbook, Stress: A Student’s Guide for IB Health Psychology. Are some people naturally more stressed than others? The Warrior / Worrier hypothesis says yes. This theory identifies the specific gene that explains stress levels.  The Basic Theory How do genes affect stress? How you respond to stress could be based on your COMT gene. This is the basis of the warrior/worrier hypothesis. You might be a Met/Met homozygote (Met), a Val/Val homozygote (Val), or a Val/Met heterozygote (Val/Met). About 25% of people are Mets, 25% are Vals, and 50% are Val/Mets. Th ..read more

While psychological studies aren’t the only part of the IB Psychology exams, they’re very important. So make sure you’re focusing on the right thing. Some students spend all their efforts revising the aims and procedures of the experiments but miss the most important part – the results.  By exam day you should be ready to write about 100-150 words on each study you’ve revised. But when you first start reviewing them, my advice is to focus on the results first. These are the most important part of any study. That’s because we can draw the conclusions from the results. If we know the result ..read more

Flashcards are the most effective way for remembering lots of information. That’s why it’s important to use them when studying for your exams. They’re great for things like key terms, studies and theories. You could use digital apps like Quizlet or make hard copies. If hard copy, you could use the Leitner System or the Three Pile System.  How good are flashcards? After 20 years I can still tell you that poignant means “painfully touching.” I remember this from Mrs Bachiachi’s 12th Grade English class when I was studying for the SATs back in 2002. Every Friday we’d have a vocab test and I ..read more