Psychology

Course summary

In 1963, Stanley Milgram asked individuals to administer electric shocks to a stranger. He didn’t expect anybody would obey him due to the risk of seriously hurting someone. To his amazement, every single person administered an ‘Intense Shock’ and 65% of people pressed the shock button labelled ‘XXX’. He was shocked. How and why could people do this to another person? Psychology helps us make sense of key questions about human behaviour; to consider the answers to questions such as, ‘why somebody would cause harm to another person?’ Psychology is the scientific study of behaviour. You will study how people interact, change and develop, how we think, how the nervous system works, how we differ from animals behaviourally and deciding what is normal or abnormal behaviour. You will develop your ability to think critically and analytically, develop both your oral and communication skills and your ability to plan statistically viable experiments.