Psychology Club

The Psychology club strives to exemplify the applications of textbook psychology in real-life. Seeing how the definitions learnt in class can be applied to real life makes it easier for students to understand the concepts and theories. Watching videos akin to studies in a visual manner allows students to digest the information more easily.

In the psychology club, members watch field and natural experiments, often conducted without the participants knowing the true purpose. This allows for high ecological validity, but lower internal validity. Although the results may be unreliable, these experiments can firmly establish a linkage between two or more factors, or show a cause and effect in some cases. They offer qualitative insight into human behavior, and allow for deeper, more abstract understanding in human behavior and the mechanisms which drives our societal construct.

For example, the members watched Darren Brown's The Push, a British reality TV show about how psychology can push people into committing manslaughter. In that particular show, techniques such as the priming effect, foot-in-door effect, and various others have been used. They then analysed those different techniques, and how they see those effects being used in our daily lives. They also have discussions, where they talk about what they've just watched, and the psychological effects in topic during the session.

Our members have formed the psychology club to inspire younger students to take psychology when they are able to in GCSE. A lot of students have a deep interest in this topic, but aren't sure whether this interest can be grown in a systemised environment, such as a classroom. By using theories and studies learnt both in classes and outside, the psychology club can both refine and introduce new material to our students.