1.1 Key concepts

• Understand bias as a limitation in objective thinking and in research, theory, diagnosis and everyday decisions.

• Consider researcher, participant, sampling, confirmation, publication, gender, cultural and cognitive biases.

• Understand how psychologists investigate cause-and-effect relationships between variables.

• Recognize that behaviour often results from interacting factors, not one simple cause.

• Understand how psychology explains and promotes change in behaviour, health, learning and development.

• Consider planned, unplanned, gradual and sudden change, plus resistance to change.

• Understand challenges in observing and measuring human behaviour.

• Apply ideas such as operationalization, validity, reliability, triangulation, quantitative and qualitative data.

• Understand that biological, cognitive and sociocultural perspectives each explain behaviour differently.

• Evaluate how multiple perspectives can give a fuller understanding of human behaviour.

• Understand ethical and social responsibility in psychological research and application.

• Consider informed consent, deception, anonymity, harm, withdrawal, animal research, stigma and advocacy.