Extended Essay Ideas: Psychology
Requirements: The essay should be considered more of an investigative, analytical argument than a
research hypothesis to be uncovered by use of research methods in a formal psychological study. Data
collection and research methods, such as experiments, surveys, observations and case studies, are not
appropriate for a psychology extended essay, and should not form part of your essay.
Psychology of Sport and Exercise
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What levels of psychological arousal are most effective for players in team sports?
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What methods are available to combat crippling anxiety in competitive sport?
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Why exercise hurts: an exploration of the processes and functions of fatigue and pain
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How effective can exercise be in combating clinical depression?
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How does participation in team sports influence the development of social skills in 12-16 year
old school students?
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To what extent does personality affect an elite sportsman’s performance?
Nature or Nurture: The development and capacity of sporting ability in a child. Are you just born with
it?
Psychology and Education
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How far is intelligence determined by heredity or how far is it malleable?
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What are the pros and cons of ‘hothousing ‘ of young children, as a way to develop precocious
talent?
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Is language acquisition innate or socially adapted in young children?
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What is the relationship between precocious talent and adult achievement? (e.g. in Music)
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How far can children be taught to excel in the Visual Arts?
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Do children who have attended some form of pre-schooling when under the age of 5 yrs have
an educational advantage when they start school?
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Is the UK government new national curriculum for the under-5’s ‘a threat to all toddlers?’ What
is the right age to start (formal) school ?
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Which method of teaching reading works best?
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Why is dyslexia almost unknown in Italy?
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What is the source of the advantage that Chinese children appear to have in Mathematics?
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Is it true that the stages of cognitive development are universal in all cultures?
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‘Spare the rod and spoil the child’. What effects do different disciplinary styles and policies in
schools have on the behaviour and development of children?
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To what extent does violence in the televised media have the potential to increase the level of
aggression within children?
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A cross-cultural comparison ( e.g. China/UK ) of the effects of schooling on motivation to learn
and educational achievement
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A study of the effectiveness of an unusual form of schooling ( e.g. ‘Montessori’ nurseries;
Rudolph Steiner schools , ‘Summerhill’. )
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Should boys and girls be educated differently?
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What are the causes of gender and subcultural differences in educational achievement in the
UK (or elsewhere) and what can or should be done?
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How do ‘smart drugs’ affect the brain? What are the ethical issues in the increasing use of
‘cognitive enhancers’ to boost academic performance?
Dysfunctional behaviour and effectiveness of treatments and therapies
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Where children have been taken into care because of family problems, is it always better in
principle to aim to return children to the biological mother?
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How important is fathering to children?
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Are single-parent families inevitably dysfunctional?
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Is depression an illness or a dysfunctional way of thinking?
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What are the benefits and risks of SSRI drugs?
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Is autism ‘an extreme form of the male brain’? – How far is it true that autism has a biological
basis?
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How well does the lack of a ‘theory of mind’ account for the characteristic problems of
individuals with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD)?
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A comparison of different therapeutic interventions in ASD
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‘Oppositional Defiant Disorder’ – a label for children adults can’t control? -Exploration of the
arguments and ethical issues around prescribing drugs to children with ADHD and related
problems
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How do individuals respond to traumatic life experiences? Is it necessary to face past horrors
or is it better to deny and suppress in terms of leading a reasonably happy or successful future
life? (NB exemplars need to be restricted to a specific context)
Social and Organizational Psychology and applications
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How far can psychology help us overcome prejudices?
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Do we all have the potential within us to do evil?
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How far can the committing of war atrocities be explained by Milgram’s obedience account?
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Can psychology help us to understand how to resolve conflict ( exemplars could be from
industrial relations or conflicts between nations ) and negotiate peace ?
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What is the best way to be happy at work? Is happiness compatible with productivity? Is there
any evidence that companies which treat their workers well are more commercially successful?
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What functions does work fulfil for the individual? What are the psychological consequences of
current increases in job-insecurity and unemployment arising from the ‘credit-crunch’ ?
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How do the main sources of stress or job satisfaction differ between employees in two different
employment sectors ( e.g. finance vs teaching ) ?
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Are there any common characteristics of ‘good leaders’ or do leaders n eed to exercise
different personal qualities or styles of behaviour in different spheres? ( e.g. factory manager, vs
army commander )
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Are leaders born or made?
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Are leaders really necessary?
Criminal Psychology
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Pathways to crime: an analysis of the interaction of biological factors and early life experience
in ‘turning to crime’
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Can prison work? : an evaluation of the effectiveness of the UK ‘thinking skills programme ‘
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Can empathy be taught? : an evaluation of the ‘Restorative Justice’ initiative in the UK
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Nurseries or prisons? : An cost-benefit analysis of the effectiveness of an early intervention
programme ( e.g. UK ‘Sure-Start ‘ or ‘YIP’s)
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How far can eye (or ear) witness testimony be trusted and what are the implications for the
conduct of court proceedings?
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Can children be trustworthy witnesses?
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How are children affected by their experience in court and how can their rights best be
protected and balanced against the needs of the legal system?
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How far can psychological theories and research be applied to help juries make fair decisions?
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Creating safe communities: an analysis of the psychology of ‘environmental crime prevention’.
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What advice can psychologists give to the police force on how to treat ethnic minorities fairly
and avoid ‘institutional racism’?
Cognitive and Neuro-Psychology
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How can stroke victims be helped to recover their cognitive functions or compensate for
missing functions ? ( e.g memory loss)
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How far does current research using fMRI and PET scanning techniques support a modular
theory of the organisation of the brain? (This essay might need to be limited in scope by drawing
exemplars from one cognitive function, e.g. memory OR language )
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Is the brain organised differently in bilingual people?
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How far can the brain recover and reorganise itself after stroke or brain-damage in early life?
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Is the capacity for language really unique to humans?
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Is it true that dolphins are as intelligent as humans? How could this be tested?
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How much can we learn about brain organisation from clinical case –studies ? ( again , might
need to restrict exemplars to one cognitive domain)