OxfordAQA IGCSE Psychology: Communication and Mental Health — Revision Notes

Condensed for the final weeks. These notes cover two Paper 2 topics of OxfordAQA International GCSE Psychology (9218): 3.2.1 Communication and 3.2.3 Mental health. For the full explanations, use the Communication study guide and the Mental Health study guide.

3.2.1 Communication — key terms

Term	Definition
Piaget’s theory	Language depends on thought — concepts first, words later
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis	Thinking depends on language; strong version = determines, weak version = influences
Verbal communication	Spoken or written words
Non-verbal communication	Messages sent without words: eyes, face, posture, touch, space
Postural echo	Mirroring another person’s posture — signals rapport
Personal space	The area around us we treat as our own; varies with culture, status and gender

Language and thought

• Piaget: a child understands object permanence before having words for it, so thought comes first.
• Sapir-Whorf: the language you speak shapes what you notice and remember.
• Evidence: in Native American cultures, the Zuni have one word for yellow and orange and confuse them more in colour memory tasks than English speakers. This supports the weak version — language helps memory, it does not stop perception.

Human versus animal communication

• Animal communication has four limited functions: survival, reproduction, territory, food.
• Von Frisch: returning bees perform a round dance (food near) or a waggle dance (food far); the dance angle shows direction relative to the sun, the waggling shows distance.
• Human language can plan ahead and discuss future events, refer to the past and to absent or imaginary things, and create unlimited new messages.

Non-verbal communication

• Eye contact: regulates conversation flow, signals attraction, expresses emotion.
• Body language: open versus closed posture; postural echo; touch (also signals status).
• Personal space: cultural, status (more distance from higher status) and gender differences.

Innate (Darwin)	Learned
Evolved because it was adaptive	Display rules and gestures vary by culture
Neonates show expressions without learning	Yuki (2007): Japanese participants focus on the eyes, Americans on the mouth when reading emotion
People born blind produce the same basic expressions

3.2.3 Mental health — incidence and effects

Why incidence changes: cultural beliefs about mental health; challenges of modern living (e.g. isolation); more recognition and less stigma, so more people seek diagnosis.

Characteristics of mental health: positive engagement with society; effective coping with challenges.

Effects on individuals	Effects on society
Damaged relationships	More social care needed
Difficulty with day-to-day life	Increased crime rates
Poorer physical wellbeing	Costs to the economy

OCD and PTSD side by side

	OCD	PTSD
Diagnosis	ICD: obsessions (intrusive thoughts) and/or compulsions (repetitive acts) causing distress or taking up time	ICD: after an extremely threatening event — re-experiencing, avoidance, sense of current threat
Biological explanation	Genes (twin concordance), low serotonin, frontal brain circuits	Genetic vulnerability; over-active amygdala; hippocampus and stress hormones
Psychological explanation	Cognitive: overestimating threat, inflated responsibility, thought suppression	Dual representation theory: strong sensory memory poorly linked to verbal, contextual memory, so flashbacks intrude
Therapy	CBT, including exposure and response prevention	Prolonged exposure therapy: imaginal and in-vivo exposure
Named study	Kearns — effectiveness of CBT for OCD	Eftekhari — effectiveness of prolonged exposure therapy, with US military veterans

Worked example

Sami checks that the front door is locked twenty times before leaving home and feels intense anxiety if he is stopped. Explain his behaviour using the cognitive explanation of OCD. (4 marks)

1. Obsession: an intrusive thought that the house will be burgled.
2. Faulty thinking: Sami overestimates the likelihood of a burglary
   and feels it would be his fault (inflated responsibility).
3. Compulsion: checking the lock reduces the anxiety briefly.
4. Maintenance: the relief reinforces checking, so the cycle repeats.

Exam traps

• Reversing Piaget and Sapir-Whorf.
• Using Yuki’s study as evidence for Darwin’s innate view — it supports learning.
• Mixing up obsessions (thoughts) and compulsions (behaviours).
• Saying the rise in recorded mental illness must be a real rise.
• Describing a therapy without linking it to the explanation it targets.

Frequently asked questions

How is Paper 2 of OxfordAQA International GCSE Psychology structured? 2 hours, 100 marks, four 25-mark sections: Communication, Social influences, Mental health and Research methods, with multiple-choice, short-answer and extended-writing questions.

Why might the incidence of mental health problems seem to rise? The specification names increased challenges of modern living, such as isolation, and increased recognition with lessening stigma. The second means some of the rise is in recorded cases rather than real cases.

Is non-verbal communication innate or learned? Both sides have evidence: neonates and people who are sensory deprived show expressions they could not have learned, supporting Darwin, while cultural differences such as Yuki’s emoticon study show learning.

Self-test

1. State the four functions of animal communication.
2. What two pieces of information does a bee’s waggle dance give?
3. Give one piece of evidence that non-verbal behaviour is innate.
4. Name the therapy and the named study for PTSD.
5. Give two effects of significant mental health problems on society.

Answers: 1. Survival, reproduction, territory, food. 2. The direction and the distance of the food. 3. Neonates show facial expressions before they could have learned them, or people born blind produce the same basic expressions as sighted people. 4. Prolonged exposure therapy; Eftekhari’s study. 5. Any two of: the need for more social care, increased crime rates, implications for the economy.

Related resources

• Communication and Mental Health practice questions
• Conformity and Obedience revision notes