Oliver Thomas

2023-2025 Year 12 A-Level Psychology: Psychopathology: The Cognitive Explanation

These flashcards explore how the cognitive approach explains depression as being linked to internal mental processes. They clarify that negative and irrational thoughts don’t directly cause depression but instead increase vulnerability to it, as proposed by cognitive psychologists Ellis and Beck.

2023-2025 Year 12 A-Level Psychology: Psychopathology: The Behavioural, Emotional

These flashcards describe the three main categories of psychological characteristics — behavioural, cognitive, and emotional — and identify specific behavioural and cognitive symptoms of depression, such as disrupted sleep or eating patterns, poor concentration, negative thinking patterns, and black-and-white thinking.

2023-2025 Year 12 A-Level Psychology: Psychopathology: The Behavioural Treatments Of Phobias

These flashcards explain behavioural methods used to treat phobias, including systematic desensitisation and flooding. They highlight how these therapies use classical conditioning principles to help individuals unlearn maladaptive responses by breaking the association between the conditioned stimulus and the fear response.

2023-2025 Year 12 A-Level Psychology: Psychopathology: The Behavioural Explanation Of Phobias

These flashcards outline how the behaviourist approach explains phobias as learned behaviours. They describe the two-process model, which involves classical and operant conditioning, showing how fear responses are acquired through association and maintained through reinforcement.

2023-2025 Year 12 A-Level Psychology: Psychopathology: Behavioural, Cognitive

These flashcards explain the three main categories of human characteristics — behavioural, cognitive, and emotional — and describe how each relates to different aspects of human functioning, such as how we act, think, and feel.

2023-2025 Year 12 A-Level Psychology: Attachment: The Effects Of Institutionalisation

These flashcards explore the concept of institutionalisation — when children spend extended periods in institutions rather than family homes. They outline its definition, examples, and the three main psychological effects, including a focus on reactive attachment disorder.

A-LEVEL PE (OCR): PAPER 1 - Preparation and Training Method Part 2

This set of flashcards explains the concept of periodisation in training — the structured division of a training program into macro-, meso-, and micro-cycles. It also outlines tapering and the focus of Preparatory Phase 1, helping athletes optimise performance and recovery throughout the training year.

A-LEVEL PE (OCR): PAPER 1 - Preparation and Training Method Part 1

This set of flashcards explains the concept of periodisation in training — the structured division of a training program into macro-, meso-, and micro-cycles. It also outlines tapering and the focus of Preparatory Phase 1, helping athletes optimise performance and recovery throughout the training year.

A-LEVEL PE (OCR): PAPER 2 - Sport Psychology Part 2

These flashcards outline the Narrow Band Approach to personality, which categorizes athletes as either Type A (impatient, intolerant, high stress) or Type B (relaxed, tolerant, low stress). They also reference key trait theorists—Eysenck and Cattell—and note that Cattell developed the 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire to assess individual personality traits.

A-LEVEL PE (OCR): PAPER 2 - Sport Psychology Part 1

These flashcards outline the Narrow Band Approach to personality, which categorizes athletes as either Type A (impatient, intolerant, high stress) or Type B (relaxed, tolerant, low stress). They also reference key trait theorists—Eysenck and Cattell—and note that Cattell developed the 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire to assess individual personality traits.

A-LEVEL PE (OCR): PAPER 3 - Routes to Sporting Excellence in the UK

These flashcards explain the role of UK Sport, an organization funded by the government and National Lottery to develop elite athletes. They cover how UK Sport identifies talent, supports athletes’ lifestyles and coaching, and runs the World Class Programme, which has two stages—Podium for athletes with immediate medal potential and Podium Potential for those aiming for future success.

A-LEVEL PE (OCR): PAPER 3 - Ethics and Deviance in Sport

These flashcards describe key performance-enhancing methods, including blood doping—a technique used to increase red blood cell count and oxygen-carrying capacity, commonly by endurance athletes—and anabolic steroids, which boost strength, aggression, and training capacity. They highlight how these methods aim to enhance performance, often through artificial physiological manipulation.

A-LEVEL PE (OCR): PAPER 3 - Global sporting events

These flashcards outline the origins and philosophy of the Modern Olympic Games, first established in 1896. They explain the Games’ core aims—to promote physical and moral development, unite athletes worldwide, spread Olympic values, and educate young people to foster peace through healthy international competition.

A-LEVEL PE (OCR): PAPER 3 - Emergence and evolution of modern sport

These flashcards compare Popular Recreation—pre-industrial sports and pastimes of the lower classes characterized by being natural, local, and often cruel—with Rational Recreation, which emerged post-industrialization and featured organized, codified, and respectable activities. They highlight how each type of recreation reflected the social values, class structure, and lifestyle of its time.

A-LEVEL PE (OCR): PAPER 2 - Stress Management

These flashcards explain the concept of stress in a sporting context, outlining the body’s physical responses—such as hormone release and increased heart rate—and defining key terms like stressors, stress response, and stress experience. They also describe how stress arises from perceived imbalances between demands and ability, with examples of common sport-related stressors such as competition and interpersonal conflict.

A-LEVEL PE (OCR): PAPER 2 - Leadership in Sport

These flashcards explore key aspects of leadership in sport, including the characteristics of an effective leader such as communication, motivation, enthusiasm, and clear vision. They also define emergent leaders—those chosen from within a team—and discuss their advantages, such as relatability and system knowledge, along with the potential disadvantages that may arise.

A-LEVEL PE (OCR): PAPER 2 - Confidence & Self-efficacy

These flashcards explain the concepts of sport confidence—an individual’s belief in their overall ability to succeed in sport—and self-efficacy, which refers to confidence in specific situations or skills. They include practical examples and describe how confidence can positively influence motivation, decision-making, and overall performance outcomes.

A-LEVEL PE (OCR): PAPER 2 - Attribution in sport

These flashcards outline the concept of attributions—the perceived reasons for success or failure in performance. They include examples, highlight how effort-based attributions can boost motivation, and reference Weiner’s (1979) Locus of Causality and Stability model, which explains how different types of attributions influence motivation and behaviour in sport.

A-LEVEL PE (OCR): PAPER 2 - Memory Models

This deck covers key concepts of memory models, including definitions of encoding, storage, retrieval, and more, as outlined in the A-LEVEL PE curriculum.

A-LEVEL PE (OCR): PAPER 2 - Types and Methods of Practice

These flashcards explain the Part Method, a learning technique where complex skills are divided into smaller sub-routines (fractionisation) to make them easier to learn. They cover its strengths—such as improving understanding, building confidence, and achieving early success—and identify the types of skills best suited for this method, including low-organisation, serial, and some complex skills.