Curious about studying Psychology (Including Placement Year) - BA (Hons)at University of Essex? We've gathered all the key details—entry requirements, modules, fees, and more. Hear from real students by checking out reviews, or take the next step by booking an open day to explore it for yourself.
Bachelor of Arts (with Honours) - BA (Hons)
Colchester Campus
Full Time
Oct 2026
4 Year
If you want to understand our place in the world, then psychology at Essex is for you. We provide one of the most immersive and exciting experiences of studying human thoughts and behaviours in the UK. Our teaching and research focus on innovative solutions to societal challenges, so that you develop the skills and knowledge to make a difference in our world. Satisfy your curiosity by learning from world-renowned researchers at the cutting edge of psychological science. At Essex, we take a multi-method approach, working beyond traditional boundaries to combine different expertise and share fascinating techniques and intriguing theories. We answer questions such as: - Why are social relationships so important – how do we make and break them, and what can we do to improve our relationships? - How do parenting choices in the earliest weeks of a baby's life impact them for years to come? - How does our cultural background affect thinking, motivations, personality, interpersonal behaviours and group processes? At Essex, you learn psychology from the start. In your first year, your modules address major challenges that society faces today. We embed key skills such as research methods and statistics into topics you are interested in. You are taught topics one-by-one to help you consolidate your knowledge. You continue to develop these skills during your second year, taking a deeper dive into topics such as brain and behaviour and health psychology. In your final year, you specialise in areas that really interest you. You also have the opportunity to take one or more applied modules across your three years with us, in the areas of health, global challenges, self-improvement, sustainability, the criminal mind and more, developing your knowledge of real-world psychology.
This module will explore questions such as: Is intelligence fixed? Is our memory reliable? How do we learn? By introducing a range of approaches from across psychology, you will address such questions from different perspectives and provide the foundations needed to become a successful Essex student. This module will also begin your training on designing and carrying out psychology experiments, and dealing with the information that those experiments provide.
New-borns are totally dependent on others. They are unable to move or sit up; they cannot reach out and pick up an object; their vision is poor; they cannot even express simple emotions. By the end of the developmental process, some 20 years later, humans have become the most psychologically complex things we know. How does this happen? This module will introduce you to how humans grow and develop in the world. The principal approaches to the study of human development will be discussed, with a particular focus on how infants take their first "psychological steps" in the social world. You will also develop the research and analysis skills that are needed to answer different questions about how humans grow in the world.
In this module you will discover answers to fundamental questions in the science of emotion: What are emotions and why do we have them? Is it possible to elicit specific emotions in people and measure them? How good are we at sensing how someone else is feeling? Why are some people more emotional than others? You'll untangle the complexities involved in studying human emotion by: exploring a variety of research methods and measurements, applying critical thinking to psychological concepts, and mastering the data analysis techniques that allow psychologists to draw conclusions about our experience of emotion.
In this module, you'll study the internal mental processes that go on inside our brain that form the basis of our thoughts. We'll answer questions such as: what do visual illusions tell us about how we perceive the world? Are we really able to multi-task? How do we understand and produce speech, and is this different if you speak more than one language? You will learn the skills that psychologists use to conduct research to answer these questions, as well as core theories and knowledge about key topics in this area.
Do you behave differently when you are alone than with others? How do people interact with individuals? How do they behave in groups? How do people explain the social world and how do they explain the behaviour of others? What makes people attribute human characteristics to animals and inanimate objects? This module will examine how humans live in and interact with the social world. These questions will be explored, using social psychology theories, survey methods and research skills.
How does your brain decide between good and bad? What is the neural basis of moral reasoning? What is the biological basis of anger and aggression? Can we explain psychopathy in terms of differences in brain structure and function? What can neuroscience tell us about whether people should be held accountable for their actions? These are the kinds of the questions that we will investigate in this module, which aims to understand the neural basis of (anti) social behaviour. These questions will be addressed by building knowledge and understanding whilst also developing the skills that psychologists use to research these aspects of human behaviour.
It’s important to plan your career. This is the one of three modules that will make sure you are career ready when you leave university. You will decide on your career aspirations and goals, plan how you will achieve them and identify the resources available to help you.
This module builds upon your statistics provision in the first year and will provide you with a thorough understanding of how and when to use different basic statistical tests. Theoretical and practical implications will be provided through statistics lectures while computer workshops will introduce you to using statistical software.
Explore classical and contemporary themes of child development such as prenatal and perceptual development, early language acquisition, and cognitive and social development, whilst examining the research methods and designs employed in Developmental Psychology.
Through exploring and addressing a range of theories and research on how people think and behave, you will gain a clear understanding of the topics social psychologists are interested in and their approaches to studying them.
The brain is an extremely complex organ, and there is much that we still have to learn about its processes and functions. This module will detail the psychological mechanisms that underlie human behaviour and highlight the possibility that even our deepest thoughts and feelings arise from electrical and chemical activity in our brains.
An in-depth look into cognitive, trait and biological theories and approaches to personality, individual differences and intelligence. This module will also give you the opportunity to cover and debate contemporary topics in individual intelligence (such as how individual differences explain behaviours, feelings and thinking).
This module combines the areas of medical and health psychology to explore the biological, psychological and social processes implicated in the development of ill health.
This module explores the basic cognitive processes involved in thinking about the world, interacting with the world, and experiencing the world. Often as users of these processes they just work and the complexity of the underlying operations are hidden; a kind of "user illusion". You will learn about the emerging scientific picture of how these basic processes operate, thereby gaining a better appreciation of the underlying complexity, and a renewed appreciation of the brilliance of these operations. The module will consider examples of human talents; such as bilingualism, as well as human limitations, such as our working memory capacities. The module will cover core areas of cognition as defined by the British Psychological Society such as perception, mental imagery, attention, memory, language, and consciousness. These will be discussed both with reference to laboratory-based experiments, and also how these processes may be disrupted and may breakdown in various conditions, such as dyslexia, amnesia, and other neuropsychological conditions. Finally, the lectures will address how basic cognitive processes apply to complex real-world behaviours.
It’s important to plan your career. This is the one of three modules that will make sure you are career ready when you leave university. You will decide on your career aspirations and goals, plan how you will achieve them and identify the resources available to help you.
This module gives you the chance to utilise the statistical and research methodology which you gained during your first two years and apply it to your own original research project. You’ll submit a written report and a supporting poster which will be assessed.
It’s important to plan your career. This is the one of three modules that will make sure you are career ready when you leave university. You will decide on your career aspirations and goals, plan how you will achieve them and identify the resources available to help you.
Placement Year
112-120 Grades/points required
Not currently available, please Contact University for up to date information.
4.3
