ie 1234<br /> 5678<br /> 910 11 12<br /> 13 14 15 16<br /> <br /> OR 1,5<br /> 2,6<br /> 3,7<br /> 4,8 etc:
Hi, there is no set order to read these grids, but I would recommend you follow the boxes horizontally, as outlined in your first example. Thanks
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Issues and Debates in Psychology (A-Level Revision)
Deb Gajic, CPsychol
Team Leader Examiner (A-Level Psychology)
B.A. (Hons), Social Sciences, Msc, Psychology
Deb Gajic is an experienced educational consultant with a robust history in the education and training field. She brings expertise in Psychology, Training, CPD Provision, Writing, Examining, Tutoring, Coaching, Lecturing, Educational Technology, and Curriculum Development. She holds a Master of Science (MSc) in Psychology from The Open University, a PGCE from Leicester University, and a BA (Hons) 2:1 from Warwick University. She is a Chartered Psychologist (CPsychol) and an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society (AFBPsS).
Learn about our Editorial Process
Saul Mcleod, PhD
Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology
BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester
Saul Mcleod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.
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In application questions, examiners look for “effective application to the scenario,” which means that you need to describe the theory and explain the scenario using the theory making the links between the two very clear.
If there is more than one individual in the scenario you must mention all of the characters to get to the top band.
The descriptions follow the same criteria; however, you have to use the issues and debates effectively in your answers. “Effectively” means that it needs to be clearly linked and explained in the context of the answer.
Read the model answers to get a clearer idea of what is needed.
Gender bias.
Gender bias results when one gender is treated less favorably than the other, often referred to as sexism, and it has a range of consequences, including:
Avoiding gender bias does not mean pretending that men and women are the same.
There are three main types of gender bias:
Alpha bias – this occurs when the differences between men and women are exaggerated. Therefore, stereotypically male and female characteristics may be emphasized.
Beta bias -this occurs when the differences between men and women are minimized. This often happens when findings obtained from men are applied to women without additional validation.
Androcentrism – taking male thinking/behavior as normal, regarding female thinking/behavior as deviant, inferior, abnormal, or ‘other’ when it is different.
Positive Consequences of Gender Bias
Alpha Bias :
Beta Bias :
Negative Consequences of Gender Bias
Consequences of Gender Bias
Kitzinger (1998) argues that questions about sex differences aren’t just scientific questions – they’re also political (women have the same rights as men). So gender differences are distorted to maintain the status quo of male power.
Feminists argue that although gender differences are minimal or non-existent, they are used against women to maintain male power.
Judgments about an individual women’s ability are made on the basis of average differences between the sexes or biased sex-role stereotypes, and this also had the effect of lowering women’s self-esteem; making them, rather than men, think they have to improve themselves (Tavris, 1993).
Kohlberg & moral development.
Kohlberg based his stages of moral development around male moral reasoning and had an all-male sample. He then inappropriately generalized his findings to women ( beta bias ) and also claimed women generally reached the lower level of moral development ( androcentrism ).
Carol Gilligan highlighted the gender bias inherent in Kohlberg’s work and suggested women make moral decisions in a different way than men (care ethic vs. justice ethic).
However, her research is arguably, also (alpha) biased, as male and female moral reasoning is more similar than her work suggests.
Freud’s ideas are seen as inherently gender biased, but it must be remembered that he was a product of his time. He saw ‘Biology as destiny’ and women’s roles as prescribed & predetermined.
All his theories are androcentric , most obviously: -‘Penis envy’ – women are defined psychologically by the fact that they aren’t men.
But Freud’s ideas had serious consequences/implications. They reinforced stereotypes, e.g., of women’s moral Inferiority, treated deviations from traditional sex-role behavior as pathological (career ambition = penis envy), and are clearly androcentric (phallocentric).
In women, mental illness, especially depression, is much more likely to be explained in terms of neurochemical/hormonal processes rather than other possible explanations, such as social or environmental (e.g., domestic violence, unpaid labor, discrimination).
The old joke ‘Is it your hormones, love?’ is no joke for mentally ill women!
Equal opportunity legislation and feminist psychology have performed the valuable functions of reducing institutionalized gender bias and drawing attention to sources of bias and under-researched areas in psychology like childcare, sexual abuse, dual burden working, and prostitution.
This activity will help you to:
Below are two examples of research that could be considered gender biased. Working in pairs or small groups, you need to do the following:
1. Identify aspects of the research that could be considered gender biased
2. Identify and explain the type of gender bias that is present
3. Suggest the impact that these research examples could have on society
You could look, for example, at how the research might uphold or reinforce gender stereotypes or be used to disempower women in society.
The Psychodynamic View of Personality and Moral Development
Freud and many of his followers believed that biological differences between men and women had major consequences for psychological development. In their view, ‘biology is destiny.’
Freud believed that gender divergence begins at the onset of the phallic stage, where the girl realizes that she has no penis, and starts to feel inferiour to boys (penis envy).
Penis envy becomes a major driving force in the girl’s mental life and needs to be successfully sublimated into a desire for a husband and children if it is not to become pathological.
This view of gender divergence in personality development has implications for other aspects of development. For example, Freud’s view of morality was that it was regulated by the superego, which is an internalization of the same-sex parent that regulates behavior through the threat of punishment.
In boys, immoral behavior is regulated through the mechanism of castration anxiety – men obey the rules because of an unconscious fear that their father will take away their penis.
In the Freudian view, the girl has already had to accept her castration as a fait accompli, which raises important questions about the relative moral strength of men and women.
The Biological View of Mental Illness
The biomedical view of mental illness, which approaches behavioral and psychological abnormality as a manifestation of underlying pathological processes on the biological level, dominates the discussion of mental illness.
In the biomedical view , illnesses such as depression can be explained in terms of chemical imbalances causing malfunction in the parts of the brain associated with emotion.
When explaining why twice as many women as men are diagnosed with depression, adherents of the biomedical view tend to suggest that this is due to hormonal differences and point to the existence of, for example, post-natal depression to show how fluctuations in female sex hormones can lead to abnormalities of mood.
Similarly, sex differences in hormonal processes can be used to explain the existence of disorders that are ‘gender bound,’ such as pre-menstrual syndrome.
Culture can be described as all the knowledge and values shared by a society.
Cultures may differ from one another in many ways, so the findings of psychological research conducted in one culture may not apply directly to another.
In order to fulfill its aspiration of explaining human thinking and behavior, psychology must address the huge diversity in people around the globe. Each individual’s behavior is shaped by a huge number of factors, including their genes, upbringing, and individual experiences.
At the same time, people are affected by a range of factors that are specific to the cultural group in which they developed and within which they live. Psychologists should always attempt to account for the ways in which culture affects thinking and behavior.
However, this has not always been the case. Psychology is a discipline that evolved within a very specific cultural context.
Psychology is predominantly a white, Euro-American enterprise: – (i) 64% of psychological researchers are from the US; (ii) in some texts, 90% of studies have US Participants; (iii) samples are predominantly white middle class.
Consequently, it has incorporated a particular worldview (that of the industrialized West) into the ways it tries to understand people. This can have consequences. For example:
We will be looking at how cultural bias can affect psychological theories and research studies and the sorts of things psychologists can do to avoid the worst effects of cultural bias.
An emic construct is one that is applied only to one cultural group, so they vary from place to place (differences between cultures).
An emic approach refers to the investigation of a culture from within the culture itself. This means that research of European society from a European perspective is emic, and African society by African researchers in Africa is also emic. An emic approach is more likely to have ecological validity as the findings are less likely to be distorted or caused by a mismatch between the cultures of the researchers and the culture being investigated.
Cultural bias can occur when a researcher assumes that an emic construct (behavior specific to a single culture) is actually etic (behavior universal to all cultures).
For example, emic constructs are likely to be ignored or misinterpreted as researchers from another culture may not be sensitive to local emics. Their own cultural ‘filters’ may prevent them from detecting them or appreciating their significance.
An etic construct is a theoretical idea that is assumed to apply in all cultural groups. Therefore, etic constructs are considered universal to all people and are factors that hold across all cultures (similarities between cultures).
Etic constructs assume that most human behavior is common to humans but that cultural factors influence the development or display of this behavior.
Cultural bias can occur when emics and etics get mistaken for each other.
Making the assumption that behaviors are universal across cultures can lead to imposed etics , where a construct from one culture is applied inappropriately to another. For example, although basic human emotional facial expressions are universal, there can be subtle cultural variations in these.
Bias can occur when emics and etics get mistaken for each other.
Ethnocentrism occurs when a researcher assumes that their own culturally specific practices or ideas are ‘natural’ or ‘right’.
The individual uses their own ethnic group to evaluate and make judgments about other individuals from other ethnic groups. Research that is ‘centered’ around one cultural group is called ‘ethnocentric.’
When other cultures are observed to differ from the researcher’s own, they may be regarded in a negative light, e.g., ‘primitive,’ ‘degenerate,’ ‘unsophisticated,’ ‘undeveloped,’ etc.
This becomes racism when other cultures are denigrated, or their traditions are regarded as irrelevant, etc.
The antidote to ethnocentrism is cultural relativism, which is an approach to treating each culture as unique and worthy of study.
Cultural relativism is the principle of regarding the beliefs, values, and practices of a culture from the viewpoint of that culture itself.
The principle is sometimes practiced to avoid cultural bias in research, as well as to avoid judging another culture by the standards of one’s own culture. For this reason, cultural relativism has been considered an attempt to avoid ethnocentrism.
Ainsworth’s strange situation for attachment.
The strange situation procedure is not appropriate for assessing children from non-US or UK populations as it is based on Western childrearing ideals (i.e., ethnocentric).
The original study only used American, middle-class, white, home-reared infants and mothers; therefore, the generalisability of the findings could be questioned, as well as whether this procedure would be valid for other cultures too.
Cultural differences in child-rearing styles make results liable to misinterpretation, e.g., German or Japanese samples.
Takashi (1990) aimed to see whether the strange situation is a valid procedure for cultures other than the original. Takashi found no children in the avoidant-insecure stage.
This could be explained in cultural terms as Japanese children are taught that such behavior is impolite, and they would be actively discouraged from displaying it. Also, because Japanese children experience much less separation, the SSC was more than mildly stressful.
An example of an etic approach that produces bias might be the imposition of IQ tests designed within one culture on another culture. If a test is designed to measure a European person’s understanding of what intelligence is , it may not be a valid measurement of the intelligence of people from other continents.
IQ tests developed in the West contain embedded assumptions about intelligence, but what counts as ‘intelligent’ behavior varies from culture to culture.
Non-Westerners may be disadvantaged by such tests – and then viewed as ‘inferior’ when they don’t perform as Westerners do.
Task: Try the Chittling IQ Test
Nobles (1976) argues that western psychology has been a tool of oppression and dominance. Cultural bias has also made it difficult for psychologists to separate the behavior they have observed from the context in which they observed it.
Equal opportunity legislation aims to rid psychology of cultural bias and racism, but we must be aware that merely swapping old, overt racism for new, more subtle forms of racism (Howitt and Owusu-Bempah, 1994).
The free will/determinism debate revolves around the extent to which our behavior is the result of forces over which we have no control or whether people are able to decide for themselves whether to act or behave in a certain way.
Free Will suggests that we all have a choice and can control and choose our own behavior. This approach is all about personal responsibility and plays a central role in Humanist Psychology.
By arguing that humans can make free choices, the free will approach is quite the opposite of the deterministic one. Psychologists who take the free will view suggest that determinism removes freedom and dignity and devalues human behavior.
To a lesser degree, Cognitive Psychology also supports the idea of free will and choice. In reality, although we do have free will, it is constrained by our circumstances and other people. For example, when you go shopping, your choices are constrained by how much money you have.
The determinist approach proposes that all behavior is determined and thus predictable. Some approaches in psychology see the source of this determinism as being outside the individual, a position known as environmental determinism.
Others see it from coming inside, i.e., in the form of unconscious motivation or genetic determinism – biological determinism.
• Environmental (External) Determinism : This is the idea that our behavior is caused by some sort of outside influence, e.g., parental influence.
Skinner (1971) argued that freedom is an illusion. We may think we have free will, but the probability of any behavior occurring is determined by past experiences.
Skinner claimed that free will was an illusion – we think we are free, but this is because we are not aware of how our behavior is determined by reinforcement.
• Biological (Internal) Determinism : Our biological systems, such as the nervous system, govern our behavior.
For example, a high IQ may be related to the IGF2R gene (Chorney et al. 1998).
• Psychic (Internal) Determinism : Freud believed childhood experiences and unconscious motivations governed behavior.
Freud thought that free will was an illusion because he felt that the causes of our behavior are unconscious and still predictable.
There are different levels of determinism.
Hard Determinism sees free will as an illusion and believes that every event and action has a cause.
Soft Determinism represents a middle ground. People do have a choice, but that choice is constrained by external factors, e.g., Being poor doesn’t make you steal, but it may make you more likely to take that route through desperation.
Essay Question : – Discuss free will & determinism in psychology (16 marks)
The central question is the extent to which our behavior is determined by our biology (nature) and the genes we inherit from our parents versus the influence of environmental factors (nurture) such as home school and friends.
Nature is the view that all our behavior is determined by our biology and our genes. This is not the same as the characteristics you are born with because these may have been determined by your prenatal environment.
In addition, some genetic characteristics only appear later in development as a result of the process of maturation. Supporters of the nature view have been called ‘nativists.’
Evolutionary explanations of human behavior exemplify the nature approach in psychology. The main assumption underlying this approach is that any particular behavior has evolved because of its survival value.
E.g., Bowlby suggested that attachment behaviors are displayed because they ensure the survival of an infant and the perpetuation of the parents’ genes. This survival value is further increased because attachment has implications for later relationship formation, which will ultimately promote successful reproduction.
Evolutionary psychologists assume that behavior is a product of natural selection. Interpersonal attraction can, for example, be explained as a consequence of sexual selection.
Men and women select partners who enhance their productive success, judging this in terms of traits that ‘advertise’ reproductive fitness, such as signs of healthiness (white teeth) or resources.
Physiological psychology is also based on the assumption that behavior can be explained in terms of genetically programmed systems.
Nurture is the opposite view that all behavior is learned and influenced by external factors such as the environment etc. Supports of the nurture view are ‘empiricists’ holding the view that all knowledge is gained through experience.
The behaviorist approach is the clearest example of the nurture position in psychology, which assumes that all behavior is learned through the environment. The best-known example is the social learning explanation of aggression using the Bobo doll.
SLT proposes that much of what we learn is through observation and vicarious reinforcement. E.g., Bandura demonstrated this in his Bobo doll experiments. He found that children who watched an adult role model being rewarded for aggression toward an inflatable doll tended to imitate that behavior when later on their own with a Bobo doll.
This supports the idea that personality is determined by nurture rather than nature. This provides us with a model of how to behave. However, such behavior becomes part of an individual’s behavioral repertoire through direct reinforcement – when behavior is imitated, it receives direct reinforcement (or not).
Another assumption of the nurture approach is that there is a double bind hypothesis that explains schizophrenia. They suggest that schizophrenia develops because children receive contradictory messages from their parents.
Instead of defending extreme nature or nurture views , most psychological researchers are now interested in investigating the ways in which nature and nurture interact. It is limiting to describe behavior solely in terms of either nature or nurture and attempts to do this underestimate the complexity of human behavior.
For example, in psychopathology, this means that both a genetic predisposition and an appropriate environmental trigger are required for a mental disorder to develop. Therefore, it makes more sense to say that the difference between two people’s behavior is mostly due to hereditary factors or mostly due to environmental factors.
The Diathesis-stress model of Schizophrenia suggests that although people may inherit a predisposition to Schizophrenia, some sort of environmental stressor is required in order to develop the disease.
This explains why Schizophrenia happens in the late teens or early adulthood, times of considerable upheaval and stress in people’s lives, e.g., leaving home, starting work, forging new relationships, etc.
Essay Question : – Describe & evaluate the nature-nurture debate in psychology (16 marks)
Holism is often referred to as Gestalt psychology . It argues that behavior cannot be understood in terms of the components that make them up. This is commonly described as ‘the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.’
Psychologists study the whole person to gain an understanding of all the factors that might influence behavior. Holism uses several levels of explanation, including biological, environmental, and social factors.
Holistic approaches include Humanism, Social, and Gestalt psychology and make use of the case study method. Jahoda’s six elements of Optimal Living are an example of a holistic approach to defining abnormality.
Imagine you were asked to make a cake .
If I simply told you that you needed 3 eggs, 75 grams of sugar, and 75 grams of self-raising. Would that be enough information for you to make a sponge cake? What else would you need to know?
In this way, a cake is more than the sum of its parts. Simply putting all the ingredients into a tin and sticking them in the oven would not result in a sponge cake!
Reductionism is the belief that human behavior can be explained by breaking it down into smaller component parts. Reductionists say that the best way to understand why we behave as we do is to look closely at the very simplest parts that make up our systems and use the simplest explanations to understand how they work.
In psychology, the term is most appropriately applied to biological explanations (e.g., genetics, neurotransmitters, hormones) of complex human behaviors such as schizophrenia, gender, and aggression.
Such reductionist explanations can be legitimately criticized as ignoring psychological, social, and cultural factors.
Cognitive psychology, with its use of the computer analogy, reduces behavior to the level of a machine, mechanistic reductionism.
Behaviorist psychology sees behavior in terms of simple stimulus/response relationships. And finally, the psychodynamic perspective reduces behavior to unconscious motivation and early childhood experiences.
Reductionism in psychology is useful, as sometimes the simplest explanation is the best. Physiological approaches do tend to be reductionist, but as long as we bare these limitations in mind.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to take a completely holistic approach to psychology, as human behavior is so complex. Case studies come closest to taking a holistic approach.
Explaining behavior in a reductionist manner is seen as a low-level explanation, whereas more holistic explanations are high-level explanations.
Essay Question : – Discuss holism and reductionism in psychology (16 marks)
Nomothetic approach.
The Nomothetic approach looks at how our behaviors are similar to each other as human beings. The term “nomothetic” comes from the Greek word “nomos,” meaning “law.”
Psychologists who adopt this approach are mainly concerned with studying what we share with others. That is to say, in establishing laws or generalizations. Tend to use quantitative methods.
The psychometric approach to the study of personality compares individuals in terms of traits or dimensions common to everyone. This is a nomothetic approach, and two examples are Hans Eysenck’s type and Raymond Cattell’s 16PF trait theories.
The details of their work need not concern us here. Suffice it to say they both assume that there are a small number of traits that account for the basic structure of all personalities and that individual differences can be measured along these dimensions.
The Idiographic or individual differences approach looks at how our behaviors are different from each other. The term “idiographic” comes from the Greek word “idios” meaning “own” or “private.” Psychologists interested in this aspect of experience want to discover what makes each of us unique. Tend to use qualitative methods.
At the other extreme, Gordon Allport found over 18,000 separate terms describing personal characteristics. Whilst some of these are common traits (that could be investigated nomothetically), the majority, in Allport’s view, referred to more or less unique dispositions based on life experiences peculiar to ourselves.
He argues that they cannot be effectively studied using standardized tests. What is needed is a way of investigating them ideographically.
Carl Rogers, a Humanist psychologist, has developed a method of doing this, a procedure called the “Q-sort.” First, the subject is given a large set of cards with a self-evaluative statement written on each one. For example, “I am friendly” or “I am ambitious,” etc.
The subject is then asked to sort the cards into piles. One pile contains statements that are “most like me,” one statement that is “least like me,” and one or more piles for statements that are in-between.
In a Q-sort, the number of cards can be varied, as can the number of piles and the type of question (e.g., How I am now? How I used to be? How my partner sees me? How I would like to be?) So there are a potentially infinite number of variations.
That, of course, is exactly as it should be for an idiographic psychologist because, in his/her view, there are ultimately as many different personalities as there are people.
From these examples, we can see that the difference between a nomothetic and an idiographic approach is not just a question of what the psychologist wants to discover but also of the methods used.
Experiments, correlation, psychometric testing, and other quantitative methods are favored from a nomothetic point of view. Case studies, informal interviews, unstructured observation, and other qualitative methods are idiographic.
There are also broad differences between theoretical perspectives. Behaviorist, cognitive and biological psychologists tend to focus on discovering laws or establishing generalizations: – Nomothetic. The humanists are interested in the individual: – Idiographic.
As always, it is best to take a combined approach. Millon & Davis (1996) suggest research should start with a nomothetic approach and once general ‘laws’ have been established, research can then move to a more idiographic approach. Thus, getting the best of both worlds!
Essay Question : – Discuss idiographic and nomothetic approaches to psychological investigation (16 marks)
There has been an assumption over the years by many psychologists that provided they follow the BPS guidelines when using human participants and that all leave in a similar state of mind to how they turned up, not having been deceived or humiliated, given a debrief, and not having had their confidentiality breached, that there are no ethical concerns with their research.
But consider the following examples :
a) Caughy et al. 1994 found that middle-class children put in daycare at an early age generally score less on cognitive tests than children from similar families reared in the home.
Assuming all guidelines were followed, neither the parents nor the children that participated would have been unduly affected by this research. Nobody would have been deceived, consent would have been obtained, and no harm would have been caused.
However, think of the wider implications of this study when the results are published, particularly for parents of middle-class infants who are considering placing their young charges in daycare or those who recently have!
b) IQ tests administered to black Americans show that they typically score 15 points below the average white score.
When black Americans are given these tests, they presumably complete them willingly and are in no way harmed as individuals. However, when published, findings of this sort seek to reinforce racial stereotypes and are used to discriminate against the black population in the job market, etc.
Sieber & Stanley (1988) (the main names for Socially Sensitive Research (SSR) outline 4 groups that may be affected by psychological research: It is the first group of people that we are most concerned with!
1) Members of the social group being studied, such as racial or ethnic group. For example, early research on IQ was used to discriminate against US Blacks.
2) Friends and relatives of those taking part in the study, particularly in case studies, where individuals may become famous or infamous. Cases that spring to mind would include Genie’s mother.
3) The research team. There are examples of researchers being intimidated because of the line of research they are in.
4) The institution in which the research is conducted.
Sieber & Stanley (1988) also suggest there are 4 main ethical concerns when conducting SSR:
Sieber and Stanley suggest the following ethical guidelines for carrying out SSR. There is some overlap between these and research on human participants in general.
Privacy : This refers to people rather than data. Asking people questions of a personal nature (e.g., about sexuality) could offend.
Confidentiality: This refers to data. Information (e.g., about H.I.V. status) leaked to others may affect the participant’s life.
Sound & valid methodology : This is even more vital when the research topic is socially sensitive. Academics are able to detect flaws in methods, but the lay public and the media often don’t. When research findings are publicized, people are likely to take them as fact, and policies may be based on them. Examples are Bowlby’s maternal deprivation studies and intelligence testing.
Deception : Causing the wider public to believe something, which isn’t true by the findings, you report (e.g., that parents are totally responsible for how their children turn out).
Informed consent : Participants should be made aware of how taking part in the research may affect them.
Justice & equitable treatment : Examples of unjust treatment are (i) publicizing an idea, which creates a prejudice against a group, & (ii) withholding a treatment, which you believe is beneficial, from some participants so that you can use them as controls. E.g., The Tuskergee Study which withheld treatment for STIs from black men to investigate the effects of syphilis on the body.
Scientific freedom : Science should not be censored, but there should be some monitoring of sensitive research. The researcher should weigh their responsibilities against their rights to do the research.
Ownership of data : When research findings could be used to make social policies, which affect people’s lives, should they be publicly accessible? Sometimes, a party commissions research with their own interests in mind (e.g., an industry, an advertising agency, a political party, or the military).
Some people argue that scientists should be compelled to disclose their results so that other scientists can re-analyze them. If this had happened in Burt’s day, there might not have been such widespread belief in the genetic transmission of intelligence. George Miller (Miller’s Magic 7) famously argued that we should give psychology away.
The values of social scientists : Psychologists can be divided into two main groups: those who advocate a humanistic approach (individuals are important and worthy of study, quality of life is important, intuition is useful) and those advocating a scientific approach (rigorous methodology, objective data).
The researcher’s values may conflict with those of the participant/institution. For example, if someone with a scientific approach was evaluating a counseling technique based on a humanistic approach, they would judge it on criteria that those giving & receiving the therapy may not consider important.
Cost/benefit analysis : If the costs outweigh the potential/actual benefits, it is unethical. However, it is difficult to assess costs & benefits accurately & the participants themselves rarely benefit from research.
Sieber & Stanley advise: Researchers should not avoid researching socially sensitive issues. Scientists have a responsibility to society to find useful knowledge.
A-Level Psychology Attachment
Psychology Memory Revision Notes
Social Influence Revision Notes
Psychopathology Revision Notes
Psychology Approaches Revision for A-level
Research Methods: Definition, Types, & Examples
If you're revising for AQA A Level psychology, there is one thing you really need to know if you want to do well in this subject;
You cannot score an A* grade for AQA psychology A level unless you create and memorise essay answers.
Why is this?
The reason for this is a significant part of AQA A Level psychology questions are essay based and even the smaller questions tend to be ones that are stripped down versions of bigger essays in some way. The essay questions you can be asked in the exams are worth up to 16 marks (6 for theory, 10 for evaluation) and represent a huge chunk of your possible score.
Also, there is simply far too much to remember and a significant part of the exams requires you to be able to recall a deeper level of understanding to score in the top bands.
This means basically you need to create and memorise A* model essay answers for psychology . This has been the main way students have been doing revision for this subject for years and its worked exceptionally well.
In this post we are going to look at each topic for A-level psychology and paper 1 and identify all the essay questions that can come up and also provide you with example answers that will score you a Grade A.
The possible essay questions for AQA A level Psychology Social Influence includes at least 10 possible exam questions. These are all covered in our downloadable pack below with model essay answers:
The possible essay questions for AQA A level Psychology Memory include at least 6 possible model answers you need to memorise. These are all covered with A* grade example answers below:
The possible essay questions for AQA A level Psychology Attachment include at least 10 possible example answers to memorise. These are all included in our Attachment booklet below with A* grade model example answers:
The possible psychology example answers you need to for psychopathology include at least 10 possible model essays. You can download our example answers which will score you in the top banding below:
If you are wondering how much marks you need to score to get into the top band, we've covered this in our 2024 A level psychology grade boundaries .
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Last updated 7 Apr 2024
Download this comprehensive list of studies that you can use throughout your AQA A-Level Psychology course, and to focus your exam revision.
For each topic on papers 1, 2, and 3, we list studies that are compulsory and named on the specification and point you towards additional studies that may be useful for your evaluation.
Download your AQA A Level Psychology Research Studies List
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This topic is included in AS-level Paper 1 and A-level Paper 1 for AQA Psychology.
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15. Aggression. 16. Forensic Psychology. 17. Addiction. A-Level Psychology past paper questions by topic for AQA. Also offering past papers and videos for Edexcel and OCR.
In the AQA A Level Psychology course, you will learn a variety of topics from 'Social Influence', to 'Schizophrenia'. It will include other topics from Cognitive Psychology, Biopsychology and Psychology in the wider world (e.g., through 'Forensic Psychology,' 'Gender' and 'Addiction'.
The seven Issues & Debates Questions are: 1. Discuss gender bias in psychology. (16 marks) 2. Discuss cultural bias in psychology. (16 marks) 3. Discuss free will and determinism in psychology. (16 marks) 4. Describe and evaluate the nature-nurture debate in psychology. (16 marks)
January 12, 2024. Reviewed by. Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc. Revision guide for AQA Psychology AS and A-Level topics, including straightforward study notes and summaries of the relevant theories and studies, past papers, and mark schemes with example answers. Fully updated for the 2023/24 academic year.
In the June 2017 A Level Psychology exams, essays were worth 51% of the overall grade. The average score for all of the essays was approximately 50%; this means that students were scoring, on average, 8 out of 16 on every essay question.
AQA A-Level Psychology (7182) and AS-Level Psychology (7181) past exam papers and marking schemes. The past papers are free to download for you to use as practice for your exams. Paper 1: Introductory Topics. Paper 2: Psychology in Context. Paper 3: Issues and Options.
Identify the subject of the essay and define the key terms. Highlight the major issues which "lie behind" the question. Let the reader know how you will focus your essay by identifying the main themes to be discussed. "Signpost" the essay's key argument, (and, if possible, how. this argument is structured).
This bundle contains three packs of suggested essay questions for the new Psychology specification: AQA A Level Psychology. Despite many students being able to recite key studies and theories by Milgram, Bowlby or Zimbardo, without plenty of practice putting these theories into essays and linking up ideas, they often fail to reach the top marks ...
AQA A-Level Psychology - Social Influence A* Exam Practice Exemplar Essays. AQA Psychology A-level: Attachment, Memory, Psychopathology and Social Influence. From specification 7181, 7182 - Introductory topics in Psychology (I achieved an A* in Psychology A-level in 2018, across all three papers. I prioritised revision on evaluation, necessary ...
Outline and evaluate reductionist explanations in psychology (8 marks). Describe what is meant by reductionism. level, social-cultural level. reductionism. environmental. A strength of reductionism is that it forms the basis of experimental research. This is shown through the. experiments at simple levels. 2.
Question paper (Modified A4 18pt) (A-level): Paper 1 Introductory topics in psychology - June 2022. Published 14 Jul 2023 | PDF | 509 KB. Question paper (Modified A3 36pt) (A-level): Paper 2 Psychology in context - June 2022. Published 14 Jul 2023 | PDF | 291 KB.
A Level Psychology Essay Questions. This bundle contains three packs of suggested essay questions for the new Psychology specification: AQA A Level Psychology. Despite many students being able to recite key studies and theories by Milgram, Bowlby or Zimbardo, without plenty of practice putting these theories into essays and linking up ideas ...
AO1. AO3. An assumption of the cognitive approach is that internal mental processes can be studied scientifically, which contrasts the beliefs of the behaviourist approach. As a result, this approach studies areas of psychology, like memory that were previously neglected by the behaviourist approach. A way of studying internal processes is ...
Example Answers for Addiction: A Level Psychology, Paper 3, June 2019 (AQA) Exam Support. Here is a set of example answers to the AQA A Level Psychology questions in the three 2019 papers. You will need to be logged into your free mytutor2u account to view these answers.
Circadian rhythms are a type of biological rhythm subject to a. 24-hr cycle which regulates a number of body processes e.g. the sleep/wake cycle and changes in body temperature. Then give examples of what research has shown us about the sleep/wake cycle e.g. Siffre's cave study (1962), Aschoff & Weaver (1976), Folkard et al (1985).
AQA A-Level Psychology Past Papers are past papers that have been released by the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA) for the A-Level Psychology course. These papers are designed to help students prepare for their A-Level Psychology exams by providing them with an understanding of the types of questions that may be asked, as well as ...
Cognitive Approach Mark Scheme. Cognitive Approach Essays. Biological Approach. Biological Approach Exam Questions. Biological Approach Mark Schemes. Biological Approach Essays. Psychodynamic Approach. Psychodynamic Approach Exam Questions. Psychodynamic Approach Mark Schemes.
AQA A Level Psychology 16m Essay Plans. This is the 16 mark essay questions that have appeared in the AQA A Level Psychology AS and A2 textbooks, with A01 and A03 clearly described, including complete references to Issues and Debates and Approaches throughout. This is perfect for a student needing essay practice for their revision.
Team Leader Examiner (A-Level Psychology) B.A. (Hons), Social Sciences, Msc, Psychology. ... Essay Question: - Describe & evaluate the nature-nurture debate in psychology (16 marks) Reductionism & Holism Holism AO1. Holism is often referred to as Gestalt psychology. It argues that behavior cannot be understood in terms of the components that ...
The possible essay questions for AQA A level Psychology Memory include at least 6 possible model answers you need to memorise. These are all covered with A* grade example answers below: Download A* Model Essays Pack. The multi-store model of memory: sensory register, short-term memory and long-term memory including features of each store ...
AQA Psychology A-level Topic 3: Attachment Essay Plans https: bit.ly pmt-cc https: bit.ly pmt-cc https:bit.lypmt-edu This work by PMT Education is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Question : Discuss research into the role of the father (16 marks) AO1 Explain the research into the role of the father : Grossman (2002) quality of father attachment ...
Download this comprehensive list of studies that you can use throughout your AQA A-Level Psychology course, and to focus your exam revision. For each topic on papers 1, 2, and 3, we list studies that are compulsory and named on the specification and point you towards additional studies that may be useful for your evaluation. Download your AQA A ...
Videos: Classical Conditioning - Phobias. Psychological Disorders. OCD and Anxiety Disorders. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) Simply Explained. Systematic Desensitisation. Depressive and Bipolar Disorders. Advertisement. Summary notes, videos, factsheets and past exam questions for AQA Psychology AS and A-level Psychopathology topic.
Topic 1: Social Influence. Outline and evaluate Milgram's research on obedience (16 marks). Firstly describe obedience which is a form of social influence whereby a direct order is followed by an individual. Usually the person issuing the order has authority and the power to punish. The describe Milgram's study of 1963.