A Level Psychology

Research Methods: Foundations

The scientific toolkit – and a strand that runs through every paper. Work explores laboratory, field and natural experiments, aims and hypotheses, independent, dependent and controlled variables, experimental designs and sampling techniques, and the ethical guidelines that govern research with human participants.

The Biological Approach

Behaviour as biology. Work explores the assumptions of the biological approach through three core studies: Dement and Kleitman on sleep and dreaming, Schachter and Singer on the two factors in emotion, and Canli et al. on brain scanning and emotional memory.

The Cognitive Approach

The mind as an information processor. Work explores the cognitive approach through Andrade’s study of doodling and attention, Baron-Cohen et al.’s eyes test and theory of mind, and Laney et al. on false memory – alongside the problem of studying mental processes that cannot be observed directly.

Research Methods: Beyond the Experiment

Other ways of gathering evidence. Work explores questionnaires and interviews, observation types from participant and non-participant to structured and covert, case studies and correlations, the strengths and weaknesses of each, and how reliability and validity are judged.

The Learning Approach

How experience shapes behaviour. Work explores classical and operant conditioning and social learning through Bandura et al. on the transmission of aggression, Saavedra and Silverman on the treatment of a button phobia, and Pepperberg’s work on concept learning in an African grey parrot.

The Social Approach

The influence of other people. Work explores Milgram’s obedience research, Piliavin et al.’s subway field study of bystander helping, and Perry et al. on oxytocin, personal space and interpersonal distance – and what each reveals about the power of the situation.

Issues & Debates

The questions beneath the studies. Work explores the application of psychology to everyday life, individual and situational explanations, nature and nurture, cultural differences, and the ethics of using children and animals in research – applied back across all twelve core studies.

Research Methods: Data & Planning

Turning findings into evidence. Work explores quantitative and qualitative data, measures of central tendency and spread, tables and graphs and their interpretation, and the planning and justifying of an original investigation – the skill at the heart of Paper 2.

Consumer: The Physical Environment

Consumer Psychology begins with the shop itself. Work explores retail store architecture and interior design, store exteriors and layout types, the effects of sound and smell in retail and leisure environments, and retail atmospherics such as crowding, colour and lighting.

Consumer: The Psychological Environment

The invisible architecture of choice. Work explores environmental influences on consumers such as menu design and item position, sound and wayfinding, behavioural and leisure environments including gambling and casino design, and the role of personal space in consumer behaviour.

Consumer: Decision Making

How choices are actually made. Work explores models and strategies of consumer decision making, including utility theory and compensatory and non-compensatory strategies, the heuristics shoppers rely on – availability, representativeness and anchoring – and the systematic mistakes those shortcuts produce.

Consumer: The Product

From shelf to basket. Work explores packaging and positioning, the sales techniques used to persuade at the point of purchase, and the psychology of buying – including product placement, product demonstration and how children come to recognise brands.

Consumer: Advertising

The option closes with persuasion itself. Work explores types of advertising media and techniques including celebrity and product endorsement, models of advertising-consumer interaction such as the hierarchy of effects, and brand awareness, brand loyalty and how the effectiveness of advertising is measured.

Health: The Patient-Practitioner Relationship

Health Psychology begins in the surgery. Work explores practitioner and patient interpersonal skills, verbal and non-verbal communication in the consultation, differing consulting and diagnostic styles, and the misuse of health services.

Health: Adherence to Medical Advice

Why treatment is not always followed. Work explores the reasons patients fail to adhere to medical advice, the subjective, physiological and behavioural ways adherence is measured, and the behavioural, cognitive and practical strategies used to improve it.

Health: Pain

Understanding what hurts. Work explores the types and theories of pain, including specificity theory, gate control theory and phantom limb pain, the measurement of pain through self-report, psychometric and observational tools – including measures designed for children – and the medical, psychological and alternative techniques used to manage it.

Health: Stress

The body under pressure. Work explores sources of stress from the physiology of the stress response to work, life events and daily hassles, physiological and self-report measures of stress, and management techniques ranging from biochemical treatments to biofeedback, imagery and stress inoculation training.

Health: Health Promotion

Changing behaviour at scale. Work explores strategies for promoting health, including fear arousal and the provision of information, health promotion programmes in schools, worksites and communities, and the individual factors behind health beliefs – the health belief model, the theory of planned behaviour, self-efficacy and unrealistic optimism.

Issues, Debates & Methods Across Both Options

Bringing the two options back together. Work revisits the issues and debates through consumer and health contexts – application to everyday life, individual and situational explanations, nature and nurture, reductionism and holism, determinism and free will, cultural differences and the use of children and animals – alongside the research methods needed to design, evaluate and improve applied studies.

Revision & Exams

The final stretch. Revision is active: topics reviewed, command words unpicked, evaluations refined, exam-style questions practised, and research methods applied across every topic – turning two years of Psychology into confident, exam-ready understanding.