AQA A-Level Psychology: Approaches in Psychology (7182)

This guide covers Approaches in Psychology, the first sub-topic of Paper 2 Psychology in Context for AQA A-Level Psychology (7182), first teaching September 2015. Where Paper 1 Introductory Topics covers four specific content areas (social influence, memory, attachment, clinical psychology and mental health), Approaches in Psychology instead sets out the broad theoretical lenses that later content – including Paper 1’s own topics – can be examined through.

Where this fits in 7182

Paper 2 assesses knowledge, application, analysis, interpretation and evaluation of specified content, including research methods and mathematical skills, and Approaches in Psychology is the sub-topic that gives students the six theoretical frameworks the rest of the course draws on. AS (7181) and A-level (7182) are separate linear qualifications, and their second papers are not the same: the A-level Paper 2 (2 hours, 96 marks) assesses approaches in psychology, biopsychology and research methods, whereas the AS Paper 2 (1 hour 30 minutes, 72 marks) assesses approaches in psychology (learning, cognitive and biological approaches only, with a shorter biopsychology section), clinical psychology and mental health, and research methods.

Syllabus coverage

AQA A-LEVEL PSYCHOLOGY (7182) — 4.2.1 APPROACHES IN PSYCHOLOGY

Students must know the basic assumptions of six approaches:

• Learning approaches (i): the behaviourist approach – including classical conditioning and Pavlov’s research, operant conditioning, types of reinforcement, and Skinner’s research.
• Learning approaches (ii): social learning theory – including imitation, identification, vicarious reinforcement, the role of mediational processes, and Bandura’s research.
• The cognitive approach – the study of internal mental processes, the role of schema, and the use of models to explain and make inferences about mental processes.
• The biological approach – the genetic basis of behaviour (genotype, phenotype and evolution), the influence of biological structures and neurochemistry on behaviour, and cognitive neuroscience.
• The psychodynamic approach – the role of the unconscious, the structure of personality (Id, Ego and Superego), defence mechanisms including repression, denial and displacement, and psychosexual stages.
• Humanistic Psychology – free will, self-actualisation and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, congruence, and the role of conditions of worth.
• Comparison of approaches – students are also expected to be able to compare the six approaches against each other, not just describe each in isolation.

Building a mental map of the six approaches

Because the specification’s final bullet point is explicitly “comparison of approaches,” revision should not stop at being able to describe each approach separately. A useful structure for comparison is to ask, for each approach, three questions: what does it say drives behaviour (learning history, mental processes, biology, unconscious conflict, or free will and self-actualisation)? Is it deterministic or does it allow free will (behaviourist and biological approaches lean deterministic; humanistic psychology explicitly rejects determinism in favour of free will)? And what kind of evidence does it typically rely on (behaviourist and biological approaches favour controlled, scientific methods; the psychodynamic and humanistic approaches rely more heavily on case studies and qualitative, less directly testable evidence)?

Connecting Approaches to the rest of the course

Because this sub-topic sits within Psychology in Context alongside Biopsychology and Research Methods, and because Paper 1’s own topics (Social Influence, Memory, Attachment) can themselves be explained through more than one approach, revising Approaches in isolation from the rest of the specification misses genuine connections. Attachment, for example, has historically been explained through learning theory (attachment as a product of feeding and conditioning) as well as through other frameworks – being able to name which approach underlies a given explanation you have studied elsewhere in the course is a skill this sub-topic is specifically designed to support.

How to approach it

Because six approaches is a lot to hold in working memory simultaneously, build a comparison table early in revision – one row per approach, columns for “basic assumption,” “key researcher(s) and study,” “view on free will vs determinism,” and “typical evidence type” – rather than revising each approach as an unconnected block of notes. For the two learning approaches specifically (behaviourist and social learning theory), be precise about what distinguishes them: the behaviourist approach explains learning through direct reinforcement of an individual’s own behaviour, while social learning theory explains learning through observing and imitating others, mediated by cognitive processes the purely behaviourist account does not include – conflating the two loses marks on questions that specifically test this distinction.

Because AQA’s evaluation-focused mark schemes reward genuine comparison, practise writing short paragraphs that name two approaches and state one specific point of similarity and one specific point of difference between them (for example, biological and psychodynamic approaches both look for causes of behaviour that lie outside a person’s immediate conscious control, but locate that cause very differently – genetics and neurochemistry versus unconscious conflict), rather than only ever writing about one approach at a time.

Self-test

1. Name the two learning approaches, and state one thing that distinguishes social learning theory from the behaviourist approach.
2. What three concepts define the structure of personality in the psychodynamic approach?
3. Name two concepts central to Humanistic Psychology.
4. Which approaches tend to be more deterministic, and which approach explicitly emphasises free will?
5. Why does the specification’s inclusion of “comparison of approaches” matter for how you should revise this sub-topic?

Answers: 1. Behaviourist and social learning theory. Social learning theory involves learning through observing and imitating others (mediated by cognitive processes such as attention and retention), whereas the behaviourist approach explains learning purely through an individual’s own direct reinforcement history. 2. Id, Ego and Superego. 3. Any two of: free will, self-actualisation (and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs), congruence, conditions of worth. 4. The behaviourist and biological approaches tend to be more deterministic; Humanistic Psychology explicitly emphasises free will. 5. Because the specification does not just ask students to describe each approach individually – it expects genuine comparison, so revision built around a comparison table (assumptions, key research, determinism vs free will, evidence type) prepares for exactly the kind of question the specification sets, rather than only single-approach description.

Official syllabus

AQA A-Level Psychology (7182) specification, section 4.2.1 Approaches in Psychology (3.2.1 in the AS content) – aqa.org.uk, verified 2026-09-05.