A Level Psychology: Approaches, Issues and Debates — Revision Notes

Condensed for the final weeks. For the full explanation, use the Approaches, Issues and Debates study guide.

The five approaches

Approach	Core assumption	Method	Determinism
Behaviourist	Behaviour is learnt from the environment	Lab experiments, animals	Environmental
Cognitive	Mental processes can be studied scientifically, by inference	Lab experiments, models	Soft
Biological	Behaviour has a physiological basis	Scans, twin studies	Biological
Psychodynamic	The unconscious drives behaviour	Case studies	Psychic
Humanistic	People have free will	Qualitative interviews	Rejects determinism

Classical conditioning — learning by association: NS + UCS → UCR, until CS → CR. Operant conditioning — learning by consequences.

Negative reinforcement is not punishment. Both involve something unpleasant, but negative reinforcement removes it and therefore increases the behaviour; punishment adds it and decreases the behaviour. This distinction is examined constantly.

Social learning theory adds four mediational processes between stimulus and response — attention, retention, motor reproduction, motivation — plus vicarious reinforcement, where seeing a model rewarded is enough.

Psychodynamic: id (pleasure principle), ego (reality principle), superego (morality principle); psychosexual stages with fixation; defence mechanisms.

Humanistic: Maslow’s hierarchy culminating in self-actualisation; Rogers’s incongruence between self-concept and ideal self, caused by conditions of worth, treated with unconditional positive regard.

Free will and determinism

Position	Claim
Free will	We choose our own behaviour — humanistic
Hard determinism	All behaviour is caused; free will is an illusion
Soft determinism	Behaviour is caused but people can exercise conscious choice within those constraints — cognitive

Types of determinism: biological (genes, neurochemistry), environmental (conditioning), psychic (unconscious conflict).

The practical stake is real, not abstract. Determinism makes psychology scientific, since science assumes causation and prediction — but it undermines legal responsibility, because a person who could not have acted otherwise is hard to blame. Free will fits our subjective experience and legal systems, but resists scientific testing.

Nature and nurture

The modern position is the interactionist one: the question is not which, but how they interact. Two concepts do the work:

• Diathesis–stress — a genetic vulnerability (diathesis) is expressed only when triggered by an environmental stressor. It explains why MZ twin concordance for schizophrenia is high but far below 100%.
• Epigenetics — environmental factors switch genes on and off without altering the DNA sequence, and those changes can be inherited.

Heritability estimates apply to populations, not individuals. Saying “IQ is 50% genetic in this person” is a misreading.

Reductionism and holism

Levels of explanation, from lowest to highest: biological → psychological → social/cultural.

• Biological reductionism — explaining behaviour by genes and neurochemistry.
• Environmental reductionism — explaining behaviour by stimulus–response links.
• Holism — behaviour can only be understood as a whole (humanistic, Gestalt).

Reductionism is scientific and produces testable hypotheses and effective treatments — but risks explaining away meaning. Holism is more complete but harder to test and offers less practical guidance.

Idiographic and nomothetic

Idiographic — the individual case in depth, qualitative, high validity, poor generalisability (psychodynamic case studies, humanistic). Nomothetic — general laws from large samples, quantitative, scientific, but loses the individual (behaviourist, biological, cognitive).

Most modern research combines them: nomothetic findings, illustrated and enriched by idiographic detail.

Gender and culture bias

Bias	Meaning
Alpha bias	Exaggerates differences between groups
Beta bias	Minimises or ignores differences
Androcentrism	Male behaviour treated as the norm
Ethnocentrism	Judging other cultures by one’s own standards
Cultural relativism	Behaviour can only be judged within its own cultural context

The classic example is Ainsworth’s Strange Situation: an imposed etic — a measure developed in the US and applied elsewhere as though universal — which classifies higher rates of German infants as insecure-avoidant when the behaviour reflects a culture that values early independence.

Ethical implications and socially sensitive research

Beyond participant protection, consider how findings will be used. Research on race and IQ, or on the genetic basis of criminality, may be scientifically defensible yet socially damaging. The debate is not whether such research is ethical to conduct but who funds it, how it is reported, and what policy it invites.

Exam traps

• Confusing negative reinforcement with punishment.
• Saying the cognitive approach observes mental processes — it infers them.
• Treating nature–nurture as a binary rather than an interaction.
• Applying heritability estimates to individuals.
• Confusing alpha with beta bias.
• Describing a debate without applying it to a specific approach or study, which is where the marks are.

Self-test

1. Distinguish negative reinforcement from punishment.
2. What is soft determinism and which approach holds it?
3. Explain the diathesis–stress model and what it explains about twin studies.
4. Distinguish alpha from beta bias.
5. Why is the Strange Situation described as an imposed etic?

Answers: 1. Negative reinforcement removes an unpleasant stimulus and increases the behaviour; punishment adds an unpleasant stimulus and decreases it. 2. The view that behaviour is caused but people can still exercise conscious choice within those constraints; the cognitive approach. 3. A genetic vulnerability is expressed only when triggered by an environmental stressor; it explains why MZ concordance rates for disorders such as schizophrenia are elevated but well below 100%. 4. Alpha bias exaggerates differences between groups; beta bias minimises or ignores them. 5. It was developed within one culture and applied to others as though universal, so behaviours reflecting different child-rearing values are misclassified as insecure attachment.