AQA A-level Psychology (7182): Paper 3 – Addiction — Revision Notes

For full explanations and worked paragraphs, read the Addiction study guide first.

These notes follow the AQA AS and A-level Psychology (7181, 7182) specification, Version 1.4 (1 September 2025), for teaching from September 2025. They cover section 4.3.10 Addiction, part of Option 3. Addiction is assessed in Paper 3: Issues and Options in Psychology, Section D (24 marks, with multiple choice, short answer and extended writing). Paper 3 is 2 hours, 96 marks and 33.3% of A-level. Paper 3 assesses the compulsory Issues and debates in Psychology content and optional content: one from option 1, one from option 2 and one from option 3.

Keep the 7182 subject hub and the 7182 topic checklist open while you revise, and finish with the Addiction practice questions.

What the specification lists

1. Describing addiction: physical and psychological dependence, tolerance and withdrawal syndrome.
2. Risk factors: genetic vulnerability, personality and social influences.
3. Nicotine addiction: brain neurochemistry, including dopamine; learning theory, including cue reactivity.
4. Gambling addiction: learning theory, including partial and variable reinforcement; cognitive theory, including cognitive bias.
5. Reducing addiction: drug therapy; behavioural interventions, including aversion therapy and covert sensitisation; cognitive behaviour therapy.
6. The application of Prochaska’s six-stage model of behaviour change.

Key terms

Term	Definition
Physical dependence	The body has adapted to a substance, so stopping causes physical withdrawal symptoms
Psychological dependence	A compulsion to repeat the behaviour for pleasure or relief, shown by craving
Tolerance	Needing more of the substance or behaviour to get the same effect
Withdrawal syndrome	Unpleasant symptoms (irritability, anxiety, craving, poor concentration) when use stops or falls
Genetic vulnerability	An inherited predisposition that raises the risk of addiction
Sensation seeking	A personality trait involving a drive for new and intense experiences
Mesolimbic pathway	Dopamine reward pathway from the ventral tegmental area to the nucleus accumbens
Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors	Receptors that nicotine binds to, triggering dopamine release
Secondary reinforcer	A cue that becomes rewarding through association with a primary reinforcer
Cue reactivity	Craving and arousal triggered by cues previously paired with the drug
Partial reinforcement	Only some responses are rewarded
Variable ratio schedule	Rewards come after an unpredictable number of responses
Cognitive bias	A systematic distortion in thinking, such as the illusion of control or the gambler’s fallacy
Agonist / antagonist	A drug that activates / blocks a receptor
Aversion therapy	Pairing the addictive behaviour with an unpleasant stimulus
Covert sensitisation	Pairing the behaviour with an imagined unpleasant consequence
Functional analysis	The first stage of CBT: identifying when and why the behaviour occurs

Studies and theories at a glance

Who	What	Finding	One evaluation point
Vink, Willemsen and Boomsma (2005)	1,572 Dutch twin pairs	Genes explained 44% of smoking initiation and 75% of nicotine dependence	Heritability is a population estimate, not a measure for one person
Eysenck; Zuckerman	Personality theories	Neuroticism, psychoticism and sensation seeking linked to addiction	Personality may change because of drug use, so direction is unclear
Christakis and Fowler (2008)	12,067 people in the Framingham network, 1971-2003	A spouse quitting cut the chance of smoking by 67%, a friend 36%, a sibling 25%	Correlational; people may choose similar friends
Dopamine explanation	Nicotine stimulates dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens	Explains pleasure, tolerance and withdrawal	Reductionist; does not explain relapse long after withdrawal
Carter and Tiffany (1999)	Meta-analysis of 41 cue-reactivity studies	Drug cues produced large craving effects and smaller physiological effects	Lab cues may not match real-life cues
Learning theory of gambling	Variable ratio reinforcement, near misses as reinforcers	Explains persistent betting and resistance to extinction	Most gamblers on the same schedules do not become addicted
Clark et al. (2009)	Near misses in a simulated slot machine	Near misses raised the desire to play (only with personal control) and activated win-related brain areas	A simplified lab slot machine may not reflect real gambling settings
Griffiths (1994)	30 regular and 30 non-regular fruit-machine gamblers, thinking aloud	Regular gamblers made more irrational verbalisations (about 14% of verbalisations compared with 2.5%) but were not significantly more skilful on objective measures	Coding verbalisations is subjective
Kim et al. (2001)	11-week double-blind naltrexone trial for gambling	75% much or very much improved, compared with 24% on placebo	Nausea was common in the first week
Hajek and Stead (2004)	Cochrane review of aversive smoking	Insufficient evidence to judge rapid smoking; most trials had serious method problems	Weak trial quality limits conclusions
Petry et al. (2006)	231 gamblers: GA referral, plus workbook, or plus individual CBT	CBT reduced gambling more than GA referral alone	Needs motivation and a trained therapist
Cahill, Lancaster and Green (2010)	Cochrane review of stage-based smoking interventions	Neither more nor less effective than non-stage-based equivalents	Challenges the practical value of Prochaska’s model

Must-know distinctions

• Physical vs psychological dependence: physical shows in withdrawal symptoms; psychological shows in craving and compulsion. Gambling shows psychological dependence without a drug.
• Tolerance vs withdrawal: tolerance is about needing more while using; withdrawal is about what happens when use stops.
• Initiation, maintenance, relapse: social learning for starting, operant conditioning for continuing, classical conditioning (cue reactivity) for relapse.
• Positive vs negative reinforcement in smoking: positive = the dopamine “buzz”; negative = relief from withdrawal.
• Partial vs variable reinforcement: partial means not every response is rewarded; variable ratio means the number of responses before a reward keeps changing.
• Learning vs cognitive explanations of gambling: learning explains behaviour through reinforcement; cognitive explains it through biased beliefs about chance and skill.
• Aversion therapy vs covert sensitisation: real unpleasant stimulus vs imagined one.
• Effectiveness vs appropriateness: does it work, compared with whether it suits this person, addiction and situation (cost, side effects, ethics, motivation needed).
• Precontemplation vs contemplation: no intention to change vs thinking seriously about changing.

Mini essay plan

Typical question: “Discuss learning theory as an explanation for nicotine addiction.” (16 marks. Plan more evaluation than description; your teacher will confirm how marks split between AO1 and AO3. For the learning theory basics, see the approaches revision notes.)

1. AO1 initiation: social learning; modelling by peers and family, vicarious reinforcement.
2. AO1 maintenance: operant conditioning; dopamine as positive reinforcement, withdrawal relief as negative reinforcement.
3. AO1 relapse: classical conditioning; cues become secondary reinforcers; cue reactivity.
4. AO3 support: Carter and Tiffany’s meta-analysis shows strong cue-triggered craving in smokers.
5. AO3 strength: explains relapse long after withdrawal, which dopamine alone cannot.
6. AO3 limitation: does not explain individual differences; twin evidence shows a large genetic role in dependence.
7. AO3 issues and debates: environmental reductionism; an interactionist account combining dopamine and learning is more complete.
8. Judgement: learning theory explains the persistence of smoking well but needs biological factors to explain who becomes dependent.

Issues and debates hooks for evaluation

For the debates themselves (Section A of Paper 3), see the Issues and debates study guide.

• Nature-nurture: twin data show genes matter for dependence, while shared environment matters for starting. Use this to argue for an interactionist view.
• Reductionism: the dopamine explanation reduces addiction to one neurotransmitter; learning theory reduces it to stimulus-response links. Neither alone explains individual differences.
• Determinism: if genes or conditioning fully caused addiction, treatment and personal choice would make little difference. The success of CBT and of stage-matched support suggests people can change.
• Practical applications: risk factor research guides prevention; cue reactivity research guides relapse prevention; the stage model guides how services talk to people who are not yet ready to change.
• Ethics: aversion therapy causes deliberate discomfort, so check informed consent and the right to withdraw.

Quick self-test

1. Define tolerance.
2. Give one sign of physical dependence on nicotine.
3. What percentage of variation in nicotine dependence did Vink et al. attribute to genes?
4. Which reward pathway does nicotine act on?
5. What type of conditioning explains cue reactivity?
6. What is a variable ratio schedule?
7. Name two cognitive biases in gambling.
8. What method did Griffiths use to record gamblers’ thoughts?
9. How does covert sensitisation differ from aversion therapy?
10. What is the first stage of CBT for addiction?
11. List Prochaska’s six stages in order.
12. What did Cahill, Lancaster and Green conclude about stage-based smoking interventions?

Answers

1. Needing more of the substance or behaviour to get the same effect.
2. Withdrawal symptoms, such as irritability and poor concentration, when nicotine is stopped.
3. 75%.
4. The mesolimbic pathway (ventral tegmental area to the nucleus accumbens).
5. Classical conditioning.
6. Rewards come after an unpredictable number of responses.
7. Any two: illusion of control, gambler’s fallacy, treating near misses as signs of success.
8. Thinking aloud: players spoke their thoughts while playing.
9. Covert sensitisation pairs the behaviour with an imagined unpleasant consequence, not a real one.
10. Functional analysis: working out when and why the behaviour happens.
11. Precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance, termination.
12. They were neither more nor less effective than non-stage-based equivalents.

Where marks are usually lost

• Giving a vague definition of tolerance or withdrawal that does not separate the two.
• Describing a whole twin study when the question only asks for an outline of a risk factor.
• Using operant conditioning to explain cue reactivity, which is classical conditioning.
• Explaining gambling with “reinforcement” but no reference to partial or variable reinforcement, which the specification names.
• Naming cognitive biases without showing how they keep the gambler betting.
• Describing a therapy without evaluating appropriateness as well as effectiveness.
• Mixing up aversion therapy and covert sensitisation.
• Naming only five Prochaska stages or not applying the model to a person or intervention.
• Writing general learning theory in an application question without using the scenario’s details.

Official syllabus

AQA AS and A-level Psychology (7181, 7182) specification, Version 1.4 (1 September 2025), for teaching from September 2025, section 4.3.10 Addiction and the Paper 3 scheme of assessment. Check aqa.org.uk/7182 for the current version.