AQA A-level Psychology (7182): Paper 3 — Eating behaviour — Practice Questions

These are original questions written for Marlbridge, for revision and practice on this content. They are not reproduced past-paper questions, and they do not replicate the exam’s exact structure, question count or mark tariffs — examination boards hold copyright in their own papers. Use these alongside the official past papers from your board or school.

These questions cover section 4.3.6 Eating behaviour of the AQA AS and A-level Psychology (7181, 7182) specification, Version 1.4 (1 September 2025), for teaching from September 2025. The topic is assessed in Section C of Paper 3: Issues and Options in Psychology, where you answer on one topic from Option 2 (Schizophrenia, Eating behaviour or Stress) for 24 marks. All people, places and data below are fictional.

Revise first with the study guide and revision notes. See also the AQA A-level Psychology hub and the 7182 checklist.

Questions

1. Outline what is meant by taste aversion. [2]

2. Explain the role of leptin in the control of eating behaviour. [3]

3. Read the item.

Amara is two. When her childminder first served courgette, Amara pushed it away without tasting it. The childminder kept putting a little courgette on her plate each lunchtime, where Amara sat beside two older children who ate theirs happily. After about two weeks, Amara was eating courgette without fuss.

Using your knowledge of explanations for food preferences, explain Amara’s behaviour. [6]

4. A psychologist at a fictional college measured ghrelin levels (in arbitrary units) in eight volunteers 30 minutes before lunch. Each volunteer also rated their hunger from 1 (not hungry) to 10 (extremely hungry).

Volunteer	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H
Ghrelin (units)	620	710	540	880	760	450	930	680
Hunger rating	6	5	4	7	8	3	9	5

(a) Calculate the mean hunger rating. Give your answer to two decimal places. [1] (b) Identify the type of correlation shown by the data. [1] (c) Identify a suitable statistical test for these data. Give two reasons for your choice. [3] (d) Explain why the psychologist cannot conclude that ghrelin causes hunger from this study. [2]

5. Outline the genetic explanation for anorexia nervosa. [4]

6. Read the item.

Jonah is 16 and has recently been diagnosed with anorexia nervosa. His parents check his homework every night, choose his clothes and decide which friends he can see. The family never argues; when tension rises, his mother changes the subject. Jonah told his therapist: “Food is the one thing nobody else decides for me.”

Explain how family systems theory might account for Jonah’s anorexia nervosa. [6]

7. Briefly evaluate the cognitive explanation for anorexia nervosa. [4]

8. A researcher used a questionnaire to classify 40 university students as restrained eaters (20) or unrestrained eaters (20). Half of each group completed a stressful task (preparing a speech to give to strangers); the other half completed a calm task (sorting picture cards). All participants then took part in a “taste test” of biscuits. The table shows mean grams eaten.

Group	Stressful task	Calm task
Restrained eaters	58	35
Unrestrained eaters	33	36

(a) Explain why this is a quasi-experiment rather than a true experiment. [2] (b) Calculate the percentage increase in biscuits eaten by restrained eaters after the stressful task compared with the calm task. Show your working and give your answer to one decimal place. [2] (c) Explain how these results support the role of disinhibition in obesity. [3] (d) Identify one ethical issue in this study and explain how the researcher could deal with it. [2]

9. Read the item.

Priyanka has been following a strict diet for a month. At a friend’s birthday party she eats one slice of cake. She thinks, “That’s today ruined,” and goes on to eat several more slices, stopping only when she feels uncomfortably full.

Use the boundary model to explain Priyanka’s behaviour. [4]

10. Evaluate the role of neural mechanisms in explaining obesity. [8]

11. To what extent does social learning theory explain anorexia nervosa? Use one other explanation of anorexia nervosa to support your evaluation. [16]

Answers

1. Taste aversion is a learned avoidance of a particular food or taste [1] that develops after eating it has been followed by illness or nausea, often after a single pairing [1]. [2] Examiner insight: the second mark needs the link to illness; “disliking a food” alone is not taste aversion.

2. Leptin is a hormone released by fat (adipose) tissue [1]. It travels to the hypothalamus, where it signals that energy stores are adequate [1]. This reduces appetite and so helps stop eating / reduces food intake [1]. [3] Examiner insight: name where leptin comes from and where it acts; “leptin makes you full” earns one mark at most.

3. Amara’s refusal is neophobia, a reluctance to eat new food [1]. The evolutionary explanation says neophobia protected young children from eating toxic plants once they could move away from carers [1]. Because Amara is two, she is at the age when this caution would be adaptive [1]. Repeated daily exposure to courgette increased familiarity, and familiar foods become preferred [1]. Sitting beside older children who ate courgette gave her models to imitate, as social learning theory predicts [1]. So an innate caution was overcome by learning through exposure and modelling [1]. [6] Examiner insight: each mark here must use a detail from the item (her age, the two weeks, the older children); generic descriptions cap your score.

4. (a) 47 ÷ 8 = 5.88 [1] [1] (b) Positive correlation [1] [1] (c) Spearman’s rho [1]. The study tests for a correlation / relationship between two co-variables [1]. Hunger ratings are ordinal data [1]. [3] (d) Correlation shows only a relationship between co-variables, not cause and effect [1]. A third variable, such as time since the last meal, could raise both ghrelin and hunger [1]. [2] Examiner insight: for test choice, give reasons tied to this study (correlation, ordinal ratings), not a list of every test’s criteria.

5. Anorexia nervosa (AN) tends to run in families, suggesting inherited vulnerability [1]. Twin studies such as Holland et al. (1988) find higher concordance in MZ twins, who share all their genes, than in DZ twins, who share about half [1]. This suggests genes contribute to risk [1]. Genome-wide studies such as Watson et al. (2019) have found several gene locations, so AN is polygenic, with each gene adding a small risk [1]. [4] Examiner insight: “outline” questions reward description; spending lines on evaluation here gains nothing.

6. Jonah’s family shows enmeshment: his parents are over-involved in his homework, clothes and friendships [1], with weak boundaries between parent and child [1]. Family systems theory says this denies a teenager autonomy at the age when he should be gaining independence [1]. The family’s avoidance of conflict means Jonah cannot express disagreement openly [1]. Restricting food becomes a way of gaining control [1], which matches his statement that food is “the one thing nobody else decides” for him [1]. [6] Examiner insight: use all three specified ideas (enmeshment, autonomy, control) and anchor each one in the item.

7. A strength is that cognitive behavioural therapy, which targets distorted beliefs, has some support, suggesting the beliefs play a role [1]. However, it is unclear whether distortions cause AN or result from starvation [1], so the direction of cause is uncertain [1]. The theory also describes the thinking but not why it develops in some people and not others, so it is incomplete [1]. [4] Examiner insight: “briefly evaluate” needs developed points; two explained points beat four one-word labels.

8. (a) The IV (restrained or unrestrained eater) is a characteristic of the participant [1], so the researcher could not randomly allocate participants to it [1]. [2] (b) (58 − 35) ÷ 35 × 100 [1] = 65.7% [1] [2] (c) Restrained eaters ate much more after stress than after the calm task [1], whereas unrestrained eaters ate about the same [1]. This suggests stress broke down their restraint, which is disinhibition, a route to overeating and weight gain [1]. [3] (d) Psychological harm or stress from the speech task [1]; the researcher could debrief participants, tell them no speech will be given, and remind them of the right to withdraw [1]. [2] Examiner insight: in (c), compare the two groups explicitly; describing only the restrained group misses the comparison that makes the result meaningful.

9. The boundary model says eating is held between a hunger boundary and a satiety boundary [1]. Dieters like Priyanka set a self-imposed diet boundary below satiety [1]. Eating one slice of cake crosses that diet boundary, and her thought “today’s ruined” shows disinhibition [1]. Once the diet boundary is broken, she keeps eating until she reaches her satiety boundary, feeling uncomfortably full [1]. [4] Examiner insight: name the diet boundary specifically; describing only hunger and satiety boundaries misses the point that explains dieters.

10. The real exam marks this with levels of response; each bracketed mark below shows one indicative creditworthy point. AO1: Leptin from fat tissue signals the hypothalamus to reduce appetite [1]; many people with obesity show leptin resistance, so satiety signals are weak [1]. Wang et al. (2001) found lower dopamine D2 receptor availability in people with obesity [1]; a reward-deficiency view says they may eat more to gain the same reward [1]. AO3: Montague et al. (1997) showed rare leptin deficiency causes severe obesity, supporting a neural-hormonal role [1]. However, the dopamine finding is correlational; overeating may change receptors rather than the reverse [1]. Rapid rises in obesity cannot be explained by brain biology alone, so environment must matter [1]. An interactionist, diathesis-stress view, combining neural vulnerability with an energy-dense food environment, is more complete [1]. [8] Examiner insight: for 8 marks, two or three well-developed evaluation points that explain why they matter score higher than a long list.

11. The real exam marks this with levels of response; each bracketed mark below shows one indicative creditworthy point. AO1: Social learning theory (SLT) says behaviour is learned by observing others [1]. People may model the dieting and eating of parents, peers or media figures [1]. Weight loss may be directly reinforced by praise [1], or vicariously reinforced when others are seen being admired for thinness [1]. The media spreads a thin ideal that can be imitated [1]. Identification with a role model makes imitation more likely [1]. AO3: Becker et al. (2002) found the proportion of Fijian girls with high-risk eating-attitude scores rose from about 13% to about 29% in the three years after TV arrived, supporting a media effect [1]. This natural experiment had high ecological validity [1]. However, it measured attitudes, not diagnosed AN [1]. Most people see thin-ideal media but few develop AN, so SLT cannot explain individual vulnerability [1]. A genetic explanation helps here: twin studies such as Holland et al. (1988) suggest inherited risk [1]. Combining the two gives a diathesis-stress account: genes create vulnerability, social learning triggers it [1]. SLT also struggles to explain why restriction continues when it brings no praise and causes serious harm [1]. It has practical use, supporting media-literacy work [1]. SLT is less reductionist than a purely genetic view because it includes social context [1]. Overall, SLT explains triggers better than causes [1]. [16] Examiner insight: the “one other explanation” must be used to evaluate SLT, not described in a separate block; link it back each time.

Where marks are usually lost

• Saying ghrelin comes from fat cells or that leptin increases hunger.
• Giving a textbook definition when an item asks you to use the scenario’s details.
• Choosing a statistical test without saying why it fits this study’s design and data.
• Treating correlational findings (ghrelin, dopamine) as proof of cause.
• Forgetting the comparison group when interpreting results tables.
• Describing family systems theory without all three specified ideas.
• Writing evaluation as labels (“reductionist”, “deterministic”) without explaining the consequence.
• Describing the second explanation in a 16-mark essay instead of using it to evaluate.

Next steps

• Check gaps with the Eating behaviour revision notes and the Approaches in Psychology study guide.
• Try a free diagnostic to find your weakest areas.
• Book a free trial class.

Official syllabus

These questions are based on section 4.3.6 Eating behaviour and the Paper 3 structure of the AQA AS and A-level Psychology (7181, 7182) specification, Version 1.4 (1 September 2025), for teaching from September 2025.