OxfordAQA International A-level Psychology (9685): 3.4.1 Scientific approaches in psychology – 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 3.4.1 Scientific approaches in psychology in the OxfordAQA International AS and A-level Psychology (9685) specification, Version 3.1 (International A-level exams May/June 2020 onwards). The specification assesses this content in Section A, Approaches in psychology (30 marks), of Unit 4: Approaches and application, a synoptic 1 hour 30 minute written exam of 90 marks. All people, places, apps and data below are fictional.

Revise first with the Scientific approaches study guide and the approaches revision notes. See the 9685 course hub and the 9685 checklist.

Questions

1. Explain what is meant by vicarious reinforcement. [2]

2. Distinguish between genotype and phenotype. [2]

3. Leila, a fictional dog owner, keeps her dog’s food in a cupboard with a squeaky door. Every evening she opens the cupboard and feeds the dog. After a few weeks, the dog runs to the kitchen and drools whenever the door squeaks, even when Leila is only taking out a mug.

Identify the unconditioned stimulus, the unconditioned response, the conditioned stimulus and the conditioned response in this example. [4]

4. StrideUp, a fictional fitness app, works like this:

Users earn a gold badge on any day they reach 8,000 steps. Until the goal is reached, the phone buzzes with a loud reminder every hour; the buzzing stops as soon as the goal is met. Users who miss the goal for three days in a row lose the streak badge shown on their public profile. Users also win a surprise voucher after an unpredictable number of goal days.

(a) Identify one feature that shows positive reinforcement, one that shows negative reinforcement and one that shows punishment. Explain each choice briefly. [3] (b) StrideUp stops giving surprise vouchers, but many users keep walking for weeks. Use your knowledge of schedules of reinforcement to explain why. [2]

5. Faris, a fictional 15-year-old, admires his older cousin Sami, who posts skateboarding videos online. Sami’s video of a new trick gets hundreds of likes and comments. Faris watches it many times, practises the moves in his garden for a week, and then performs the trick at the skatepark when his friends are there.

(a) Use the mediational processes in social learning theory to explain Faris’s behaviour. [4] (b) Explain the roles of identification and vicarious reinforcement in this example. [2]

6. Outline the role of schema in the cognitive approach. [3]

7. Explain what is meant by the use of computer models in cognitive psychology. Give one limitation of this approach. [4]

8. Researchers using the fictional Harwick Twin Register gave twins a questionnaire measuring novelty seeking. A pair was counted as concordant if both twins scored in the top quarter.

	Pairs studied	Concordant pairs
Monozygotic (MZ) twins	80	48
Dizygotic (DZ) twins	88	22

(a) Calculate the concordance rate for each type of twin, as a percentage. Show your working. [2] (b) Explain what these results suggest about the genetic basis of novelty seeking. [2] (c) Explain one reason why these results cannot show that novelty seeking is caused by genes alone. [2]

9. At the fictional Harwick University, researchers used fMRI to scan 20 experienced chess players and 20 people who had never played chess while each person solved logic puzzles. The chess players showed greater activity in a region of the frontal lobe.

Explain how this study illustrates cognitive neuroscience, and give one reason for caution in interpreting its findings. [4]

10. Using an example, explain how the theory of natural selection can be applied to behaviour. Give one limitation of evolutionary explanations. [4]

11. Compare social learning theory with the behaviourist approach. [8]

12. Discuss the biological approach in psychology. Refer to research evidence in your answer. [16]

Answers

1. Vicarious reinforcement is learning from the consequences that another person receives for a behaviour [1]. Seeing a model rewarded makes the observer more likely to imitate the behaviour, and seeing a model punished makes imitation less likely [1]. [2] Examiner insight: the second mark needs the effect on the observer’s likelihood of imitating; “seeing someone rewarded” alone is half an answer.

2. Genotype is a person’s genetic make-up, inherited from their parents [1]. Phenotype is how those genes are expressed in observable traits and behaviour, as a result of interaction with the environment [1]. [2] Examiner insight: “distinguish” needs both terms defined so that the difference is clear; defining one term caps you at one mark.

3. Unconditioned stimulus: the dog food [1]. Unconditioned response: drooling (salivating) at the food [1]. Conditioned stimulus: the squeak of the cupboard door [1]. Conditioned response: drooling at the squeak alone [1]. [4] Examiner insight: the UCR and CR are the same behaviour, so the mark depends on naming what triggers it in each case.

4. (a) Positive reinforcement: the gold badge is a pleasant consequence added when the goal is met, so walking increases [1]. Negative reinforcement: reaching the goal stops the unpleasant hourly buzzing, so walking increases [1]. Punishment: losing the streak badge after three missed days is an unpleasant consequence that makes missing the goal less likely [1]. (b) The vouchers came after an unpredictable number of goal days, which is a variable ratio schedule [1]. Behaviour learned on a variable ratio schedule is the most resistant to extinction, because users cannot tell that rewards have stopped [1]. [5] Examiner insight: in (a), each mark needs the app feature named and the direction of change in behaviour; a definition with no feature scores nothing.

5. (a) Attention: Faris noticed Sami’s video, helped by admiring Sami and by the video’s popularity [1]. Retention: watching it many times let him store the moves in memory [1]. Reproduction: a week of practice in the garden gave him the physical ability to perform the trick [1]. Motivation: he expected praise like the likes Sami received, so he chose to perform it in front of friends [1]. (b) Identification: Faris admires Sami and is close to him in age, so Sami is a model he wants to be like, which makes imitation more likely [1]. Vicarious reinforcement: Faris saw Sami rewarded with likes and comments, which made copying the trick more likely [1]. [6] Examiner insight: listing the four processes earns little unless each is tied to a detail from Faris’s story.

6. A schema is a mental framework of beliefs and expectations built from past experience [1]. Schemas let us process new information quickly and fill gaps using what we expect [1]. However, they can distort perception and memory; Bartlett (1932) found English participants changed unfamiliar details of a Native American tale to fit their own culture [1]. [3] Examiner insight: the third mark comes from showing schema can produce errors, not only that it helps.

7. Computer models treat the mind like a computer, with information input, processed, stored and output [1]. Mental processes are compared to computer functions, such as memory to storage and attention to a limited processing channel [1]. Some researchers write programs that simulate a mental process and compare the program’s output with human performance [1]. A limitation is that the analogy ignores emotion and motivation, which affect human thinking but not machines [1]. [4] Examiner insight: keep computer models distinct from theoretical models; describing the multi-store model alone does not answer this question.

8. (a) MZ: 48 / 80 x 100 = 60% [1]. DZ: 22 / 88 x 100 = 25% [1]. (b) MZ concordance (60%) is much higher than DZ concordance (25%) [1]. MZ twins share all their genes and DZ twins about half on average, so the difference suggests a genetic influence on novelty seeking [1]. (c) MZ concordance is only 60%, not 100%, even though MZ twins share all their genes [1]. So environmental factors must also play a part, for example MZ twins may be treated more alike than DZ twins [1]. [6] Examiner insight: in (b) and (c), quote the figures from the table; data questions reward use of the data.

9. The study links a mental process, problem solving, with activity in a specific brain region [1]. It uses fMRI scanning, which gives an objective, physical measure of a process that the cognitive approach once had to infer [1]. Caution: the groups were not randomly allocated, so the chess players may differ in other ways, and we cannot say chess caused the difference [1]. Also, brain areas work in networks, so greater activity in one region does not show it alone is responsible [1]. [4] Examiner insight: “give one reason for caution” means one developed reason; two short ones may each earn only a single mark.

10. Natural selection means that traits which increase survival and reproduction are passed on to more offspring [1]. If a behaviour has a genetic basis and helped ancestors survive or reproduce, it becomes more common over generations [1]. For example, ancestors who were wary of heights were less likely to fall and die before having children, so wariness of heights could have been passed on [1]. A limitation is that ancestral environments cannot be observed, so such explanations are hard to test and can be made up after the event [1]. [4] Examiner insight: the example mark needs the survival or reproduction link spelled out, not just a named behaviour.

11. The real exam marks extended answers using levels of response, not point by point. These are indicative creditworthy points.

Both approaches see behaviour as learned from the environment rather than inherited [1]. Both use controlled lab methods; Skinner’s box and the Bobo doll studies were standardised and replicable [1]. Behaviourism says learning needs direct reinforcement or association [1], whereas SLT says learning can happen through observation and imitation of models [1]. Behaviourism ignores the mind as unobservable [1], whereas SLT includes mediational processes such as attention and motivation between stimulus and response [1]. SLT therefore explains why learning and performance can differ, as in Bandura (1965), which strict behaviourism cannot [1]. Overall, SLT extends behaviourism, making it less mechanistic but harder to measure because mental processes are inferred [1]. [8] Examiner insight: a comparison needs similarities and differences stated in linked sentences; two separate descriptions stay in the lower levels.

12. The real exam marks extended answers using levels of response, not point by point. These are indicative creditworthy points.

Knowledge. The approach explains behaviour through genes, biological structures and neurochemistry [1]. The genotype is a person’s genetic make-up; the phenotype is how it is expressed after interaction with the environment [1]. PKU shows this: an inherited genotype causes intellectual disability unless a low-phenylalanine diet is started early, which changes the phenotype [1]. Twin studies compare MZ and DZ concordance to estimate genetic influence [1]. Neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine affect mood and behaviour [1]. Maguire et al. (2000) found London taxi drivers had larger posterior hippocampi than controls, linking structure to spatial memory [1]. Evolutionary explanations propose behaviours were naturally selected; Buss (1989) found consistent mate preferences across 37 cultures [1].

Evaluation. The approach uses objective, scientific methods such as brain scanning, so findings can be tested and replicated [1]. It has practical value: drug treatments that change neurotransmitter activity come from it [1]. However, no trait shows 100% MZ concordance, so the environment must also matter [1]. MZ twins may be treated more alike than DZ twins, which confounds twin data [1]. Maguire’s findings also show the environment changing the brain, so biology and experience interact [1]. Evolutionary explanations are hard to test because ancestral environments cannot be observed [1]. Reducing behaviour to genes or chemicals may miss cognitive and social causes that other approaches explain [1]. Unlike behaviourism, the approach can explain individual differences in response to the same environment [1]. Overall, it is strongest as part of an interactionist account that includes environmental factors [1]. [16] Examiner insight: each piece of evidence needs a comment on what it shows; a list of studies with no evaluation stays in the lower bands.

Where marks are usually lost

• Calling the sound the unconditioned stimulus in classical conditioning.
• Treating negative reinforcement as punishment.
• Defining a term when the question asks you to apply it to a named person or app.
• Listing mediational processes in the wrong order or without scenario details.
• Forgetting to show working in concordance calculations.
• Treating twin or brain scan evidence as proof of cause.
• Describing studies at length in extended answers with no evaluation.
• Writing comparisons as two separate descriptions with no linking words.
• Ending a “discuss” answer with no overall judgement.

Next steps

• Check gaps with the approaches revision notes and the 9685 exam preparation guide.
• Practise earlier units with the Unit 2 practice questions, since Unit 4 is synoptic.
• Find your weaker topics with our diagnostics.
• Want a teacher to mark your extended answers? Book a free trial class.

Official syllabus

OxfordAQA International AS and A-level Psychology (9685) specification, Version 3.1 (International A-level exams May/June 2020 onwards), section 3.4.1 Scientific approaches in psychology; Unit 4 details in section 2.3.