CIE A Level Psychology Issues and Debates Exam Questions

About CIE A Level Psychology Issues and Debates

Issues and debates are the lenses used to evaluate every study on the Cambridge 9990 course. At AS you must apply five to the twelve core studies: application of psychology to everyday life, individual and situational explanations, nature versus nurture, the use of children in research and the use of animals in research. At A Level you add cultural differences, reductionism versus holism, determinism versus free will and idiographic versus nomothetic, and apply them to the specialist options. They are examined in Paper 1 at AS and Paper 3 at A Level, often in essay questions. Examiners reward specific examples, explaining how each study illustrates the issue.

What you need to know

• Application to everyday life How findings can be used in the real world, e.g. Andrade's doodling findings for attention in meetings, Pozzulo et al. for police line-ups with children, Hölzel et al. for mindfulness programmes.
• Individual and situational explanations Individual explanations focus on personal characteristics (e.g. empathy in Perry et al.); situational explanations focus on the setting or other people (e.g. the authority of the experimenter in Milgram, the victim's condition in Piliavin et al.).
• Nature versus nurture Nature refers to inherited and biological influences, nurture to environmental influences and learning. Hassett et al. supports nature in toy preferences; Bandura et al. supports nurture through imitation; Hölzel et al. shows the environment (practice) can change the brain.
• Use of children in research Raises issues of consent (parents give it), protection from harm and the reliability of children's responses. Examples include Bandura et al., Pozzulo et al. and Saavedra and Silverman.
• Use of animals in research Raises ethical issues (harm, caging, numbers) and the problem of generalising to humans. Examples are Hassett et al. (rhesus monkeys) and Fagen et al. (elephants); Fagen et al. also shows research can improve animal welfare.
• A Level debates Cultural differences (do findings apply across cultures?), reductionism versus holism (explaining behaviour by simple parts or the whole person), determinism versus free will, and idiographic versus nomothetic (studying individuals in depth versus seeking general laws).

Common mistakes in Issues and Debates

• Defining a debate without applying it. Every point should name a study and explain how it shows the issue.
• Treating nature and nurture as either/or. Many studies show interaction, e.g. Perry et al. found a hormone's effect depended on individual empathy.
• Using animal research arguments only about ethics. Also discuss whether results generalise to humans and whether the species is appropriate.
• Confusing reductionism with determinism. Reductionism is about explaining behaviour by its simplest parts; determinism is about behaviour being caused by factors outside free choice.
• Writing essays that list studies without a conclusion. Weigh up the evidence and reach a supported judgement.

Try three Issues and Debates exam-style questions