AQA A-Level Psychology

Ethical implications of research studies and theory, including reference to social sensitivity.

Idiographic and nomothetic approaches to psychological investigation.

Holism and reductionism: levels of explanation in psychology. Biological reductionism and environmental (stimulus-response) reductionism.

The nature-nurture debate: the relative importance of heredity and environment in determining behaviour; the interactionist approach.

Free will and determinism: hard determinism and soft determinism; biological, environmental and psychic determinism. The scientific emphasis on causal explanations.

Gender and culture in psychology - universality and bias. Cultural bias including ethnocentrism and cultural relativism.

Gender and culture in psychology - universality and bias. Gender bias including androcentrism and alpha and beta bias.

Features of science: objectivity and the empirical method; replicability and falsifiability; theory construction and hypothesis testing; paradigms and paradigm shifts.

Reporting psychological investigations. Sections of a scientific report: abstract, introduction, method, results, discussion and referencing. 

Probability and significance: use of statistical tables and critical values in interpretation of significance; Type I and Type II errors.