AQA A Level Psychology

Year 1:

• Social Influence – Understanding how people are affected by others, including conformity, obedience, and resistance to social pressure.

• Memory – Exploring models of memory, forgetting, and the accuracy of eyewitness testimony.

• Attachment – Investigating early relationships and their impact on later development.

• Clinical Psychology and Mental Health – Studying mental health issues such as depression, OCD, and phobias, including approaches to treatment.

• Approaches in Psychology – Examining the major psychological perspectives (e.g. behavioural, cognitive, biological).

• Biopsychology – Linking biology and psychology, including brain structure, the nervous system and hormones.

• Research Methods – Developing skills in designing, conducting, and analysing psychological research.

Year 2:

• Issues and Debates – Exploring key debates such as nature vs. nurture, gender and cultural bias, and determinism versus free will.

• Optional Topics - The three optional topics we study during Rhetoric are:

• Forensic Psychology - Understanding criminal behaviour and the justice system from a psychological perspective. In this topic we study offender profiling, explanations for criminal behaviour and the effectiveness of custodial sentencing.

• Relationships - Psychological theories and research on romantic relationships. In this topic we study factors influencing attraction, maintenance of relationships and reasons for relationship breakdown.

• Schizophrenia - In this topic we study symptoms, biological and psychological explanations and treatment.

Course Overview

In IB Psychology both Standard and Higher Level pupils study content focused on the Biological, Cognitive and Socio-cultural Approaches to Psychology and Psychological Research Methodology.

These areas are applied to four contexts within Psychology, with a practical activity to be carried out in each area. The four contexts are:

1. Health & Well‑being – This context considers factors relating to human health problems such as stress and considers the diagnosis, explanation and treatment of a mental health disorder from different Psychological perspectives. The practical activity for this context will involve interviews or focus groups.

2. Human Development – This context considers brain development and neuroplasticity, theories of child development and the effects of childhood attachments and culture on behaviour. The practical activity for this context will involve observations.

3. Human Relationships – This context considers the influence of our social groups on our behaviour and identity, and exams human relationships from different approaches in Psychology. The practical activity for this context will involve surveys or questionnaires.

4. Learning & Cognition – This context considers explanations for learning, cognitive processes such as memory and thinking and decision making and the practical activity will involve experiments.

Throughout the course there are also six key concepts that are used to support critical thinking and evaluation of all content and contexts. These are:  bias, causality, change, measurement, perspective, and responsibility.

For higher level pupils there is an additional focus on studying the influence of culture, motivation, and technology on us, along with the ability to analyse and interpret data at a deeper level.

For both Standard Level and Higher Level pupils there is an Internal Assessment that involves building on the experience of the practical activities experienced in each context in order to develop and put forward a research proposal.