Biological Psychology | Edexcel A-Level Psychology (9PS0)

Biological Psychology

292 questions
20 subtopics
Paper 1: foundations in psychology, all compulsory
Paper 1 and Paper 3

The third Paper 1 topic, built around aggression.

It covers the central nervous system and neurotransmitters, brain structure, evolution and hormones, Freud's psychodynamic alternative, and the correlational analysis, brain-scanning and twin-study methods biological research depends on.

Sample questions from Biological Psychology

Answer each one closed book first, then open the answer.

The central nervous system and neurotransmitters

What type of signal does the axon carry, and in which direction?

Show the answer
The axon carries electrical impulses (action potentials) away from the cell body towards the terminal buttons.
Brain structure and aggression

Which structure links the amygdala to the hypothalamus in the aggression circuit?

Show the answer
The stria terminalis.
Hormones and aggression

How might testosterone influence aggression at the brain level?

Show the answer
By affecting brain areas involved in threat perception and emotional regulation, such as the amygdala.
Developmental psychology in biological psychology

What is cortisol?

Show the answer
A stress hormone.
Hypotheses, variables and levels of measurement

What is the nominal level of measurement?

Show the answer
Data in named categories with no order or ranking.
Twin and adoption studies

How were the participants assessed in Heston's (1966) adoption study?

Show the answer
From school, police, military and hospital records, plus an interview, a personality inventory (the MMPI) and IQ scores. Each file was rated independently by two psychiatrists who did not know which group the person belonged to, and by Heston himself.
Contemporary study: Brendgen et al. (2005)

Who were the participants in Brendgen et al. (2005)?

Show the answer
234 pairs of six-year-old twins.
Key question in biological psychology

What is a risk of concluding that aggression is caused by nature?

Show the answer
It could lead to deterministic or discriminatory practices, such as labelling or controlling individuals on the basis of biology.

The 20 subtopics

One subtopic is one session. Work down the list.

Subtopic	What it covers	Questions
The central nervous system and neurotransmitters	Recall questions on the structure of the neuron, the synapse, excitation and inhibition, and how a signal passes between neurons.	14
How recreational drugs affect synaptic transmission	Recall questions on the brain and spinal cord as the central nervous system, how recreational drugs alter synaptic transmission by blocking reuptake or stimulating release, agonists and antagonists, and how cocaine affects dopamine.	9
Brain structure and aggression	Recall questions on the prefrontal cortex, the amygdala and the limbic system, and how weak regulation between them relates to violence.	12
Evolution and natural selection	Recall questions on natural selection and adaptation, the evolutionary account of aggression, sex differences, and why such accounts are hard to falsify.	8
Freud's psychodynamic explanation of aggression	Recall questions on the unconscious mind, the id, ego and superego and the pleasure and reality principles, Thanatos, displacement and catharsis, and how the testable biological explanation of aggression differs from Freud's.	18
Hormones and aggression	Recall questions on testosterone and cortisol, the challenge hypothesis, and why the human evidence is correlational.	9
Individual differences in biological psychology	Recall questions on why brain damage affects people differently, from baseline organisation and age to cognitive reserve and plasticity, what that means for generalising case studies, and how Freud's psychosexual stages, fixation and personality structure explain individual differences.	14
Developmental psychology in biological psychology	Recall questions on natural selection and evolutionary developmental psychology, hormones and prenatal testosterone, growth hormone, the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis in puberty, cortisol, oxytocin and attachment, and critical periods.	28
Correlational research	Recall questions on co-variables, positive, negative and zero correlations, and why a correlation cannot establish cause.	14
Spearman's rho, chi-squared and significance	Recall questions on scatter diagrams, the range and meaning of Spearman's rho, critical values and significance, why correlation is not cause, the Spearman's rho and chi-squared formulae and decision rules, rearranging and rounding, and when each test is used.	29
Hypotheses, variables and levels of measurement	Recall questions on co-variables against independent and dependent variables, nominal, ordinal and interval levels of measurement, null and alternate hypotheses in a correlational study, control groups, randomisation and sampling.	12
Brain-scanning techniques	Recall questions on how CAT, PET and fMRI work, structure against function, radioactive tracers, temporal and spatial resolution, their use in investigating aggression, why they show only correlation, and the radiation risk of CAT scans.	21
Twin and adoption studies	Recall questions on MZ and DZ concordance, Gottesman and Shields on schizophrenia, the equal environments assumption and selective placement, Heston's (1966) adoption study in detail, and Ludeke et al.'s heritable obedience to traditional authority.	26
Classic study: Raine et al. (1997)	Recall questions on the PET scan procedure, the 41 murderers pleading not guilty by reason of insanity, the prefrontal findings, and why cause cannot be inferred.	13
Contemporary study: Li et al. (2013) heroin users	Recall questions on the fMRI design, the posterior cingulate cortex, cue reactivity, and what it adds to the biological account of addiction.	10
Contemporary study: Brendgen et al. (2005)	Recall questions on the 234 twin pairs, the split between physical and social aggression, and what it showed about genes and environment.	12
Contemporary study: Van den Oever et al. (2008)	Recall questions on the rat self-administration procedure, AMPA receptor plasticity in the prefrontal cortex, and the implications for relapse.	10
Key question in biological psychology	Recall questions on whether violence is built into us and what society should do about offenders, how brain-scanning, hormone and twin research inform that question, its implications for the justice system and the risk of determinism, and brain-scan evidence in court.	10
Practical investigation in biological psychology	Recall questions on designing a correlational study, choosing co-variables, the analysis to report, and how to evaluate it.	13
Issues and debates in biological psychology	Recall questions on reductionism, nature and nurture, animal research ethics and the three Rs, social sensitivity, and psychology as a science.	10

Biological Psychology is 292 of the 2,738 questions in the guide.Get the guide, £8

How the guide is worked

Answering a question from memory stores it far better than reading the answer again. The guide runs that as a fixed procedure on one subtopic at a time, about twenty minutes a session.

Step 1 · Closed book
Cover the answers. Work through one subtopic and write down what you can. Leave blanks where you have nothing.
Step 2 · Open book
Go back to the top. Read each printed answer and write it out in full, including the ones you had right.
Step 3 · Closed book again
Same questions, same order, from memory. The gap between pass one and pass three is the session result.

Read the full method, the return schedule and the research behind it.