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

Health Psychology

340 questions
21 subtopics
Paper 2: one application of three
Paper 2 and Paper 3

One of the three Paper 2 applications.

It covers addiction, tolerance and dependency, biological and learning explanations of alcohol, heroin and nicotine addiction, their treatments, anti-drug campaigns, and the animal, human and cross-cultural methods used to study drugs.

Sample questions from Health Psychology

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

Addiction, tolerance and dependency

How can physical dependency be distinguished from psychological dependency?

Show the answer
Physical dependency is distinguished by the presence of measurable physiological changes and somatic withdrawal symptoms, rather than purely emotional or cognitive cravings.
Biological explanations of drug addiction

Why do heroin users require increasing doses over time?

Show the answer
Tolerance develops because receptors become less sensitive and natural opioid production decreases
Treatments for heroin and nicotine addiction

What is the intended outcome of rapid smoking therapy?

Show the answer
The unpleasant sensations become associated with smoking, reducing the desire to smoke.
Individual differences in health psychology

How do differences in social circumstance contribute to drug misuse?

Show the answer
Availability, unemployment and social exclusion raise exposure and reduce the competing rewards that make abstinence worthwhile.
Research methods using humans to study drugs

What type of information do self-report methods gather in drug research?

Show the answer
Data on drug use patterns, experiences and effects directly from human participants
Cross-cultural research into drug misuse

What is an imposed etic in cross-cultural drug research?

Show the answer
Applying a definition of problem drinking developed in one culture to another where the same behaviour carries a different meaning.
Contemporary study: Mundt et al. (2012)

What was the main finding of Mundt et al. (2012) about peer selection?

Show the answer
Adolescents tended to choose friends whose drinking resembled their own.
Contemporary study: Pengpid et al. (2012)

Give one strength of Pengpid et al. (2012).

Show the answer
It tested a cheap and brief intervention in a routine hospital setting, so its finding that screening and a leaflet did as well as counselling is directly usable.

The 21 subtopics

One subtopic is one session. Work down the list.

Subtopic	What it covers	Questions
Addiction, tolerance and dependency	Recall questions on addiction, tolerance, physical and psychological dependency and withdrawal, neuroadaptation and receptor downregulation, and cognitive factors such as outcome expectancies, low self-efficacy, rationalisation and self-medication.	14
Withdrawal and the effects of drug taking	Recall questions on the symptoms of drug withdrawal, from tremors, sweating and nausea to anxiety, irritability and insomnia, and the seizures and hallucinations of severe cases.	8
Biological explanations of drug addiction	Recall questions on drugs and the mesolimbic reward pathway, how alcohol, heroin and nicotine each act on GABA, glutamate, opioid and nicotinic receptors, and how neuroadaptation produces tolerance and withdrawal for each.	31
Learning explanations of drug addiction	Recall questions on classical conditioning of cues, operant reinforcement, and social learning explanations of drug use.	25
Treatments for alcohol addiction	Recall questions on aversion therapy and classical conditioning, disulfiram and acetaldehyde, naltrexone after detoxification, the components of CBT for addiction, acamprosate, and how agonist and antagonist therapies work.	22
Treatments for heroin and nicotine addiction	Recall questions on buprenorphine and Suboxone, varenicline, rapid smoking, methadone maintenance, naltrexone, nicotine replacement therapy, and the difference between agonist and antagonist therapies.	22
Anti-drug campaigns	Recall questions on fear appeals, social norms messaging and information in anti-drug campaigns, and on FRANK: its services, persona, honest and humorous messages, the Pablo adverts, confidentiality, and the evidence for and against its effectiveness.	16
Individual differences in health psychology	Recall questions on sensation-seeking and impulsivity, genetic variation, telescoping, and the diathesis-stress model.	20
Developmental psychology in health psychology	Recall questions on social learning of drug use, peer influence in adolescence, the gateway hypothesis, and parental modelling.	16
Using animals to study drugs	Recall questions on animal laboratory experiments, what generalises to humans, and the ethical case for and against.	22
Research methods using humans to study drugs	Recall questions on laboratory and field experiments, correlational studies, self-report and case studies of drug users, double-blind procedures and placebo controls, and the strengths and weaknesses of laboratory and self-report methods.	23
Ethics of using human participants to study drugs	Recall questions on informed consent, the right to withdraw, protection from physical and psychological harm, confidentiality, deception and debriefing, ethics committees, safeguards for dependent participants, cost-benefit analysis, and placebo and double-blind designs.	27
Cross-cultural research into drug misuse	Recall questions on nature-nurture issues, the aldehyde dehydrogenase example, imposed etics, and the limits of cross-cultural comparison.	10
Analysing data in health psychology	Recall questions on why consumption data suit the median, frequency tables, range and standard deviation, bar charts, thematic analysis, and when chi-squared, Spearman's rho, Mann-Whitney U and Wilcoxon are used.	14
Classic study: Olds and Milner (1954)	Recall questions on the rat self-stimulation procedure, the septal area, the rate of lever pressing, and the discovery of the reward system.	10
Contemporary study: Mundt et al. (2012)	Recall questions on the network model, the separation of peer selection from peer influence, and what each implies for prevention.	10
Contemporary study: Dixit et al. (2012)	Recall questions on the epidemiological survey in Aligarh, the urban and rural comparison, the biosocial determinants, and the design's limits.	10
Contemporary study: Pengpid et al. (2012)	Recall questions on the randomised trial in South African outpatients, the AUDIT screening, the brief intervention, and the outcome.	10
Key question in health psychology	Recall questions on choosing a key issue such as campaign effectiveness or methadone, and applying research to answer it.	10
Practical investigation in health psychology	Recall questions on designing an ethical attitude study, Likert scales, social desirability, and the analysis to report.	10
Issues and debates in health psychology	Recall questions on animal research ethics, reductionism, nature and nurture, social sensitivity, and cultural bias in defining harmful use.	10

Health Psychology is 340 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.