Debates in Psychology | OCR A-Level Psychology (H567)

Debates in Psychology

200 questions
19 subtopics
Component 02: Psychological themes through core studies
Component 02

Debates in Psychology is examined on component 02 of OCR Psychology, Psychological themes through core studies.

200 recall questions across 19 subtopics.

Sample questions from Debates in Psychology

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

The nature/nurture debate: concepts, positions and research

What is a diathesis-stress explanation?

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An inherited vulnerability only produces a disorder when it is combined with a triggering environmental stressor.
The freewill/determinism debate: concepts, positions and research

What is psychic determinism?

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The view that behaviour, and even apparent accidents such as slips of the tongue, are caused by unconscious conflicts formed in childhood.
The reductionism/holism debate: concepts, positions and research

Explain what is meant by levels of explanation.

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The same behaviour can be described at several levels, from the neurochemical up to the social and cultural, and the lower the level the more reductionist the account.
The individual/situational debate: concepts, positions and research

Which features of Milgram's procedure show situational influence?

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Obedience was produced by the prestigious setting, the experimenter's authority, the gradual escalation of the shocks and the verbal prods used.
The usefulness of research debate: concepts and criteria

Why does poor internal validity limit usefulness?

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If the study did not actually measure what it claimed to measure, any application built on it may simply fail.
The usefulness of research debate: applications and comparison with other debates

What is evidence-based practice?

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Choosing interventions because valid, replicated research shows they work, rather than because of tradition or intuition.
The ethical considerations debate: cost-benefit analysis and research illustrating ethical issues

Give Milgram's defence of his procedure.

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Participants were fully debriefed, reunited with the unharmed learner, and the great majority afterwards said they were glad to have taken part.
The socially sensitive research debate: concepts and positions

Why does socially sensitive research need particular care at the reporting stage?

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Findings can be quoted out of context by the media or by politicians and applied crudely to whole groups.

The 19 subtopics

One subtopic is one session. Work down the list.

Subtopic	What it covers	Questions
The nature/nurture debate: concepts, positions and research	Recall questions on the nature and nurture positions, nativism, empiricism, interactionism and diathesis-stress, twin and adoption studies, and research by Casey et al., Baron-Cohen et al., Sperry, Bandura et al., Lee et al., Chaney et al., Blakemore and Cooper, Maguire et al. and Freud.	17
The nature/nurture debate: applications and comparison with other debates	Recall questions on how nature and nurture positions shape treatment, social policy and health, the social risks and criticisms of strong positions, and links with freewill and determinism, individual and situational explanations, reductionism and social sensitivity.	9
The freewill/determinism debate: concepts, positions and research	Recall questions on free will, hard and soft determinism, biological, environmental and psychic determinism, the arguments for each side, and research by Milgram, Bocchiaro et al., Casey et al., Freud, Bandura et al., Piliavin et al. and Sperry.	16
The freewill/determinism debate: applications and comparison with other debates	Recall questions on how the freewill/determinism debate affects the law, treatment and therapy, the risks of hard determinism, soft determinism as a compromise, and links with nature and nurture, science, individual and situational explanations and reductionism.	9
The reductionism/holism debate: concepts, positions and research	Recall questions on reductionism and holism, biological, environmental and machine reductionism, levels of explanation, the arguments for each, and research by Sperry, Maguire et al., Loftus and Palmer, Moray, Casey et al., Freud, Piliavin et al. and Gould.	16
The reductionism/holism debate: applications and comparison with other debates	Recall questions on applications of reductionist and holistic approaches, the practical problems of holism and weaknesses of reductionism, and links with science, determinism, nature and nurture and the usefulness of research.	9
The individual/situational debate: concepts, positions and research	Recall questions on individual and situational explanations, the fundamental attribution error, interactionism, and research by Milgram, Piliavin et al., Levine et al., Bocchiaro et al., Hancock et al., Baron-Cohen et al., Casey et al., Bandura et al. and Grant et al.	15
The individual/situational debate: applications and comparison with other debates	Recall questions on applications of situational, individual and interactionist explanations to crime prevention, criminal justice, hospitals and workplaces, the dangers of relying on one side, and links with the areas, freewill and determinism and socially sensitive research.	10
The usefulness of research debate: concepts and criteria	Recall questions on what makes research useful, criteria for judging usefulness, how internal validity, sampling and ecological validity limit it, usefulness without immediate application, harmful uses, and the Funhaler as a useful outcome.	8
The usefulness of research debate: research illustrating each position	Recall questions on the practical usefulness of Loftus and Palmer, Grant et al., Simons and Chabris, Bandura et al. and Maguire et al., why Moray may seem less useful, Gould's army testing, and Milgram's lasting usefulness.	8
The usefulness of research debate: applications and comparison with other debates	Recall questions on replication and usefulness, how demand for usefulness shapes research, evidence-based practice, useful flawed studies, changing usefulness over time, and links with ethics, reductionism and psychology as a science.	8
The ethical considerations debate: ethical guidelines	Recall questions on the purpose of ethical guidelines, informed consent, deception, the right to withdraw, protection from harm, debriefing, presumptive consent, and principles for using animals in research.	8
The ethical considerations debate: cost-benefit analysis and research illustrating ethical issues	Recall questions on cost-benefit analysis and confidentiality, and ethical issues in the research of Milgram, Bocchiaro et al., Piliavin et al., Bandura et al., Blakemore and Cooper and Freud's Little Hans, including research with children.	10
The ethical considerations debate: positions, applications and comparison with other debates	Recall questions on the positions that ethical rules should or should not be broken, how ethical standards are enforced, studying obedience ethically today, ethics in reporting research, and links with socially sensitive research, science and usefulness.	8
The socially sensitive research debate: concepts and positions	Recall questions on what makes research socially sensitive, research questions, reporting and labelling, effects on people outside a study, and the arguments for avoiding, conducting and compromising on socially sensitive research.	9
The socially sensitive research debate: research, applications and comparison	Recall questions on social sensitivity in the research of Gould, Hancock et al., Baron-Cohen et al., Casey et al., Freud, Levine et al. and Milgram, reducing harm, peer review, funding, positive applications, and links with ethics and usefulness.	15
The psychology as a science debate: features of science	Recall questions on the features of a science, objectivity, falsifiability, replication, the hypothetico-deductive method, paradigms, standardised procedures and empiricism.	8
The psychology as a science debate: positions and supporting research	Recall questions on the arguments that psychology is and is not a science, the reactivity of human participants, the view that psychology should not try to be a science, and scientific method in Loftus and Palmer, Sperry, Maguire et al. and Bocchiaro et al.	8
The psychology as a science debate: evidence against, applications and comparison	Recall questions on Freud's Little Hans, Gould's analysis and case studies as evidence against psychology as a science, why scientific status matters, applications to therapy, improving credibility, and links with reductionism, determinism and ethics.	9

Debates in Psychology is 200 of the 3,537 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.