Psychology AQA B PSYB1 23rd May 2012

Just finished this exam and am reasonably confident. Here's my take (what I remember of the questions and my answer/interpretation). If I've forgotten any questions do mention them and I'll bring them up:

1a - "label the parts of the brain." This bit at the back was the visual centre, the bit at the bottom was the auditory centre, the bit at the top was the somatosensory centre

1b - "Evaluate EEGs to study localisation." I put one positive (few ethical issues as non-invasive) and one negative (crude measure so can be difficult to distinguish between different neurons firing)

1c - "Clarissa or someone has just failed a ballet exam or something, she's not upset, give a defence mechanism explaining why." The obvious one here is denial, but for some reason I went with repression. I think that still would get the marks

1d - "Give a limitation of the psychodynamic approach" I gave the obvious. It isn't scientific.

1e - "describe and evaluate the humanistic approach." Here you get 5 marks just for describing, and then 5 marks for saying what's good and what's bad. I contrasted it with the behaviourist approach because that's supposed to get you maximum marks

2a - "describe one study showing how social learning theorists investigate gender development." I went with Smith & Lloyd, but Idle, Fagot, McGhee and Frueh, Eccles, and Pfost and Fiore would all get credit. Studies from the nurture side of the debate (Furnham and Faragher, Manstead and Mcculloch, Fagot) might also get credit, but I didn't risk it. Bandura probably wouldn't get credit. The question only asked how the study was done, so I didn't mention the results of the experiment. Don't know if I'll lose marks for that.

2b - "give one methodological issue from the above study." I went with temporal validity but construct validity also works. You wouldn't get marks for mentioning the deception involved, or any other ethical problems.

2c - "Rafiqua is 2 and says she will grow up to be a daddy. What is gender stability and refer to what Rafiqua said?" I explained what stability is, how it's an aspect of Kohlberg's model, and explained why Rafiqua hasn't passed through this stage yet.

2d - "Shafalqua is 5 and asks if her auntie is now a man because she's had her hair cut short. What is gender constancy and refer to what Shafalqua said?" Again, explained what gender constancy is and why Shafalqua can be said not to have passed through it yet.

2e - "describe and evaluate the biological approach to gender, using evidence." I spent one page talking about what the biological approach says, including mentioning the chromosome difference, the hormone difference, and some brain differences (I said parts of the male hippocampus were bigger, actually it's parts of their hypothalamus, oops!) I then talked about hormone studies in support (I used Van Goozen and Galligani) and talked about studies that seem to support the innate nature of gender, such as early gender differences (connellan) and universal traits (williams and best). It was here I realised I hadn't mentioned anything about evolution, so included this in the evaluation, explaining why evidence of evolution supports the biological approach, I referenced Buss et al here showing that universal desires make certain behaviours evolutionarily advantageous. In talking about the negatives, I said social learning theory better explains cross cultural differences (I used Best et al, Mead takes too long to explain) and also there are cases when individuals can change gender (I used Rekers et al, Imperato-McGinley would have been a better choice). And then I tagged on a bit about criticism of hormone studies, referencing Slabbekoorn.

3a - "what can be said from the median scores?" The median scores for group B were greater than groups A, so you can say the fake estimate list influenced group B's decision, making it higher.

3b - "how could the students have been stratified?" I struggled on this. I knew what to say but didn't express myself very well. I said you could split the students into ages, and then take the proportionately appropriate amount from each age. I then gave the example that if you have 100 age 12 and 200 age 13 and 200 age 14, then to get 100 participants you would take 20, 40 and 40 respectively.

3c - "Why would repeated measures have been inappropriate?" I put that demand characteristics would have been guessed, and explained how that would affect the results. I think this is a better answer than practice effect or fatigue effect, but those would also get credit.

3d - "give one type of interview the psychologist could use after" What a dumb question. I just put "structured interview" and then explained what the term meant. Didn't even make my answer relevant to the cake experiment, and don't think I had to.

3e - "what's one limitation of using this type of interview?" Because structured interview, I put that further lines of investigation would be less likely to be brought up. If you put unstructured interview then something about difficulty comparing the results between interview answers would be good here.

No "draw a graph" question!

Overall, I'm pretty confident with how I did on this. Hope that helped

Okay i know this exam is in like 3 months but i figures consedering im sitting 9 other exams in june... i havent sat any of the psychology exams before(jan 2013)...does anyone have anytips on studying because i cannot retain anythin i learn!!!

so what essay do you guys think will come up for the approaches section?