Tips for Psychology at A-Level

As long as it works for you, that's what counts! I also use lots of arrows, like an upwards arrow followed by "int val" would mean "increases the internal validity".

That's quite difficult to say really. I think it's all about practice, and also knowing your stuff well. If you revise it over and over and feel like you're confident on the whole topic, then getting through it is quite simple as it's just a matter of turning your shorthand notes back into full form.

I think PEEL structure also works for comparison of approaches. Make your point by stating a similarity or difference, then provide evidence by developing on it. You could then explain nuances if possible, for instance a difference within the similarity, or a similarity within the difference; one example of this may be that the behaviourist and biological approaches both use animals, but the former focuses on the external environment while the latter is interested in the internal response. You can then link back to your original point by ending on the consequence/implication, eg. "this can be a weakness as both approaches can be accessed of anthropomorphism and may not generalise to humans".

It's my pleasure!

Thanks for directing me to this for 12 markers what kind of things should I include I'm really confused on how to actually structure them and what I should be putting in in terms of GRAVE and GRENADE?

GRAVE (generalisability, reliability, application, validity (internal and ecological) ethics.
Grenide
Gender bias
Reductionism Vs Holism
Ethical issues vs Socially
sensitivity.
Nature Vs Nurture
Idiographic Vs Nomothetic
Determinism Vs Freewill
Ethnocentrism.

Thanks for directing me to this for 12 markers what kind of things should I include I'm really confused on how to actually structure them and what I should be putting in in terms of GRAVE and GRENADE?

This is great!

What I did was at the top of each flash card, I’d write a 16-mark question and then in bullet points I’d think of a few points that would adequately answer the question, each bullet point being a paragraph in the real answer. I did this by going through each page of my revision guide and making sure I wasn’t leaving out any topic that a 16 marker could come up on. Google pretty much had all the 16 markers on there, I just typed in the topic name with ‘16 mark questions’ after. This is probably more Year 13 revision when you already know a fair bit, but it really really helps. You wouldn’t need to do the same for 12 or 8 mark questions as you could just pick out a couple of the bullet points and use those instead, so it’s actually more time efficient than it sounds. Oh yeah and if it helps you can highlight each bullet point a different colour depending on whether it’s AO1 or AO3, and that would give you a sense of how much you’re including in each answer. Good luck!

Would you be able to take a picture of one of the flashcards as an example please I usually waste a lot of time just deciding how I'm even going to lay my revision out

Hi I’m in year 12 and idk the structure for 16 markers as my teacher is ill. Like Ik u add A01 and A03 but how? And for 12 and 8 markers? How many paragraphs and how do u start?

^^^^

I'm not really sure about 12 and 8 because I never needed to prepare for AS, and I feel I tend to see these less. The number of paragraphs isn't set in stone as it more depends on the level of detail. For a 16-marker, I tend to go with a big AO1 (description) paragraph that could unofficially be turned into 6 bullet points, and either 3 very detailed AO3 (evaluation) paragraphs, or 4 average ones.

Don't worry about starting it well; it's not English or anything. Literally just jump straight into it.

Here's an example of my answer (with teacher comments in red):

3) Discuss research into minority influence. (16 marks)
For a minority to become a majority, psychologists have found that the minority must demonstrate their views while being consistent, committed, and flexible. Consistency can mean consistency over time (ie. the minority have been saying the same thing for a long time), or throughout the minority (ie. the minority are all saying the same thing as each other). Commitment refers to being able to put yourself at risk for your cause, ranging from physical danger to risking losing your job; if someone is willing to put themselves in harm’s way for their cause then others may begin to take it seriously. Flexibility is the skill of compromise, as people will be more likely to agree with terms they see as reasonable; the minority cannot be too extreme in their demands or else people won’t listen. The more people converted to the minority view, the faster more people also join the minority; eventually this becomes a snowball effect, in which the minority will become the majority, and social change will have occurred.
Excellent summary of the key processes.

There is research support for consistency from Moscovici et al.’s study, which used 36 blue-green tiles in three conditions. In the first condition, confederates gave the same wrong answer in regards to the colour of the tiles repeatedly, whereas in the second they were inconsistent in giving this wrong answer (the third condition was a control in which confederates gave the right answer). Moscovici found that conformity dropped when the confederates were inconsistent, which suggests consistency is key in the majority being convinced of the minority’s view.

However, one problem with this study is that it was gynocentric to reduce the risk of colour-blindness. This means that the sample was biased, and may only apply to women. For this reason, the findings cannot be generalised. Another problem with the study was the artificial nature of the experiment, as there were no real-life consequences for p’s getting the wrong answer; in reality, the circumstances may be far more severe and the causes far more important, for instance in causing social change in regards to environmental attitudes. P’s also may have responded to demand characteristics in a lab experiment, either giving the answer they thought was wanted (“please U” effect) or purposely sabotaging the results (“screw U” effect), although Moscovici believed that p’s had internalised the beliefs because their answer was written down rather than spoken out loud. With all things considered, Moscovici’s findings seems as though they will not generalise to real-life scenarios, and therefore they lack external validity.

Despite this, other studies do support the ideas of minority influence too, and there is plenty of real-life evidence as well. For instance, Fathers For Justice once dressed up as superheroes and climbed the Houses of Parliament, which gained a lot of attention in the media and demonstrated commitment; the protesters were willing to put themselves at risk for their cause, and so people listened. Another real-life example could be environmental activists; people are willing to listen to flexible demands, such as recycling and carpooling, but the majority would find it off-putting if they were told they could never use a car again. This is real-life evidence showing that the minority must be committed and flexible to convert the majority.

Excellent stuff. There is another slightly more realistic study involving deliberation in juries that could have talked about but there's enough here for full marks. Well done.
16/16

How do you set out each paragraph do you use the PEEL structure I'm so confused with how to set everything out ? x

The first one is literally as though you've taken 6 different bullet points and put them all in a paragraph together. The AO3 should probably be PEEL if you're struggling.

Do you have any more examples please but for memory ? And how do you form PEEL paragraphs please and do you have anything that includes issues and debates and how they relate to each topic e.g Milgram and alpha bias?