AQA A-Level Psychology Paper 2 Essays: Approaches in Psychology Essay Questions and Answer Hints
Approaches in Psychology is part of AQA A-Level Psychology Paper 2: Psychology in Context. The current specification requires students to understand the behaviourist approach, social learning theory, the cognitive approach, the biological approach, cognitive neuroscience, the psychodynamic approach, Humanistic Psychology and comparisons between approaches.
These questions require more than a memorised description of each approach. Students need to understand the assumptions each approach makes about human behaviour, how those assumptions are translated into explanations, and how convincingly the approach investigates behaviour.
Evaluate the behaviourist approach.
How to answer this question
Begin with enough description to establish the main assumptions of behaviourism, particularly the focus on observable behaviour, learning from the environment and the role of conditioning.
You should cover both classical conditioning and operant conditioning, but do not spend most of the essay describing Pavlov's dogs or Skinner's box.
Because the command word is evaluate, the bulk of the answer should assess how useful the behaviourist approach is as an explanation of behaviour. Its commitment to scientific investigation is an obvious strength, but this can be balanced against limitations of explaining complex behaviour entirely through conditioning.
Indicative points
You could include:
Behaviourists argue that psychology should investigate observable and measurable behaviour rather than inaccessible mental processes.
Behaviour is primarily explained through experience and learning from the environment.
The approach therefore places considerable emphasis on nurture.
In classical conditioning, learning occurs through association.
Pavlov demonstrated how a previously neutral stimulus could produce a conditioned response following repeated association with an unconditioned stimulus.
In operant conditioning, behaviour is shaped by its consequences.
Positive reinforcement increases behaviour through the presentation of a rewarding consequence.
Negative reinforcement increases behaviour by removing or avoiding an unpleasant consequence.
Skinner demonstrated operant conditioning experimentally using animals in highly controlled conditions.
For evaluation, you could consider:
Behaviourism helped psychology become more scientific and objective because observable responses can be measured.
Highly controlled procedures make behaviourist research easier to replicate.
The approach generated testable principles of learning.
Conditioning principles have useful real-world applications, including behavioural treatments and behaviour modification.
Environmental explanations can be useful because learned behaviour can potentially be changed.
However, strict behaviourism may be environmentally deterministic, leaving little room for choice.
Reducing complex human behaviour to stimulus-response associations or reinforcement may be overly simplistic.
Biological and cognitive influences may also contribute to behaviour.
Much foundational behaviourist research used animals, so there are questions about how readily findings generalise to humans.
Human learning may involve mental processes that cannot be captured by conditioning alone, one reason social learning theory developed beyond traditional behaviourism.
AQA examiner commentary has repeatedly warned against evaluating Skinner's or Pavlov's study instead of the behaviourist explanation itself. For example, simply saying that animal research is unethical does little to evaluate conditioning as an explanation of human behaviour. Stronger responses explain what research limitations mean for the conclusions behaviourists draw.
Discuss social learning theory as an explanation of behaviour.
How to answer this question
Social learning theory goes beyond simply saying that people copy others.
A strong answer should explain:
modelling and observation
imitation
identification
vicarious reinforcement
mediational processes
Bandura's research can then be used to illustrate and evaluate these processes.
Be careful not to confuse vicarious reinforcement with direct reinforcement. In social learning theory, the observer sees what happens to somebody else and this influences whether they later imitate that behaviour.
Indicative points
You could include:
Social learning theory proposes that behaviour can be learned through observing other people.
The person whose behaviour is observed acts as a model.
An observer may subsequently imitate the model's behaviour.
Imitation is particularly likely when the observer identifies with the model.
Identification may be stronger when the model is perceived as similar, attractive, powerful or high status.
Behaviour can also be learned through vicarious reinforcement.
If an observer sees a model rewarded, the observer may become more likely to imitate the behaviour.
Observing punishment may reduce the likelihood of imitation.
Learning and performance are not identical. Behaviour can be observed and learned without necessarily being immediately reproduced.
Mediational processes intervene between observing behaviour and imitating it.
These include attention, retention, motor reproduction and motivation.
Bandura's research can be used to demonstrate observational learning and the influence of models.
For discussion, consider:
Bandura's research provides evidence that behaviour can be learned without direct reinforcement.
Including cognitive mediational processes makes SLT more complete than traditional behaviourism.
The approach is less environmentally deterministic than strict behaviourism because individuals process what they observe before deciding whether to imitate.
SLT can explain how behaviour spreads through families, peer groups and wider social environments.
However, it may still underestimate biological influences on behaviour.
Laboratory modelling research can be artificial, so imitation in an experiment may not perfectly represent learning in everyday life.
Behaviour demonstrated towards an unusual object in a study may not necessarily generalise to real aggression or other complex behaviours.
SLT may describe how behaviour is transmitted without always fully explaining why individuals exposed to the same model behave differently.
AQA's 2023 mark scheme explicitly recognised Bandura's evidence base and the inclusion of mediational processes as strengths, while allowing limitations based on determinism, an overemphasis on nurture and neglect of biological influences.
The accompanying examiner report also warned that students often evaluated Bandura's methodology without connecting the criticism back to social learning theory.
Read our example essay...
Discuss the cognitive approach in psychology.
How to answer this question
The cognitive approach is about investigating internal mental processes scientifically.
Your descriptive section should therefore cover:
internal mental processes
schemas
theoretical and computer models
inference
Then discuss how successfully cognitive psychologists can study processes that cannot themselves be directly observed.
Indicative points
You could include:
Cognitive psychologists study internal mental processes such as memory, perception, attention and thinking.
These processes cannot be directly observed in the same way as behaviour.
Researchers therefore make inferences about mental processes from observable behaviour.
A schema is a mental framework developed from experience that helps organise and interpret information.
Schemas can make information processing more efficient.
They may also distort interpretation when expectations influence the way information is processed.
Cognitive psychologists use theoretical models to represent mental processes.
Models may describe information flowing through a sequence of stages or components.
Computer models have been used as analogies for human information processing, for example input, processing, storage and output.
The current AQA specification specifically identifies internal mental processes, schemas, models and inference as central features of the cognitive approach.
For discussion, consider:
Cognitive psychology uses controlled experimental methods, allowing variables to be manipulated and behaviour measured objectively.
This has helped make the investigation of cognition more scientific.
Models allow complex mental processes to be broken down and tested.
The approach has generated useful applications, including explanations and treatments within clinical psychology.
Cognitive neuroscience provides biological evidence that can be linked to proposed mental processes.
However, internal mental processes remain indirectly investigated, so conclusions are based on inference.
A person's behaviour may have more than one possible cognitive explanation.
Computer analogies can be criticised as machine reductionist, because humans are influenced by emotion, motivation, biology and social context in ways computers are not.
Highly controlled cognitive research may simplify cognition compared with its operation in everyday life.
A useful exam technique is to distinguish between saying that cognitive psychology studies things that "cannot be seen" and explaining how psychologists nevertheless investigate them scientifically through inference from observable evidence. AQA's assessment material defines inference as going beyond directly observed evidence to make conclusions about underlying mental processes.
Discuss the biological approach in psychology.
How to answer this question
The biological approach is broader than "genes cause behaviour".
The current specification requires knowledge of:
genotype
phenotype
evolution
biological structures
A good essay should demonstrate this breadth before evaluating how successful biological explanations are.
Indicative points
You could include:
The biological approach assumes that behaviour has a physical or biological basis.
Genes inherited from biological parents form an individual's genotype.
The phenotype is the observable expression of the genotype interacting with environmental influences.
Behaviour may therefore reflect both inherited biology and environmental effects on genetic expression.
Genetic differences can contribute to individual differences in behaviour.
Evolutionary explanations propose that genetically influenced behaviours increasing survival or reproduction are more likely to be passed to subsequent generations.
Over generations, naturally selected behaviours may become more common.
Biological structures, including particular brain areas and neural systems, can influence behaviour.
Behaviour may also be affected by neurochemistry, including neurotransmitter activity.
AQA's current specification explicitly includes genotype, phenotype, evolution, biological structures and neurochemistry within the biological approach.
For discussion, consider:
Biological explanations can be investigated using objective scientific techniques.
Advances in brain imaging provide measurable evidence linking biological activity and behaviour.
Genetic and neurochemical explanations have generated useful practical applications, including biological treatments.
The approach can make precise, testable predictions.
However, biological explanations can become reductionist if complex behaviour is reduced to genes, brain structures or neurotransmitters.
Biological explanations may also be deterministic if behaviour is treated as an inevitable consequence of biology.
The distinction between genotype and phenotype itself shows that genes do not operate independently of the environment.
Finding a biological difference associated with behaviour does not necessarily establish cause and effect.
Psychological and environmental explanations may be needed alongside biological ones.
AQA's 2023 examiner report noted that stronger answers to biological-approach questions drew on several levels of explanation, including genetic, neurochemical and biological structures, rather than treating the approach as purely genetic.
Discuss cognitive neuroscience.
How to answer this question
This essay is not simply a question about brain-scanning techniques, and it is not just another cognitive-approach or biological-approach essay.
Cognitive neuroscience is important because it brings those two levels of explanation together. The focus should be on how researchers investigate the neural basis of cognition.
A useful structure is:
explain what cognitive neuroscience is
explain how cognitive and biological explanations are linked
discuss what cognitive neuroscience has contributed to psychology
evaluate its limitations
Indicative points
You could include:
Cognitive neuroscience investigates the biological basis of cognitive processes.
It combines cognitive explanations of processes such as memory, attention and decision-making with evidence about brain activity.
Cognitive psychologists may propose a mental process or model.
Neuroscientific methods can then investigate whether particular patterns of neural activity are associated with that process.
Improvements in technologies such as fMRI have allowed psychologists to study the functioning brain.
Researchers can compare brain activity while people perform different cognitive tasks.
This allows proposed mental processes to be related to biological structures and neural activity.
Cognitive neuroscience can therefore provide biological evidence for processes that previously had to be inferred only from behaviour.
It may also help researchers understand the neural basis of psychological disorders and cognitive difficulties.
For discussion, consider:
Cognitive neuroscience has made the study of internal mental processes more objective and scientific.
Converging behavioural and biological evidence can strengthen explanations.
It has encouraged greater integration between previously separate approaches.
Identifying neural processes may contribute to diagnosis, intervention or treatment.
It can provide evidence that experience changes the brain, showing an interaction between biological and environmental influences.
However, identifying a brain area that becomes active during a task does not necessarily explain the entire cognitive process.
Brain activity and behaviour may be correlated without establishing which causes which.
Complex psychological experiences may be reduced too far if researchers focus only on neural activity.
Scanning techniques can produce impressive-looking evidence, but interpretation still matters.
There may also be ethical concerns about potential uses of information concerning an individual's brain or cognitive functioning.
The 2023 AQA mark scheme describes cognitive neuroscience as exploring the neurobiological basis of thought processes and disorders, with discussion points including scientific objectivity, applications, brain plasticity and research linking mental processes to neurological activity.
This was also an area where examiner technique mattered enormously. The 2023 examiner report found that weaker answers drifted into descriptions of the cognitive approach, biological approach or brain-scanning methods. Stronger answers explicitly kept returning to the contribution of cognitive neuroscience.
Discuss the psychodynamic approach in psychology.
How to answer this question
This is a broad essay, so your description needs sufficient breadth.
The current specification includes:
the unconscious
the Id, Ego and Superego
defence mechanisms
psychosexual stages
Do not spend the whole descriptive section on the tripartite personality and leave no space for psychosexual development.
Indicative points
You could include:
The psychodynamic approach proposes that much behaviour is influenced by the unconscious mind.
Unconscious wishes, memories and conflicts may influence behaviour without entering conscious awareness.
Freud divided personality into the Id, Ego and Superego.
The Id operates according to the pleasure principle and seeks immediate gratification.
The Ego operates according to the reality principle and mediates between competing demands.
The Superego represents internalised moral standards.
Conflict between these parts of personality can create anxiety.
The Ego uses unconscious defence mechanisms to manage this conflict.
AQA specifically requires repression, denial and displacement.
Freud also proposed a series of psychosexual stages.
These are oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital.
Unresolved conflict can produce fixation, potentially influencing later personality and behaviour.
Early childhood therefore plays a major role in psychodynamic explanations of adult behaviour.
For discussion, consider:
Freud's approach highlighted the possible importance of unconscious processes when conscious explanations dominated psychology.
It emphasised the lasting influence of childhood experience.
Psychodynamic ideas contributed to the development of psychoanalytic therapy.
The approach has considerable explanatory scope and has influenced psychology beyond Freud's original work.
However, concepts such as unconscious conflict are difficult to observe and objectively test.
Some psychodynamic claims are difficult to falsify.
Much of Freud's evidence came from intensive case studies, which provide rich detail but make generalisation difficult.
Interpretation of case-study evidence may be subjective.
The approach is strongly psychically deterministic, with behaviour explained through unconscious forces and early experience.
Some of Freud's theories have been criticised for gender bias.
The approach may therefore have historical and theoretical importance without meeting the same scientific standards as more experimentally based approaches.
The 2025 Paper 2 mark scheme identifies the unconscious, tripartite personality, psychosexual stages, conflicts and defence mechanisms as core descriptive material for an extended psychodynamic answer.
The corresponding examiner report found that stronger essays balanced this breadth with substantial evaluation. Common effective points concerned psychoanalytic therapy, explanatory power, falsifiability, case-study evidence and psychic determinism. Students who produced large amounts of description without enough evaluation were restricted by the assessment-objective balance.
Compare approaches in psychology. In your answer, refer to their assumptions, explanations of behaviour and scientific investigation.
How to answer this question
This question demands comparison, not several separate descriptions.
A sentence such as "the behaviourist approach believes behaviour is learned" is description. It becomes comparison when you write something like: "Whereas behaviourists explain behaviour primarily through environmental learning, biological psychologists explain behaviour through genetic, neural and neurochemical processes."
Organise the essay by points of comparison, rather than writing one page on each approach.
The three areas named in the question provide an excellent structure:
assumptions
explanations of behaviour
scientific investigation
You can compare several approaches, but it is better to make a smaller number of detailed, explicit comparisons than to name every approach superficially.
Indicative points
Assumptions
You could compare:
Behaviourism assumes behaviour is learned through interaction with the environment.
Social learning theory also emphasises environmental learning but includes observation, identification and cognitive mediational processes.
The cognitive approach assumes internal mental processes play an important role in behaviour.
The biological approach explains behaviour through genetic, evolutionary, neural and neurochemical influences.
The psychodynamic approach emphasises unconscious conflicts and early childhood.
Humanistic Psychology places much greater emphasis on free will, personal growth and subjective experience.
Useful comparisons include:
behaviourism and SLT both emphasise learning, but SLT introduces cognition
cognitive and biological approaches are increasingly integrated through cognitive neuroscience
psychodynamic and biological approaches can both be deterministic, but they propose very different causes of behaviour
humanistic psychology contrasts sharply with deterministic approaches because it emphasises free choice
Explanations of behaviour
You could compare levels of explanation:
behaviourists explain behaviour through conditioning
SLT explains behaviour through observation and modelling
cognitive psychologists explain behaviour through information processing and schemas
biological psychologists refer to genes, evolution, structures and neurochemistry
psychodynamic psychologists explain behaviour through the unconscious, personality conflict and childhood
humanistic psychologists explain behaviour through movement towards self-actualisation, congruence and conditions of worth
This gives you opportunities to compare:
nature versus nurture
internal versus external explanations
reductionist versus more holistic explanations
deterministic versus free-will assumptions
Scientific investigation
You could compare:
Behaviourism focuses directly on observable and measurable behaviour, allowing tightly controlled experiments.
Biological psychology also makes extensive use of objective measurement, including physiological and neural evidence.
Cognitive psychology uses scientific experiments but must often infer underlying mental processes from behaviour.
Cognitive neuroscience strengthens the link between cognitive explanations and directly measurable biological activity.
Psychodynamic concepts such as unconscious conflicts are much harder to test objectively or falsify.
Humanistic psychologists prioritise subjective experience, which can be less compatible with highly controlled laboratory investigation.
The key is to explain what these methodological differences mean. For example, greater objectivity can increase replicability, but narrowing psychology to variables that are easily measured may also oversimplify human behaviour.
Make your comparisons explicit
Useful comparative phrasing includes:
Both approaches...
In contrast...
Whereas...
Similarly...
Unlike...
This means the two approaches differ because...
Although both explain X, they differ in...
Do not assume the examiner will make the comparison for you.
This is a recurring issue in AQA examiner reports. In a previous comparison question, students often demonstrated good knowledge of both approaches but gained limited credit because they described them separately rather than explicitly comparing them. Higher-performing answers identified both similarities and differences and maintained comparison throughout.
The 2024 report makes the same point. Students sometimes produced lengthy, accurate descriptions but failed to draw out comparison. Better responses were more concise on description and compared approaches directly using themes such as determinism, reductionism, application and the nature-nurture debate.
Final tips for AQA A-Level Psychology Approaches essays
Across Approaches in Psychology, the biggest danger is writing a generic pre-learned essay rather than answering the exact question. AQA's recent examiner reports repeatedly identify this as a reason students lose marks.
A few habits help:
Know the assumptions as well as the details. The approaches are different because they make different assumptions about what causes behaviour.
Evaluate the approach, not just the famous study. A limitation of Bandura's experiment only matters if you explain what it means for social learning theory.
Use evidence analytically. Explain whether research makes an explanation more or less convincing.
Be precise with terminology. Negative reinforcement is not punishment, genotype is not phenotype, and cognitive neuroscience is not simply brain scanning.
Use the science issue carefully. Consider observability, objectivity, control, replicability, inference and falsifiability rather than simply declaring an approach "scientific".
Keep cognitive neuroscience integrated. Its distinctive contribution is connecting cognitive processes with biological evidence.
For comparison questions, compare in every paragraph. Two accurate mini-essays placed next to one another are not the same as a comparison.
Watch the AO balance. Extended answers usually need much more discussion or evaluation than students instinctively give them, so concise AO1 leaves space for developed AO3.
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