Before we get started covering unit 1 revision – Just a quick heads up that my model essay answers ebook (7181) on the right here covers all the possible essay questions you can be asked for this unit 1 exam paper for both AS and A level psychology students! It’s helped literally thousands of AQA psychology students like yourself source the right information they need for their own essay answers and score phenomenal grades! This covers the latest AQA specification and has even proven invaluable for teachers too! You can literally just source the theory and evaluation points from it for your own essays cutting down your revision time immensely as you don’t need to spend as long creating them from scratch.
You can download it instantly by clicking the ebook image on the right – it becomes instantly available to use on all your devices upon purchase and you can even print it too if you prefer handouts!
AQA A Psychology Road Map
Unit 1 of AQA A Psychology has significant overlap between what you study at AS and what you study at A level and explaining this would be pretty confusing (I only barely got my head around it after carefully examining the specification). To simplify this difference anything in this purple color is what you study during A level in addition to the other topics for that section.
AQA A Psychology Unit 1 7181 Revision Resources:
Below you have the 4 main topics for unit 1 7181 for both AS and A level psychology students. Over time I will continue to add further content so keep coming back as I update this.
- Social Influence
- Memory
- Attachment
- Psychopathology*
*(Psychopathology is in unit 2 for AS students and unit 1 for A level students just so you’re aware but there is no difference in this even at A level hence it is not in purple)
Social Influence
- Types Of Conformity: Internalisation, Identification and compliance.
- Explanations for conformity: Informational social influence and normative social influence, and variables affecting conformity including group size, unanimity and task difficulty as investigated by Asch.
- Conformity to social roles as investigated by Zimbardo.
- Explanations for obedience: Agentic state and legitimacy of authority, and situational variables affecting obedience including proximity, location and uniform, as investigated by Milgram. Dispositional explanation for obedience: the Authoritarian Personality.Explanations of resistance to social influence, including social support and locus of control.
- Minority influence including reference to consistency, commitment and flexibility.
- The role of social influence processes in social change.
Memory
- The multi-store memory model: Sensory register, short-term memory, long-term memory. Features of each store: coding, capacity and duration.
- Types of long-term memory: Episodic, semantic, procedural.
- The working memory model: Central executive, phonological loop, visuo-spatial sketchpad and episodic buffer. Features of the model including coding and capacity.
- Explanations for forgetting: Proactive and retroactive interference and retrieval failure due to absence of cues.
- Factors affecting the accuracy of eyewitness testimony: Misleading information, including leading questions and post-event discussion: anxiety.
- Improving the accuracy of eyewitness testimony, including the use of the cognitive interview.
Attachment
- Caregiver-infant interactions in humans: Reciprocity and interactional synchrony. Stages of attachment identified by Schaffer. Multiple attachments and the role of the father.
- Animal studies of attachment: Lorenz and Harlow
- Explanations of attachment: Learning theory and Bowlby’s monotropic theory. The concepts of the critical period and an internal working model.
- Ainsworth’s “strange situation”. Types of attachment: Secure, insecure-avoidant and insecure-resistant. Cultural variations in attachment, including Van Ijzendoorn.
- Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation. Romanian orphan studies: effects of institutionalisation.
- The influence of early attachment on childhood and adult relationships, including the role of an internal working model.
Psychopathology
- Definitions of abnormality, including deviation from social norms, failure to function adequately, statistical infrequency and deviation from ideal mental health.
- The Behavioural, emotional and cognitive characteristics of phobias: The two-process model, including classical and operant conditioning: systematic desensitisation, including relaxation and use of hierarchy: flooding.
- The Cognitive approach to explaining and treating depression: Beck’s negative triad and Ellis’s ABC model: cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT), including challenging irrational thoughts.
- The biological approach to explaining and treating OCD: genetic and neural explanations: Drug therapy.
Saj Devshi
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This is amazing! But would you also happen to have the content for the Edexcel exam board new spec? I’ve done my AS Levels and am moving onto A Levels and would love if I could use this as a resource!
Hi Namrata,
I’m hoping to cover Edexcel as soon as I finish covering this new AQA spec so it is in the pipework for sure! :)
hey Saj. Have you done all A2 exam papers content. I am only going to do the 3 papers for the full A level. But I dont know what I need to know, and what topics to pick????
help!!!
P.S I want to get your answers as soon as, so I can start to memorise.
Thanks.
Hi Frans,
I’ve not completed all the A2 topics yet for paper 3 but have done the main ones I would recommend choosing. They are Aggression, Schizophrenia and Relationships – these 3 are the topics I would recommend as the easiest as all the others tend to be harder to learn.
For paper 1 and paper 2 you will find my unit 1 and unit 2 ebooks helpful which are both out in the Loopa store. Heres direct links to them all:
Paper 1 ebook: https://www.loopa.co.uk/product/aqa-psychology-unit-1-model-essay-answers/
Paper 2 ebook: https://www.loopa.co.uk/product/aqa-psychology-unit-2-model-essay-answers/
Paper 3 Aggression: https://www.loopa.co.uk/product/aggression-model-essay-answers-unit-3-7182-aqa-psychology/
Paper 3 Schizophrenia: https://www.loopa.co.uk/product/aqa-psychology-schizophrenia-model-essay-answers-unit-3-7182/
Paper 3 Relationships: https://www.loopa.co.uk/product/aqa-psychology-paper-3-relationships-model-essay-answers-7182/
Use the coupon code “sajdevshi” to get a discount too!
Hope this helps – drop me a message if you need further help at all,
Saj
Hello do you have anything on issues and debates?
Thank you
I have the theory element covered which you can find here: https://www.loopa.co.uk/issues-and-debates-unit-3-aqa-psychology-7182/
Evaluation coming at some point later :)
-Saj