Gender and culture in Psychology – universality and bias. Gender bias including androcentrism and alpha and beta bias; cultural bias, including ethnocentrism and cultural relativism.
Free will and determinism: hard determinism and soft determinism; biological, environmental and psychic determinism. The scientific emphasis on causal explanations.
The nature-nurture debate: the relative importance of heredity and environment in determining behaviour; the interactionist approach.
Holism and reductionism: levels of explanation in Psychology. Biological reductionism and environmental (stimulus-response) reductionism.
Idiographic and nomothetic approaches to psychological investigation.
Ethical implications of research studies and theory, including reference to social sensitivity.
Pupils get to pick 3 of the 9 following topics (one from each row) for the final section of the paper
Gender, Relationships, Cognition & Development
Schizophrenia, Eating Behaviour, Stress
Aggression, Forensic Psychology, Addiction
More information about each topic can be found here.