Revise The core studies for Cambridge 9990 (3.1.1)

The Cambridge A-Level Psychology course is built around 20 core studies. It is a common misconception to view these as 20 separate topics to be memorised. Instead, they are exemplars used to explore the entire landscape of psychology through a specific framework. This framework consists of three key pillars: Approaches, Issues, and Debates. The studies provide the concrete evidence and examples you will use to understand, compare, and evaluate these broader concepts. Your goal is not just to know what happened in each study, but to understand what each study tells us about a particular way of explaining behaviour (an approach), how to critique its quality (an issue), and where it fits into the grand arguments of psychology (a debate).

An 'approach' is a perspective that involves certain assumptions about human behaviour. The syllabus organises the core studies under five key approaches, with four studies per approach. The Biological approach assumes behaviour is caused by physiological processes like genetics and brain activity. The Cognitive approach focuses on mental processes such as memory and thinking. The Learning approach posits that behaviour is acquired through experience, such as conditioning and observation. The Social approach examines how the social situation and the presence of others influence behaviour. Finally, the Clinical approach, introduced at A-Level, focuses on the diagnosis and treatment of abnormal behaviour. Each core study is a classic or key example of its designated approach, showcasing its theories and preferred research methods.

Beyond understanding the approaches, you must be able to critically evaluate the core studies. This is done by considering several key 'issues'. A major issue is ethics: did the study protect participants from harm and respect their autonomy? Another is validity (is the study measuring what it claims to measure?) and reliability (is the study consistent and replicable?). You will also consider the nature of the data collected – quantitative (numerical) versus qualitative (descriptive). Furthermore, the issue of 'application to everyday life' asks you to consider the practical usefulness of the research findings. Every core study can be assessed against these issues, allowing you to identify its specific strengths and weaknesses, a crucial skill for examination success.

Debates are fundamental, often philosophical, arguments that run through the heart of psychology. Unlike 'issues', which are used to evaluate a single study, 'debates' place a study within a wider theoretical conflict. The nature-nurture debate questions the relative contribution of genetics versus environment. The free will-determinism debate explores whether our behaviour is chosen or caused by preceding factors. The reductionism-holism debate considers whether it is better to break behaviour down into simple components or to view it as an indivisible whole. You will use the core studies as evidence to support one side of a debate, or to illustrate the complexity of the interaction between the two sides. For example, you might use a biological study to support the 'nature' side of the debate.