Official June 2026 AQA A-level PSYCHOLOGY 7182/3 Paper 3 Issues and options in psychology Merged Question Paper + Mark Scheme (64pages)

Official June 2026 AQA A-level PSYCHOLOGY 7182/3 Paper 3 Issues and options in psychology Merged Question Paper + Mark Scheme Ace your Mocks!!! IB/G/Jun24/G4004/E12 7182/3 Monday 3 June 2026 Afternoon Time allowed: 2 hours Materials For this paper you must have: • an AQA 16-page Answer Book. You may use a calculator. Instructions • Use black ink or black ball-point pen. • Write the information required on the front of your answer book. The Paper Reference is 7182/3. • In Section A, you should answer all questions. • In Section B, choose one topic. Answer all questions on the topic you choose. • In Section C, choose one topic. Answer all questions on the topic you choose. • In Section D, choose one topic. Answer all questions on the topic you choose. • Do all rough work in your answer book. Cross through any work you do not want to be marked. Information • The marks for questions are shown in brackets. • The maximum mark for this paper is 96. • You will be marked on your ability to: – use good English – organise information clearly – use specialist vocabulary where appropriate. A-level PSYCHOLOGY Paper 3 Issues and options in psychology 2 IB/G/Jun24/7182/3 Read the examples in Table 1 then answer Questions 01 and 02. Table 1 Angie is a psychologist who believes that phobias are affected by unconscious forces. Bibi is a psychologist who believes that phobias are best treated holistically. Carlo is a psychologist who believes that phobias are influenced by both nature and nurture. Dalia is a psychologist who believes that phobias can be explained in terms of conditioning theory. Emma is a psychologist who believes that phobias can be reduced to the levels of cells and chemicals. 0 1 Which psychologist believes in interactionism? Write the correct name in your answer book. [1 mark] 0 2 Which psychologist believes in environmental reductionism? Write the correct name in your answer book. [1 mark] 0 3 What is meant by ethnocentrism in psychology? [2 marks] 0 4 Outline two limitations of ethnocentrism. [4 marks] Section A Issues and debates in psychology Answer all questions in this section. 3 IB/G/Jun24/7182/3 Turn over ► 0 5 Maria is a successful gymnast. Her mother was also an athlete and encouraged Maria throughout her childhood, taking her to practice sessions before school from the age of 5 years. Maria is being interviewed about her success as a gymnast. In the interview she says, ‘I don’t know if I am like my mum or not. Wherever it came from, I always had a strong motivation to succeed. Maybe I didn’t really have much choice. I was destined to be a gymnast.’ Discuss determinism in psychology. Refer to Maria in your answer. [16 marks] Turn over for Section B 4 IB/G/Jun24/7182/3 Topic: Relationships 0 6 A psychologist studied the effects of using different social media platforms. There were 60 participants. The psychologist assigned the first 30 people on the alphabetical list of participants to Group 1 and assigned the remaining 30 people to Group 2. The psychologist asked participants in Group 1 to use a new social media platform over the course of a month. This platform promotes greater self-disclosure. The psychologist asked participants in Group 2, the control group, to use a different new social media platform over the course of a month. This platform does not promote self-disclosure. One way of improving this study would be to use random allocation. Explain how random allocation could have been carried out. [3 marks] 0 7 At the end of the month, the psychologist calculated the median number of ‘social media friends’ for participants in each group. The results are shown in the following table. Table 2 Median number of ‘social media friends’ for Group 1 and Group 2 Group 1 (platform promoting greater self-disclosure) Group 2 (platform not promoting self-disclosure) Median number of ‘social media friends’ 71 42 What conclusion could the psychologist make from the results in Table 2? Justify your answer. [2 marks] 0 8 After conducting the study, the psychologist wrote up a psychological report. Which section of the psychological report should include information about how the participants were allocated to the two groups? [1 mark] Section B Relationships or Gender or Cognition and development Choose one topic from Section B. Answer all questions on the topic you choose. 5 IB/G/Jun24/7182/3 Turn over ► 0 9 Suggest two examples of self-disclosure that might have occurred in the social media communications of the participants in the study. [2 marks] 1 0 Discuss the matching hypothesis. [8 marks] 1 1 Outline and evaluate the role of sexual selection in human reproductive behaviour. [8 marks] Turn over for the next topic 6 IB/G/Jun24/7182/3 Topic: Gender 1 2 A psychologist studied the effects of sex-role stereotyping in the media. There were 60 participants. The psychologist assigned the first 30 people on the alphabetical list of participants to Group 1 and assigned the remaining 30 people to Group 2. The psychologist asked participants in Group 1 to watch a list of sex-role stereotyped TV programmes over the course of a month. The psychologist asked participants in Group 2, the control group, to watch a list of TV programmes which did not show sex-role stereotyping over the course of a month. One way of improving this study would be to use random allocation. Explain how random allocation could have been carried out. [3 marks] 1 3 To analyse the results, the psychologist calculated the median sex-role stereotyping score in a questionnaire for participants in each group at the end of the month. A high score in the questionnaire means a participant shows higher sex-role stereotyped attitudes. The results are shown in the following table. Table 3 Median sex-role stereotyping score in a questionnaire for Group 1 and Group 2 Group 1 (sex-role stereotyped TV programmes) Group 2 (non sex-role stereotyped TV programmes) Median sex-role stereotyping score in the questionnaire (out of 100) 71 42 What conclusion could the psychologist make from the results in Table 3? Justify your answer. [2 marks] 1 4 After conducting the study, the psychologist wrote up a psychological report. Which section of the psychological report should include information about how the participants were allocated to the two groups? [1 mark] 1 5 Suggest two examples of sex-role stereotyped behaviour that might have occurred in the TV programmes watched by Group 1. [2 marks] 7 IB/G/Jun24/7182/3 Turn over ► 1 6 Discuss the role of identification in the development of gender. [8 marks] 1 7 Outline and evaluate psychological research into androgyny. [8 marks]