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A-LevelPsychologyClinical psychology (abnormality)9990/12 · Feb/Mar 2020 · Q24 Marks

From the case study by Saavedra and Silverman who gave therapy to a 9-year old boy after his negative experience with buttons:

  1. (a)Outline one psychological concept that was investigated in this study.[2]
  2. (b)Outline one result from the posttreatment assessment session.[2]

Mark scheme

Marking points from the official mark scheme (Feb/Mar 2020). The mark or mark type is shown in brackets.

  1. One mark for identifying
  2. One mark for outlining
  3. e.g.
  4. Phobias were investigated (1). These are when people develop some irrational fear of an object/situation (1).
  5. Operant Conditioning (1). One example of this is using a reward to increase the probability of a behaviour being repeated (1).
  6. Classical Conditioning (1). This is when stimuli are associated together after several pairings happen (1).
  7. One mark per correct point.
  8. e.g.
  9. The boy reported minimal distress about buttons (1) and he no longer met the DSM criteria for a specific phobia (of buttons) (1)
  10. He was now wearing (clear) plastic buttons on his school uniform (1) and he was doing this every day/on a daily basis (1).

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About this question

Topic
Clinical psychology (abnormality), A-Level Psychology (syllabus 9990). Structured question, 4 marks.
Source
A-Level Psychology, Feb/Mar 2020 Paper 1 Variant 2, question 2.

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