Key Idea: Behaviour changes because the brain and body change, and because people learn. A change only counts when it has been measured and the ordinary reasons for a difference have been ruled out.
Biological change
- Maturation: a timetable of development
- Neuroplasticity: experience reshapes the brain
- Hormones; recovery after injury
Behavioural change
- Learning a link; building a habit
- Rewards and consequences
- Barriers hold the old behaviour in place
Changing on purpose
- Promotion: for everyone
- Prevention: before the problem starts
- Intervention: for those who have it
Measuring change
- Measure the same thing more than once
- Rule out practice and regression to the mean
- A control group and a follow-up
The words to know
| Word | What it means |
|---|---|
| Maturation | Development of the brain and body on a rough timetable |
| Neuroplasticity | The brain reshaping its connections through experience |
| Biological determinism | The view that behaviour is decided by biology |
| Habit formation | Repeating an action in the same situation until it is automatic |
| Operant conditioning | Learning from consequences: rewarded behaviour is repeated |
| Barrier to change | Something that holds an old behaviour in place |
| Longitudinal study | The same people are followed over months or years |
| Practice effect | Doing better on a test because you have taken it before |
| Regression to the mean | Extreme scores moving back towards the average |
| Prevalence | How common a problem is in a population |
What changed, how fast, what produced the change, and how do we know it is real?
Exam-style question
Context: Health and well-being A youth club wants its members to put their phones away during club evenings. As a psychologist, you have been asked to suggest a strategy. Explain how operant conditioning could be used to achieve this goal.
Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
Important: "People change" says too little. Name what produced the change, and say how it was measured.
Tap each card to check yourself.
Practice builds a skill. Which biological change is this? Neuroplasticity.
Gradual or sudden: the brain maturing through the teenage years? Gradual.
What does operant conditioning say? Behaviour that is rewarded is repeated.
Name two barriers to change. Old habits, rewards that come at once, other people, low confidence.
Why measure a change more than once and with a control group? To rule out practice, chance and things that would have happened anyway.
What shows that a prevention campaign worked? The prevalence of the problem falls, and stays down.
Exam tips
- Name the source of a change: maturation, plasticity, learning, a strategy.
- Say what kind of change it is: gradual or sudden, planned or not.
- For a strategy, say which barrier it removes.
- For a claim that something worked, look for a control group and a follow-up.