Summary Table: Key Studies of Determinants of Health (DP IB Psychology: SL): Revision Note

Syllabus Edition

First teaching 2017

Last exams 2026

Claire Neeson

Written by: Claire Neeson

Reviewed by: Raj Bonsor

Updated on

Summary Table: Key Studies of Determinants of Health

SUMMARY TABLE: KEY STUDIES OF DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH

Topic

Two Key Studies

The Biopsychosocial Model of Health & Well-being

  • Use both of these studies to answer a question on the biopsychosocial model

  • Use Marmot et al. (1997) to answer a question on dispositional  factors and health, as a counter-argument

Marmot et al. (1997)

Suls & Rothman (2004)

Dispositional Factors & Health Beliefs

  • Use both of these studies to answer a question on dispositional factors and health beliefs

  • Use both of these studies to answer a question on risk factors and health

Rasmussen et al. (2009)

Masiero et al.  (2015)

Risk Factors and Protective Factors and Health

  • Use both of these studies to answer a question on the role of risk factors and protective factors and health

Haslam et al. (2018)

Turbin et al. (2006) 


How do I use these studies in an exam question on this topic?

  • IB students have a lot of content to cover (particularly students taking Psychology at Higher Level) so the purpose of this revision resource is to slim down and streamline the number of studies you need per topic/exam question

  • The exam question command term will be one of the following: ‘Evaluate’, ‘Discuss’, ‘Contrast’ or ‘To what extent’ 

  • Each command term requires you to answer the question in slightly different ways, using the content as shown in the summary table above i.e. specific studies per topic/question

  • In order to slim down the content you need to revise you can see above how some of the studies can be used for more than one potential exam question

  • Marmot et al. (1997), Rasmussen et al. (2009) and Masiero et al. (2015) can be used to answer more than one potential exam question on Paper 2 content so you may decide to keep all of these studies and ‘throw away’ any studies which you find that you don’t need to revise

  • Remember that all Paper 2 questions are ERQs (Extended Response Questions) which are worth 22 marks, take an hour to write and need to be rich in critical thinking

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Claire Neeson

Author: Claire Neeson

Expertise: Psychology Content Creator

Claire has been teaching for 34 years, in the UK and overseas. She has taught GCSE, A-level and IB Psychology which has been a lot of fun and extremely exhausting! Claire is now a freelance Psychology teacher and content creator, producing textbooks, revision notes and (hopefully) exciting and interactive teaching materials for use in the classroom and for exam prep. Her passion (apart from Psychology of course) is roller skating and when she is not working (or watching 'Coronation Street') she can be found busting some impressive moves on her local roller rink.

Raj Bonsor

Reviewer: Raj Bonsor

Expertise: Curriculum Expert

Raj joined Save My Exams in 2024 as a Senior Curriculum Expert for Psychology & Sociology. Prior to this, she spent 15 years in the classroom, teaching hundreds of GCSE and A Level students. She has experience as Subject Leader for Psychology and Sociology, and her favourite topics to teach are research methods (especially inferential statistics!) and attachment. She has also successfully taught a number of Level 3 subjects, including criminology, health & social care, and citizenship.