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IB DP Psychology — Concepts (Change) | SL & HL | Paper 1 & Paper 2
🎯 Learning Intentions By the end of this note, you will be able to:
- Define intervention, prevention, and health promotion as distinct but related strategies for producing psychological and behavioural change.
- Explain the difference between primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention, and identify when each is most appropriate.
- Describe the role of cognitive, biological, and sociocultural factors in determining the effectiveness of change strategies.
- Evaluate research evidence for intervention, prevention, and promotion strategies using supporting and opposing studies in ACAS format.
- Apply these concepts to a realistic case study from multiple psychological perspectives.
- Discuss the extent to which psychological change strategies are effective, ethical, and equitable.
- Analyse these strategies using relevant concept areas: Bias, Causality, Change, Responsibility, and Perspective.
Introduction & Context
Imagine a school where several students have been struggling with persistent anxiety. Some are already experiencing significant distress; others show early warning signs; and many seem fine for now but live in high-pressure environments that put them at risk. What should the school do? Should it wait until students are in crisis before acting? Should it try to catch problems early? Or should it work to build resilience in everyone, before any problems appear at all? These three instincts — respond, catch early, and prevent — map directly onto the three major categories of psychological change strategy.
Psychology has long been interested not just in understanding human behaviour, but in changing it for the better. The concept of change in the IB Psychology syllabus asks us to think critically about how psychological knowledge is applied: who delivers change strategies, who benefits from them, what barriers exist, and whether the evidence actually supports their use. Intervention, prevention, and promotion are the three main frameworks through which psychologists attempt to produce meaningful, lasting change in individuals and communities.
Understanding these strategies requires us to think across all three approaches — biological, cognitive, and sociocultural — because effective change rarely comes from a single angle. A person struggling with depression may need medication (biological), cognitive restructuring (cognitive), and social support (sociocultural) simultaneously. The question is not which approach is "right," but how these strategies interact and what the evidence tells us about their real-world effectiveness.
🔧 Analogy — The Three Layers of a Safety Net Think of psychological change strategies like a three-layered safety net beneath a tightrope walker. The first layer (promotion) is the widest — it catches everyone and builds general resilience, even for those who seem perfectly steady. The second layer (prevention) is positioned closer to the rope — it catches people who are wobbling, before they fall. The third layer (intervention) is right at the bottom — it catches those who have already fallen and need immediate, targeted support. All three layers are necessary. Relying only on the bottom layer means waiting for people to fall before helping them.
Core Concepts
When a problem already exists and is causing harm, the most immediate priority is to address it directly. This is the logic of intervention — a targeted, often intensive strategy aimed at individuals or groups who are already experiencing a psychological difficulty, disorder, or harmful behaviour. Intervention does not try to prevent the problem from arising; it tries to