John Locke Essay Competition · 2026 questions
John Locke Psychology Essay Questions
Psychology is where students most often confuse a literature review with an argument. The judges want a causal claim, the evidence for it, and an honest account of what the evidence cannot show.
The 2026 questions below are the official set. The 2027 questions are expected in late January 2027 and this page will carry them within 48 hours.
The 2026 Psychology questions, one by one
Quoted verbatim from the John Locke Institute. For each: what the examiners are testing, where strong students lose marks, the argument lines that hold up over 2,000 words, and what to read before you write.
What it is really asking
A question about the psychology of self and continuity, disguised as a question about funerals. The interesting answers explain a puzzle: caring about a state you will not experience.
The trap
Cataloguing funeral customs. The question is "why", and it wants a mechanism.
Lines of argument that can carry 2,000 words
- Terror management theory: burial practices are anxiety management for the living, and the "I" who cares is the present self imagining a future it cannot have.
- Evolutionary and social signalling: care of the dead signals the value of kin bonds to the living; the body is a proxy for the person in the minds of others.
- The philosophical wrinkle: if there is no subject after death, the caring is either irrational (Epicurus) or about something else (dignity, narrative closure). Choose and defend.
Read first
- The Worm at the Core, Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg and Tom Pyszczynski
- The Denial of Death, Ernest Becker
- Death, Shelly Kagan (the Yale lectures, on whether death is bad for the one who dies)
What the judges reward in Psychology
The official criteria are knowledge and understanding, competent use of evidence, quality of argumentation, originality, structure, writing style and persuasive force. In this category that means:
- 1Empirical claims with effect sizes and sources, not adjectives.
- 2A clear statement of what kind of evidence would settle the question, and whether it exists.
- 3Mechanisms named and tested, rather than theories listed.
- 4Interdisciplinary reach (neuroscience, sociology, philosophy) used to sharpen one argument, not to pad it.
A published winning essay in this category
"Are beliefs voluntary?"
Hannah Kim · Third Prize, Psychology, 2023
The essay commits to a strong thesis (belief is involuntary) and marshals three bodies of evidence for it in turn: neurobiology (delusional disorders, traumatic brain injury, the default mode network), unconscious bias, and cross-cultural fMRI work. It is a model of how to use empirical literature to argue rather than to survey, and its weakness, the absence of a serious counter-argument, is exactly why it placed third rather than first.
Read the essay on the Institute's siteOur analysis of every essay the Institute has published is in Past winning essays, analysed.
How to prepare for the 2027 Psychology questions before they are released
- 1
Find the primary study behind every claim you plan to make; the judges will check whether you have read beyond the abstract.
- 2
Write the "what the evidence cannot show" paragraph. The third-prize essay above is missing one; the first-prize essays in other categories are not.
- 3
Learn to read an effect size. A finding that is significant but tiny should be described as tiny.
- 4
Choose the question where you can name the natural experiment, not the one you have opinions about.
John Locke Essay Competition prep for Psychology
John Locke Basics
12 group sessions plus 6 hours of 1-on-1 mentorship, from question choice to a submission-ready draft. 38 of our 41 students were shortlisted in 2026.
Questions about the Psychology category
Yes. The judging criteria reward "the competent use of evidence", and in Psychology that means peer-reviewed studies cited from the original, with the finding described accurately. The 2023 third-prize essay cites more than twenty studies. Essays that rely on popular books alone are rarely shortlisted.
The other nine categories
John Locke guides
The complete guide
Eligibility, rules, dates, judging and prizes in one place.
John Locke Essay Competition prep
All four programmes, compared, with the 2026 results and the 2027 timeline.
Deadline and timeline 2027
Every date, confirmed or expected, on one page.
The interview after shortlisting
What the Institute says, what students report, how to prepare.
Past winning essays, analysed
The seven published prize essays, paragraph by paragraph.
Is it prestigious, and worth entering?
What a shortlist, commendation or prize is worth in admissions.
Free essay planner
Question deconstruction, argument map and self-audit sheet.
2027 dates and changes tracker
What is confirmed, what is expected, and every 2026 rule change.
The competition from Dubai and the UAE
How the calendar sits against UAE school terms and exam seasons.