means new psychological theories build on previous ones
psychology has developed alongside science and in turn become more advanced and accurate using more empirical evidence to verify and debunk previous theories
also adds more components and variables that can affect certain behaviours
AO1 - social to what extent has it developed
social psych research grew in 1960s with desire to explain events such as WW2 and holocaust
areas investigated eg: obedience & prejudice involved techniques which would be considered unethical today - therefore, developed new ways of testing e.g: burger
obedience & prejudice have developed over time through building on previous research e.g: social impact theory built on agency theory by adding additional components
AO1 - social to what extent has it developed
therefore, psychological understanding of obedience has developed through repeated research and testing in different research settings
AO3 - social evidence
has developed
replication of tajfels minimal groups study by wetherell in 1982 suggested prejudice is ethnocentric whereas tajfels study in 1970s suggested that negative out-group bias is guaranteed
hasnt developed
burger replicated milgrams original study to see if obedience has changed over time and found no differences in obedience rates so no new theories about obedience have developed
AO1 - cognitive to what extent has it developed
psych understanding used within cognitive psych through a movement towards empirical/testable theories that break memory down into core components
understanding has developed over time from simple to complex e.g: MSM - identifies LTM & STM as unitary stores and WMM - has additional components like PL and VSS
AO1 - cognitive to what extent has it developed over time
understanding cognitive processes has become more biological over time through development of newer brain scanning techniques rather than reliance on case studies e.g: HM - allows scientists to see precise brain areas used when processing different types of memories