psychological understanding developed over time

• AO1 definition

  • scientific processes have evolved over time
  • 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