Issues and debates: how psychological understanding developed over time (cog)

Question 1

INTRO

how psychological understanding developed over time?

Answer 1

Scientific processes evolve over time. This means that new psychological theories build on ones that came before it. Psychology has developed alongside science and in turn become more advanced and accurate, using more empirical evidence, sometimes to verify or debunk previous theories. It also adds more components and variables that can affect certain behaviours aside from science, that seem to expand our knowledge of influences on behaviour.

Question 2

A01 & A03 (has)

Answer 2

A01:
- Psychological understanding has developed over time within cognitive psychology through a trend of moving towards more empirical and testable theories that break memory down to its core components.
- Moreover use of brain scans, case studies and experiments over time has made theories less of a guess and more conclusive, making our understanding of memory more complex and scientific than previous methods of understanding.

A03:
- The earliest theories eg Bartlett Schema theory based on the differences in cultural expectation. Research used simple models, pictures and stories to see if culture affects recall (through schemas).
- In the 1950’s and 60’s, the development of cognitive psychology and studies such as Miller 1956 (The magic number 7) and Peterson and Peterson 1959 (testing the duration of STM) led to the development of the multi-store model (Atkinson and Shiffrin 1968).
- This stimulated further research into memory which challenged some of the MSM ideas eg the case of KF (Shallice and Warrington 1970) and led to a new model – working memory model which had multiple short-term stores (Baddeley and Hitch 1974).
- This shows how based on research evidence cognitive theories have been refined and developed, allowing us to maximise effectiveness of teaching methods and revision to aid memory.

Question 3

A01 & A03 (hasn’t)

Answer 3

A01:
- The earlier theories of memory from 1930s, including how information is distorted due to the reconstructive nature of human memory, are still very much applicable today and are used within the forensic psychology field to understand the unreliability of eyewitness testimonies.

A03:
- Bartletts’s reconstructive theory is still used to explain eyewitness testimony inaccuracy as the idea of a schema suggests that memory is distorted upon each recall and can be manipulated by personal experiences and ideologies

Question 4

Judgement

Answer 4

Therefore, it can be argued that some of our understanding of how memory works has not developed since 1930s and we are still applying the same theories today.