Summary
The updated AQA A-Level Psychology specification for 2027 contains less content than the previous version. The most important removals include:
- Zimbardo’s conformity-to-social-roles study.
- Types of long-term memory.
- Caregiver–infant interactions and the role of the father.
- Wundt and the origins of Psychology.
- Biological rhythms.
- Confounding variables and thematic analysis.
- Evolutionary explanations for partner preferences.
- Freud’s psychodynamic explanation of gender development.
- Token economies for schizophrenia.
- The atavistic form and psychodynamic explanations in Forensic Psychology.
- The theory of planned behaviour in Addiction.
The updated specification was introduced for first teaching in September 2025 and applies to students sitting AQA A-Level Psychology exams in summer 2027. The examination structure has not changed: students still sit three two-hour papers worth 96 marks each. AQA has instead reduced content, clarified requirements and updated some terminology.
Why has AQA removed Psychology content?
AQA states that the specification was updated to reduce the overall amount of content, provide greater clarity and use language that is more reflective of society.
This is not a completely new qualification. No new overall topics have been introduced, and the optional structure of Paper 3 remains unchanged. However, students must be careful when using older textbooks, revision notes and past papers because some previously examinable material is no longer included in the 2027 AQA Psychology specification.
What has been removed from AQA Psychology Paper 1?
Paper 1 continues to cover Social Influence, Memory, Attachment, and Clinical Psychology and Mental Health. Most of the course remains familiar, but several substantial areas have been removed.
Social Influence removals
Three areas have been removed from Social Influence:
- Identification as a type of conformity.
- Conformity to social roles as investigated by Zimbardo.
- The role of social influence processes in social change.
Students still need to study internalisation and compliance as types of conformity. Asch’s conformity research, informational and normative social influence, Milgram’s obedience research, resistance to social influence and minority influence also remain.
This means students taking the 2027 exams no longer need to prepare an essay specifically on Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment as evidence for conformity to social roles. They also no longer need to study how minority influence and other social influence processes create wider social change.
Memory removals
The main content removed from Memory is:
- Types of long-term memory: episodic, semantic and procedural memory.
The multi-store model and working memory model remain, but students are no longer specifically required to distinguish between episodic, semantic and procedural long-term memories.
AQA has also removed the phrases “misleading information” and “improving the accuracy of eyewitness testimony” from the specification. However, this is largely a restructuring change rather than the removal of the underlying material.
Students must still study:
- Leading questions.
- Post-event discussion.
- Anxiety.
- The cognitive interview.
Therefore, students should not remove eyewitness testimony or the cognitive interview from their revision. Only the separate types of long-term memory have been removed as a complete content area.
Attachment removals
Attachment has experienced one of the largest reductions in Paper 1. The following content has been removed:
- Caregiver–infant interactions.
- Reciprocity.
- Interactional synchrony.
- Schaffer’s stages of attachment.
- Multiple attachments.
- The role of the father.
Students do not need to study research such as Meltzoff and Moore specifically for interactional synchrony or Schaffer and Emerson for the stages of attachment.
Animal studies of attachment, Bowlby’s monotropic theory, learning theory, the Strange Situation, cultural variations, maternal deprivation, institutionalisation and the influence of early attachment all remain.
Clinical Psychology and Mental Health
No major theory, explanation or treatment has been removed from the topic previously known as Psychopathology.
Instead, the topic has been renamed Clinical Psychology and Mental Health, and several terms have been updated. For example, “definitions of abnormality” has become “definitions in the field of mental health”.
Students must still study phobias, depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder, including their characteristics, explanations and treatments.
What has been removed from AQA Psychology Paper 2?
Paper 2 covers Approaches in Psychology, Biopsychology and Research Methods. Each section contains at least one removal.
Approaches in Psychology removals
The most significant removal is:
- Origins of Psychology: Wundt, introspection and the emergence of Psychology as a science.
Students are no longer specifically required to study Wilhelm Wundt, his laboratory or introspection as part of the origins of scientific Psychology.
Several smaller references have also been removed:
- “Modelling” as a separately named element of social learning theory.
- “Focus on the self” from the humanistic approach.
- The influence of humanistic Psychology on counselling Psychology.
Some apparent removals are only wording changes. For example, cognitive neuroscience remains, and the genetic basis of behaviour remains within the biological approach. Students should not interpret the removal of the phrase “influence of genes” as meaning that genes are no longer examinable.
Biopsychology removals
The whole section on biological rhythms has been removed.
Students no longer need to study:
- Circadian rhythms.
- Infradian rhythms.
- Ultradian rhythms.
- Differences between these rhythms.
- Endogenous pacemakers.
- Exogenous zeitgebers.
- Their effects on the sleep–wake cycle.
This is one of the clearest and most substantial reductions in the updated specification.
The nervous system, neurons, synaptic transmission, the endocrine system, fight or flight, localisation of brain function, plasticity, functional recovery and methods of studying the brain all remain.
Research Methods removals
Two areas have been removed from Research Methods:
- Confounding variables.
- Thematic analysis.
Extraneous variables, independent variables, dependent variables and the operationalisation of variables remain. Students must also continue to study content analysis, which has been reworded as “coding in content analysis”.
AQA has added control groups explicitly to the specification, so students should not assume that all Research Methods changes have reduced the course. Control groups may now be directly examined as part of controlling an investigation.
What has been removed from AQA Psychology Paper 3?
Paper 3 contains compulsory Issues and Debates followed by one topic from each of three option groups. The topics studied will depend on the choices made by each school.
Relationships
The following has been removed:
- Evolutionary explanations for partner preferences.
- The relationship between sexual selection and human reproductive behaviour.
Students no longer need to prepare evolutionary explanations of mate choice as part of Relationships.
Attraction, theories of romantic relationships, relationship breakdown, online relationships and parasocial relationships remain.
Gender
Gender has been extensively rewritten, so it is especially important to use resources created for the 2027 specification.
The clearest major removal is:
- The psychodynamic explanation of gender development.
This means students no longer need to study:
- Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of gender development.
- The Oedipus complex.
- The Electra complex.
- Identification and internalisation within Freud’s explanation.
Sex-role stereotypes and androgyny are also no longer listed as separate areas in the way they appeared in the previous specification. However, the Bem Sex Role Inventory remains as a method used to measure gender.
The previous coverage of gender dysphoria has been replaced by updated content on gender incongruence. Students should therefore treat Gender as an updated topic rather than simply deleting several pages from old revision notes.
Cognition and Development
AQA has removed:
- Theory of mind as an explanation for autism.
Theory of mind itself remains, along with the Sally–Anne study. Students still need to understand theory of mind as part of social cognition, but they are no longer specifically required to present it as an explanation of autism.
Schizophrenia
The following content has been removed:
- Classification of schizophrenia as a separate requirement.
- Reliability and validity in diagnosis and classification.
- Token economies used to manage schizophrenia.
Positive and negative symptoms remain. Students must also continue to study issues in diagnosis, including co-morbidity, culture and gender bias, and symptom overlap.
Drug therapy, cognitive behavioural therapy, family therapy and the interactionist approach also remain.
Eating Behaviour
AQA has removed:
- Explanations for the success and failure of dieting.
Students still need to study psychological explanations of obesity, including restraint theory, disinhibition and the boundary model. Only the separate requirement to explain why dieting succeeds or fails has been removed.
Stress
The named drugs previously listed under the management of stress have been removed:
- Benzodiazepines.
- Beta blockers.
Drug therapy itself remains. Therefore, students may still need to understand drug therapy as a method of managing stress, but AQA no longer explicitly requires those two named examples.
Aggression
There are no content changes to Aggression. Students studying this option should continue to follow the full existing topic content.
Forensic Psychology
Three areas have been removed:
- The historical or atavistic explanation of offending.
- Psychodynamic explanations of offending.
- Recidivism.
Students no longer need to study Lombroso’s atavistic form as a biological explanation of criminal behaviour. They also no longer need to study psychodynamic accounts of offending or recidivism as a separate part of custodial sentencing.
Offender profiling remains, although the terminology has changed. The top-down approach is now called the typology approach, while the bottom-up approach is called the data-driven approach.
Addiction
The following theory has been removed:
- The theory of planned behaviour.
Prochaska’s six-stage model of behaviour change remains.
Stress, family influences and peers are no longer listed separately as addiction risk factors. However, they have been brought together under the wider term social influences, so they should not necessarily be treated as completely irrelevant to the topic.
Can students still use old AQA Psychology past papers?
Older past papers can still be valuable for practising exam technique, application, evaluation and time management because the examination structure and question types remain unchanged. However, some questions will test content that is no longer part of the course.
Students should check each question against the updated specification before completing it. This is particularly important for questions on Zimbardo, biological rhythms, the role of the father, Wundt, token economies and the atavistic form. AQA has produced updated assessment support because older papers may include removed material.
Final takeaway
AQA has removed a meaningful amount of content for students sitting A-Level Psychology in 2027, but most of the qualification remains unchanged.
The safest approach is to revise directly from the updated AQA Psychology 7182 specification and use resources that are clearly labelled for the 2027 exams. Older notes may contain entire topics that are no longer examinable, while some apparently removed terms have only been reworded or reorganised.
Checking the specification carefully will help students avoid wasting revision time and ensure that every topic they prepare could genuinely appear in the 2027 AQA A-Level Psychology exams.
