Chapter 3: Concepts and principals of the cognitive approach

Question 1

Outline the 5 steps of the history of the cognitive approach

Answer 1

The steps do not replace each other, but are simply new independent areas of research

1: Introspectionism
2: Psycho-analysis
3: Behavourism
4: Cognitive psychology
5: Behavioural economics

Question 2

Introspectionism (Wilhelm Wundt)

Answer 2

Transition from metaphysical to empirical. They would expose a participant to some stimuli and ask them to evaluate their experience. The focus was on conscious subjective experience. Wilhelm Wundt started the first psychological laboratory and is considered to be the father of experimental psychology.

Question 3

Psycho-analysis (Freud)

Answer 3

Introduction to “the unconscious”, and that it is, in fact, the main part of the human psyche. It’s the unconscious drives and desires. They will always surface, sometimes as dreams, misplaced aggression or misplaced affection. Freud’s claims led to the study of the irrationality and the unconsciousness of the human mind.

Question 4

Behaviourism

Answer 4

Acknowledges that the mind is not observable, but poses that behavior is. The black box metaphor was created, we cannot see what happens in the mind, but we can observe the inputs and outputs. Developed by BF Skinner, operant conditioning is the shaping of behavior via consequences. The assumption made was that organisms display operant behavior, which can be manipulated through reinforcement and punishment. A pigeon was trained to flap its right wing by being given treats when it did so haphazardly. This is reinforcing. An organism learns by trial and error and sees what leads to a reward and what does not.

Question 5

Cognitive psychology (EC Tolman)

Answer 5

A rat was trained to learn a curvy maze. By putting it in a new one with multiple entrances, it was found that it was not prone to take the entrance that it had learned to take previously, but instead it would take the entrance that would lead to where the treat was placed. This spatial awareness led to the conclusion that behavior is not simply a reaction to training, but also purposeful. This led to the introduction of models. This led to the computer metaphor, where the mind was the software and the brain the hardware.

Question 6

Behavioural economics

Answer 6

[introduced by Tversky and Kahneman 1972] Cognitive biases are systematic: many mistakes in judgement are not random, they are recurrent, predictable and very common for human decision-making. It tries to include irrational variables into traditional economic variables to better explain and predict human behavior and choices.