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psychology > cognitive > Flashcards

cognitive Flashcards

1
Q

what are the 3 assumptions?

A

the mind can be likened to a computer
internal mental processes are all important
schemas

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2
Q

what is the input, process and output

A

input - take in information
process - store it or change it
output - recall when it’s necessary

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3
Q

what are the 5 cognitive processes?

A

memory
perception
thinking
language
attention

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4
Q

define memory and perception

A

memory - the process of storing and recalling information
perception - the way in which something is regarded, understood or interpreted

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5
Q

define thinking and language

A

thinking - the process of considering or reasoning about something
language - the principal method of human communication

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6
Q

define attention

A

notice taken of someone or something

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7
Q

how do internal mental processes relate to behaviour?

A

a study by Griffiths looked at the thought processes of people who gamble and people who don’t

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8
Q

what kind of thoughts did the gamblers hold in comparison to the non gamblers?

A

over estimate the chance of winning, interpreting a loss as a near win, congratulate themselves when they win and if they lose they go until they win
non gamblers are more realistic

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9
Q

what are schemas?

A

organised pockets of information that are built up through experience and stored in our long term memory

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10
Q

what don’t schemas necessarily reflect and why?

A

reality as they’re often created via social exchanges rather than personal interactions

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11
Q

give an example of how schemas affect behaviour

A

an individual who holds a negative self schema may suffer from depression as they only have negative attributes of themselves like fat, ugly, dumb, useless, unworthy etc

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12
Q

apply DRAINS to this approach

A

Freewill
Reductionist
has practical applications
Nomothetic
Interactionist
Scientific

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13
Q

how is this approach freewill? strength/weakness and why?

A

it sees that only we are responsible for our own thoughts and therefore the source of the information cannot be blamed for any resulting abnormality
strength - suggests we have control over our behaviour and places power in the hands of the patient to evoke change

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14
Q

how is this approach reductionist? strength/weakness and why?

A

reduces behaviour to the influence of one’s thoughts only. disregards the contribution of factors such as genetics and biochemistry. suggests that the human mind functions in the same way as a computer - limited as behaviour is influenced by many factors
weakness - looks only at our thoughts and ignores any other factors therefore any therapy developed is unlikely to treat everyone

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15
Q

how does this approach have practical applications?
strength/weakness and why?

A

many practical applications have been born out of improved cognitive understanding including CBT. CBT is widely prescribed by the NHS
strength - shows therapies derived from the assumptions have gone a long way in improving the lives of sufferers

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16
Q

how is this approach nomothetic?
strength/weakness and why?

A

sees that human behaviour is a product of the same cognitive processes e.g memory and perception. all humans are viewed as information processors where cognitive processes allow us to make sense of and respond to the world around us
weakness - fails to appreciate the uniqueness of human nature and how everyone is different. any approach that fails to recognise this are thought to be oversimplified

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17
Q

how is this approach interactionist? strength/weakness and why?

A

nature - internal processes within the mind
nurture - role of experience in formation of schemas
strength - ability to understand human behaviour as we now believe that we are a product of internal and external factors. recognises the complexity of humans as a species

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18
Q

how is this approach scientific? strength/weakness and why?

A

the model lends itself to objective and controlled scientific research that has largely been conducted under strict lab conditions. in recent times this has involved using brain scanning techniques to pinpoint specific areas of the brain involved in short and long term memory.
strength - researchers are able to establish the exact responsibilities of different areas of the brain in relation to our cognitive processes. evidence isn’t open to interpretation or speculation

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19
Q

what is the therapy for this approach?

A

CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy)

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20
Q

what is the therapy based on?

A

the assumption that abnormal behaviour occurs as the result of disordered cognitions or thinking

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21
Q

what is the aim of CBT?

A

challenge irrational and dysfunctional thought processes

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22
Q

who was the psychologist involved with this therapy?

A

Beck (1976)

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23
Q

what did Beck believe?
what did he refer to this as?

A

that negative schemata lead to pessimistic thoughts about the self, the world and the future
the negative triad

24
Q

what do negative schemata lead to and give an example?

A

cognitive biases
e.g. selective abstraction is a bias towards focusing on only the negative aspects of life and ignoring the wider picture

25
Q

what is aim of Beck’s approach?

A

challenge these irrational cognitions and replace them with more realistic appraisals which should cause the problem to disappear

26
Q

what is the therapy in terms of the process?

A

a collaborative process between the client and the therapist

27
Q

what is the first stage of CBT?

A

the therapist helps the client to identify negative thoughts by encouraging the client to keep a record of their thoughts and anxieties and maybe a diary which is then reviewed with the therapist to recognise the negative thoughts

28
Q

what is the second stage of CBT?

A

the therapist challenges dysfunctional thoughts by drawing attention to positive incidents or experiences or they provide more rational conclusions. this is a form of reality testing which is comparing irrational cognitions against the real world. by challenging the dysfunctional thoughts and replacing them with more constructive ones, the clients can develop a new way of behaving

29
Q

what is the third stage of CBT?

A

the use of pleasant activity scheduling which is asking the client to plan one pleasant activity to engage in each day. this can be something to give a sense of accomplishment or to give a break from normal routine. it is thought by doing this it can induce more positive emotions and detract from negative thinking patterns

30
Q

what is the fourth stage of CBT?

A

another aspect can be training in problem solving skills if there are particular situations which trigger negative thoughts. the focus was on cognitive restructuring - behavioural change without cognitive change it’s unlikely that one’s psychosocial functioning can improve

31
Q

what is the effectiveness strength of CBT?
what does this suggest?

A

lots of research evidence to suggest that CBT is highly effective in treating depression and anxiety related problems - difficult to argue against.
Jarrett et al (1999) found that CBT was as effective as antidepressant drugs in the treatment of 108 patients with severe depression over a 10 week trial. Hollon et al (1992) found no difference in CBT when compared with a slightly different kind of antidepressant drug in a sample of 107 patients over a 10 week trial.
suggests there is conflicting evidence and CBT hasn’t always been found to be superior to all antidepressants. however doesn’t cause any issues of dependancy as the client is provided with life long techniques

32
Q

what is the effectiveness weakness of CBT?
what does this suggest?

A

individual differences - CBT may be more suitable for some people compared to others.
CBT is less suitable for people who have high levels of irrational beliefs that are resistant to change. also less suitable in situations where high levels of stress in the individual reflect realistic stressors that therapy can’t resolve (Simons et al. 1995)
suggests that CBT is not a wholly effective therapy as the techniques it advocates is only effective in a certain type of patient

33
Q

what is an ethical weakness of CBT?
what does this suggest?

not deciding what’s rational

A

the therapy assumes that the client is responsible for their own disorder. important situational factors may be overlooked which contribute to the disorder like life events that the client isn’t in a position to change. according to the cognitive model the disorder lies in the patients mind and recovery lies in changing that.
suggests that ‘blaming’ the individual for their disorder can cause damage to their self esteem

34
Q

what is an ethical weakness of CBT?
what does this suggest?

not responsibility

A

who gets the decide what’s rational? some thoughts may seem irrational to the therapist but not to the client.
Alloy and Abrahamson (1979) suggest that depressive individuals tend to see things for what they are and display the ‘sadder but wiser’ effect and were more accurate in their estimates of the likelihood of disaster whereas normal people tend to distort things in a more positive way.
suggest that CBT causes psychological harm by lowering self esteem in suggesting that the therapist’s thoughts are somehow superior to the client’s.

35
Q

what is the hypothesis used in the application to relationships?

A

the matching hypothesis

36
Q

what is the matching hypothesis?

A

suggests that individuals do not always seek the most physically attractive person. Walster et al (1966) proposed that people are attracted to those who have a similar level of attractiveness as themselves. we are also likely to seek partners with similar attributes as us like intelligence and athleticism

37
Q

what is the evidence to support the matching hypothesis?

A

Murstein (1972). the physical attractiveness of engaged couples and those dating were judged from photographs. there was a definitive tendency for 2 people in each couple to be similar in terms of physical attractiveness

38
Q

how do schemas apply to relationships?

A

if the information contained within our self schema is strong, we perceive ourselves to be highly attractive so will only contemplate dating other attractive people
if our self schema is weak we will have less self confidence in our looks so will not approach those whom we consider to be more attractive out of fear of rejection

39
Q

what is the classic evidence for this approach?

A

Loftus and Palmer (1974)
reconstruction of automobile destruction

40
Q

where was the study conducted and what did they use?

A

in a lab
used independent groups design

41
Q

how many experiments were there?

A

2

42
Q

how many were in experiment 1?

A

45 students

43
Q

how many were in experiment 2?

A

150 students

44
Q

what were the procedures for experiment 1? (4)

A
  • 45 students were split into 5 groups of 9
  • each group was shown 7 videos between 5 and 30 seconds of a section of car accidents
  • then did a questionnaire with 1 key question and 1 word was different for each group
  • question: how fast was the car going when they; hit, smashed, collided, bumped, contacted (calculated average speed for each in mph)
45
Q

what were the findings of experiment 1?

A

fastest:
smashed - 40.8 mph
collided - 39.3 mph
bumped - 38.1 mph
hit - 34 mph
contacted - 31.8 mph
slowest:

9 mph difference between the fastest and slowest

46
Q

what were the procedures for experiment 2? (6)

A
  • 150 students split into 3 groups of 50
  • pps were shown a video of under 4 seconds of a multiple car crash
  • did a questionnaire with 1 key question and 1 word was different for each group
  • question: how fast were the cars going when they; smashed (group 1), hit (group 2)
  • there was a control group who didn’t have a question
  • 1 week later pps returned to the lab and were asked ‘did you see broken glass?’
47
Q

what were the findings for experiment 2?

A

there’s more likely to be smashed glass when the cars smashed so pps were told to give the highest speed estimate when they smashed
1 week later:
smashed - 16/50 said they saw broken glass
hit - 7/50 said they saw broken glass
control - 6/50 said they saw broken glass

48
Q

what was the conclusion?

A

the form of a question can significantly alter a witness’ answer to that question
Loftus and Palmer proposed 2 explanations for this result: response - bias factors + the memory representation is altered

49
Q

what did the outcome of experiment 2 suggest?

A

leading questions actually alter the memory a person has for the event. in the ‘smashed’ condition, the 2 pieces of information combine to form a memory of the accident that appear severe and therefore generates certain expectations e.g that there will be broken glass

50
Q

what is the advantage of using experiments?

A

by deliberately manipulating the IV we can see the casual effect on the DV and draw a casual conclusion

51
Q

what is the benefit of a lab study?

A

confounding variables are carefully controlled so any change in the DV is only due to the IV

52
Q

why does the study lack ecological validity?

A

pps watched film clips of the accident which isn’t the same as witnessing the real thing. people may not take it seriously or they’re not emotionally aroused in the way they would be in the real thing - this means the findings may not represent real life

53
Q

what is the disadvantage of the sample?

A

all US college students. other groups may be more or less prone to being affected by misleading information than others
Schacter et al found that compared to younger subjects, elderly people have difficulty remembering the source of their information even though their memory for the information itself is impaired

54
Q

what are the 2 ethical issues for this study?

A

lack of valid consent
psychological harm

55
Q

explain valid consent

A

Loftus and Palmer didn’t gain valid consent from their pps. if they had been aware of the aims of the study this would have affected their behaviour thus their behaviour doesn’t reflect EWT in everyday life

56
Q

explain psychological harm

A

this study avoided the issue of psychological harm as they used film clips instead of making them witness a real life car accident

psychology (8 decks)

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