COGNITIVE

Question 1

DESCRIPTION

Answer 1

• The word ‘cognitive’ comes from the Latin word cognito
• ‘cognito’ means to ‘to apprehend, understand or know’
• Cognition is the activity of internal mental processing
• Cognitive psychologists are primarily interested in thinking and related `mental processes such as memory, perception, attention, forgetting, learning, thinking and language

Question 2

ASSUMPTIONS

Answer 2

• Behaviour can largely be explained in terms of how the mind operates
• The mind works in a manner which is similar to a computer: inputting, storing and retrieving data
• Cognitive psychologists see psychology as a pure science

Question 3

STRENGTH

Answer 3

• The cognitive approach has numerous useful applications, including: advice about the validity of eyewitness testimonies
• A main strength of cognitive psychology is that this approach has tended to use a scientific approach through the use of laboratory experiments.
• A strength of using laboratory experiments is that they are high in control therefore researchers are able to establish cause and effect.
• A further strength of the cognitive approach is the useful contributions that have arisen from this approach. For example, many modern types of therapy are based on the cognitive approach. Understanding cognitive processes allows us to help people to improve their cognitive processes such as memory and language.

Question 4

WEAKNESS

Answer 4

• Criticised as being overly mechanistic and reductionist. Mechanistic because cognitive explanations are based on the behaviour of machines. This de-emphasises the importance of emotion. Reductionism is the idea that complex phenomena can be explained by simpler things. The cognitive approach often takes this narrow focus and ignores social and emotional factors which may impact on cognition.
• Also lacks in motivational factors.
• A weakness of the cognitive approach relates to the validity of measuring cognitive processes. We can only infer what a person is thinking and therefore the cognitive approach relies heavily on self report measures and observation.