Cognitive Approach

Question 1

What are the assumptions of the cognitive approach?

Answer 1

Behaviour is influenced by thought that can be conscious and unconscious

Humans are information processors with our mental processes extracting, storing, and retrieving information that helps to guide our behaviour

Processes are not directly studied because they are private so are studied indirectly and inferences are made on the basis of observed behaviours

Question 2

Schemas

Answer 2

A cognitive framework of beliefs and expectations that help us to organise and interpret information in the brain. They are developed from experience and help us to make sense of new information.

Question 3

Cognitive Approach

Answer 3

Focuses on how mental processes, such as thoughts, perceptions, memories, reasoning and attention affect behaviour

Question 4

Internal Mental Processes

Answer 4

Operations of the mind that mediate between the stimulus and response. They are private and cannot be observed directly.

Question 5

Inference

Answer 5

Going beyond the immediate evidence to make assumptions about mental processes that cannot be directly observed.

Question 6

Cognitive Neuroscience

Answer 6

The scientific study of the brain/ neurological structure that are responsible for cognitive/ mental/ thinking processes

Question 7

What are the Strengths of the cognitive approach?

Answer 7

The cognitive approach uses a very scientific method. For Example, Loftus and Palmer (1974) asked people to estimate the speed of motor vehicles using different forms of questions. Standardised experiments such as the laboratory experiments used are valid and its easy to test for reliability.

Another strength of cognitive psychology is that it has made a substantial contribution to psychology and to our understanding of psychopathology and for treatment of psychological disorders. Many modern types of therapy are based on the cognitive approach, such as CBT - used to treat anxiety and depression.

Question 8

What is a weakness of the cognitive approach?

Answer 8

One weakness of the cognitive approach is that it lacks ecological validity. For example Baddeley who gave participants word lists that were similar in the way they sound or in meaning and saw which type they remembered the order of the words easier. This lack of ecological validity makes results of the study less applicable outside the study environment as recalling the order of words is completely artificial and doesn’t resemble anything you would use memory to do in the real world.