Cognitive approach eval

Question 1

Advantages

Answer 1

• The cognitive approach has many applications
• The cognitive approach is scientific

Question 2

Disadvantages

Answer 2

• Computer models have limited explanatory powers
• The cognitive approach ignores emotion and motivation
• Studies may lack ecological validity

Question 3

The cognitive approach has many applications

Answer 3

The cognitive approach has been applied in many other areas of psychology

In social psychology, research in social cognition has helped psychologists better understand how we interpret the actions of others

Has led to the successful treatment, using cognitive-based interventions, of people suffering from disorders such as depression and OCD

Question 4

The cognitive approach is scientific

Answer 4

Cognitive psychologists emphasis on using the scientific method is a real strength of this approach

The use of the experimental method provides researchers with a rigorous method for collecting and evaluating evidence in order in order to reach accurate conclusions about how the mind works

Conclusions about how the mind works are based on far more than common sense and introspection as these can give a misleading pricture of mental processes

Question 5

Computer models have limited explanatory powers

Answer 5

The cognitive approach uses computer models to explain human information processing

eg. Terms such as ‘encoding’, ‘storage’ and ‘retrieval’ are borrowed directly from the field of computing. However there are key differences between the human mind and computers. Computers do not make mistakes, they don’t ignore available information and they don’t forget anything stored on their hard drives.

Humans do all these things which limits the appropriateness of explaining human thought and behaviour using computer models

Question 6

The cognitive approach ignores emotion and motivation

Answer 6

The cognitive approach tells us how different cognitive processes take place but fails to tell us why they do

In other words, the role of emotion and motivation is largely ignored in this approach. This isn’t surprising as approaches that focus on the motivational processes in behaviour (eg. Freud) largely ignore the cognitive processes in behaviour

The lack of focus on motivational states may be explained by the over-dependence on information processing analogies, as motivation is clearly irrelevant to a computer, but not to a human being

Question 7

Studies may lack ecological validity

Answer 7

Many studies of cognitive psychology tend to use tasks that have little in common with participants’ everyday experiences

For example, experiments in memory use artificial test materials that relatively meaningless in everyday life (eg. random word list or digits) rather than being based on the way in which memory is used in everyday life (eg. why people forget appointments or repress early childhood memories)

As a result it is unlikely findings are able to be generalised to real-life situations. Therefore, much of the research in cognitive psychology might be criticised as lacking ecological validity