Cognitive explanations A03

Question 1

Explain what Stirling in 2006 found when comparing 30 people with Sz to 30 controls without on their performance on the Stroop test (saying the colour of the world out loud not what the word says)?

Answer 1

He found that people with Sz took more than twice as long to say the colour

This supports the view that the cognitive processes of people with Sz are impaired

Question 2

Explain why cognitive explanations are ‘proximal explanations’ not ‘distal explanations’

Answer 2

This is because the cognitive explanations only say what is happening now to cause the symptoms not what initially caused the condition/dysfunction to occur. For example, genetic explanations would be considered ‘distal’

This is an issue for the explanation as it means that cognitive theories alone only provide partial explanations