Evaluation Flashcards
Mediational processes
The cognitive approach focuses heavily on the ‘processes’ that occur between stimulus and response.
(Unlike the behaviourist)
Cognitive psychologists have looked deeper as to how mediational processes (e.g. perception and memory) affect our responses.
This links and explains the practical elements of human behaviour.
Mediational processes - example
Cognitive psychologists could look at retrieval linking to memory and how this improves.
Important contributions
The cognitive approach has been applied to the field of developmental psychology.
Important contributions - example
Theories about how children’s thinking develops have guided teaching practices in schools.
Piaget (1970)
Developed a theory that suggests children’s thinking is not the same as that of adults.
He suggested that children around 8 / 9 cannot think in the abstract. If they want to solve a maths problem, they need to see it in a concrete form.
Piaget’s idea had a major effect on teaching in primary schools because teachers realised it was more important to use concrete examples with younger children.
Scientific
The cognitive approach lends itself to objective and controlled scientific research.
Scientific - examples
Memory research has been conducted under strict laboratory conditions and recently, it’s involved brain scanning techniques to pinpoint specific areas of the brain that are involved in short- and long-term memory.
This field is known as cognitive neuroscience, and it is a field devoted to pinpointing the exact biological mechanisms involved in our cognitive processes.
In a scientific and objective manner, researchers are able to establish the exact responsibilities of different areas in relation to our cognitive processes.
Cognitive neuroscience is also useful in trying to understand what the brain does when it’s at its ‘rest’.
The cognitive approach has emerged as an extremely scientific field in psychology where casual relationships between emotions, cognitions and behaviours can be confidently predicted.
Determinist
Schemas are an important assumption of the cognitive approach.
People acquire schemas through direct experience.
Determinist - examples
Piaget suggested that cognitive development is essentially the development of schemas.
At a young age, a child might call everything with four legs and hair a ‘dog’.
The child learns various related schemas - one for cat, one for dog, etc.
We also acquire schemas through our social interactions.
We acquire stereotypes about people and situations.
Nature VS Nurture
Although the cognitive approach does consider both internal and external factors (mental processes are internal and schemas are external) it ignores all elements of nature and nurture.
Nature VS Nurture - example
The role of genes are ignored when relating to human cognition (nature), and social and cultural influences are also ignored (nurture).
As seen in the Piaget study, he ignored all elements of gender and culture when relating to the thinking development of children.
Mechanistic approach
The cognitive approach is mechanistic.
It portrays human behaviour as being similar to a machine.
The cognitive approach is based on the ‘behaviour’ of computers so it’s inevitable that the outcome would be a mechanistic view of human behaviour.
This raises more philosophical issues such as whether a computer could ever perform like a human brain.
Mechanistic explanations ignore social and emotional factors.
This can be illustrated in the cognitive perspective on mental illness.
Mechanistic approach - examples
A depressed person may have faulty thinking patterns that can be changed.
However, the cause of depression may lie in significant life events. Whilst changing thinking patterns may help the person, it doesn’t change the environmental stimuli or the social situation causing the emotions that they feel.
This mechanical view also ignores the important role that emotions play in influencing cognitive approaches and this is a problem with humans being likened to computers.
A computer is not influenced by emotion, a computer will recall information exactly as its inputted.
