The cognitive approach Flashcards
What is the cognitive movement?
-Began late 1950’s advocated the importance of thought(mental) processes in explaining human behaviour
-They rejected the behaviourist views that humans are just a product of stimulus (input) and response(output) and instead sought to focus on the mental processes between the stimulus and the response.
What is schema?
-Mental representations of concepts
-include our knowledge, beliefs and expectations about concepts in our world(e.g situations or people) which are built through experiences and interactions with our environment.
-They help us to organise the world and therefore are useful in directing our behaviour.
-Schemas are unique to each individual as they are a result of our own experiences; as a result we all perceive the world in our own unique way.This means that we all think the same way is misguided.
What are mental ‘short cuts’?
-Meaning we know what to expect and do without being overwhelmed with sensory information.
-However, these shortcuts can lead to faulty conclusions and might mean we overlook some sensory information and form a distorted view of a situation.
What are theoretical models?
-Refer to the psychologists identifying the likely stages of information processing which occurs between the stimulus response link.They often display them in a sequence like format
What is the computer analogy
Suggests that computers processes information in series of steps in a similar way to the human mind.With an input using concepts like a central processing unit(CPU) to code and process information into a useable format, and stores to hold information.
What is the input to output process?
Input-comes from the environment through senses and encodes it e.g Rob sees the old lady struggling to reach the biscuits and encodes the info
Processing-this happens once the info is encoded e.g Rob would make a decision that the old lady needs help and that he can do this that
Output-Behavioural response emitted the following the processing e.g he asks the lady if she wants him to get the biscuits down for her,then reaches up and gives the lady biscuits.
What are the strengths of the cognitive approach?
-It has been able to identify and describe many of the internal processes which occur in response to stimuli.This has been useful and had practical application in fields such as the treatment of psychological disorders like depression .
-Less deterministic than some other approaches such as the biological or behavioural approach.This is because it allows the individual to think about how they wish to respond meaning it allows for a degree of free will in our behaviour.
What is CBT?
Cognitive behavioural therapy-focuses on challenging the faulty cognition’s associated with depression such as negative schemas.
What are the limitations of the cognitive approach?
-Much of the research is conducted using highly controlled and artificial settings ,using artificial stimuli e.g Baddeleys research into coding short and long term memory.It is a problem because it questions whether the mental processing which occurs in response to these artificial stimuli is truly representative of how we process everyday information. May lack external validity.
-Argued the process of the ‘computer analogy’ of the human mind is too simplistic. They argue that this machine-reductionism often means that the role of emotion and how it influences our thoughts is overlooked and that is a crucial difference between humans and machines.
