Theoretical Perspectives in Psychology: Cognitive Perspective, Behavioural Perspective

Question 1

Cognitive Perspective

Answer 1

1. Focuses on the mental processing of information
2. Descendent of the early school of Gestalt Psychology
3. Interested in the way the mind takes sensory stimuli and interprets them into a whole
   - e.g. Able to identify Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika regardless if its played by a whole orchestra or just a guitar
   - The mind actively assembles the pattern of the anthem from the individual notes you hear
4. Cognitive psychology grew especially during the computer era
5. The mind was seen as acting like a computer
6. Your senses take in information and process it to allow you to make decisions, respond verbally, solve problems, etc.
7. In terms of psychopathology, it seems that some people have systematically distorted thought processes
   Individuals viewed as rational and logical
8. Most people are capable of applying their mind to effectively manage their response or interaction with environmental stimuli
9. Deals with perception, attention, memory, language, reasoning, and general thinking
   Thought processes are important determinants of behaviour
   - Less concerned with feelings or emotions

Question 2

Behavioural Disorder: From a Cognitive Viewpoint

Answer 2

Emotional and behavioural disorders are disorders of thinking

People think the way they feel/behave and if thinking is sorted out then feeling/behaviour will too
The Brain → Hardware
Cognition → Software

Question 3

Social Constructionism

Answer 3

1. A cognitive perspective that studies the way people construct their own reality
2. Interested in how members of social groups share similar ways of interpreting and understanding events
3. Leads to a shared social reality among group members
   - e.g. Adolescence: Constructed differently within different cultural or national groups

Question 4

Central idea

Answer 4

Cognitions, or learned ways of thinking, directly impact on the individual’s emotions and behaviours

Question 5

Psychopathology

Answer 5

Irrational beliefs and automatic thoughts are principally responsible for the development of psychopathology
- Example: People with Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTS)

Question 6

Automatic Negative Thoughts

Answer 6

1. Sets up a negative cycle of thought, emotion, and behaviour in the individual
2. After accepting such distorted thoughts, a person would look for ways to confirm such thoughts through adopting negative behaviours
   - e.g. Not studying for a test or behaving badly in class
3. These would, in turn, impact on the person’s emotions, making them feel more depressed
   - This sets up a vicious cycle as the more depressed people feel, the more negatively they think of themselves
4. People with ANTS:
   - Tend to generalise things
   - Think nothing will work
   - Always think in Black and White
   - They magnify things

Question 7

Behavioural Perspective

Answer 7

1. Behaviourists believe that our behaviour is shaped by our environment
2. This includes aspects of our present environment as well as past habits we have learned since birth
3. They believe that babies are born as a tabula rasa (blank slate)
   - Personality develops depending on the child’s experiences ‘written’ on the slate
4. Thus, behaviourists feel that human nature is shaped by the environment

Question 8

Assumptions of the Behaviourist Approach

Answer 8

1. Psychology is the science of behaviour and not the science of the mind
   - Psychology should look to explain behaviour without resorting to internal mental states like motivation, emotion, perception, attention, thinking, the unconscious, and so on
2. Only observable behaviour should be studied
3. Behaviour is learnt from the environment
   - Unless driven by innate or inherited factors
4. All behaviour can be reduced to simple stimulus response associations

Question 9

Ivan Pavlov

Answer 9

1. His work showed that animals (and thus people) can learn by associating different events
2. Pavlov rang a bell every time he fed the dogs so that, over time, the dogs began to associate the sound of the bell with their food. Thus, they learned to salivate at the sound of the bell. Even if they were not given food each time
3. This is also known as classical conditioning

Question 10

Edward Thorndike

Answer 10

• People learn from the consequences of their actions
  The Law of Effect
  1. If behaviour had satisfying consequences, it would most likely be repeated
  2. And behaviour with less satisfying consequences would be less likely to recur

Question 11

John Watson

Answer 11

1. Was critical of introspective approaches like psychoanalytic theory and practice
2. Thought that there was no point in studying the mind and mental processes as these could not be observed
   - Argued that introspective approaches are unreliable since they mostly rely on self-reports that are difficult to verify
3. Instead, he proposed that psychology should:
   - Work on purely objective experimental studies of human behaviour like the natural sciences
   - Aim to predict and control behaviour

Question 12

B.F Skinner: Radical behaviourist

Answer 12

1. Thought that it was not helpful to talk about the unseen (and unknowable) mental structures and processes
   - e.g. Rather than think about how angry a person was, he would try to identify the circumstances the preceded the anger and the events that followed it
2. Skinner believed that the way in which people behave depends on whether they have been rewarded or punished for a particular behaviour in the past
3. And whether they expect a reward or punishment for that behaviour in the future
4. His research identified how behaviour can be changed through operant conditioning
   - Where behaviour leads to a response from the environment and the nature of this response influences whether or not the behaviour is repeated
   - The environment provides (or does not provide) reinforcement
   - e.g. When a teacher draws a happy face in a child’s schoolbook, they will probably be pleased and work hard to get another one