Cognitive approach
- Created by: 2015amensah
- Created on: 28-12-21 15:21
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- Cognitive Approach
- Assumptions
- looks at internal mental processes to understand behaviour
- processes are private and can't be observed so are studied by making inferences
- Schemas
- cognitive frameworks that help organise and interpret information in the brain
- become more detailed and sophisticated as we get older
- allow us to take shortcuts when interpreting huge amounts of information
- can contribute to stereotypes
- Computer models
- human mind is like a computer
- compares how we take information store or change it (process) and then recall it when necessary (output)
- Theoretical models
- simplified picture representations of cognitive processes
- e.g. multi store model
- emergence of cognitive neuroscience
- Evaluation
- can explain real world behaviour
- applied in many areas of psychology
- helped psychology better understand how we form impressions and the errors/biases that influence the causes of their behaviour
- used to explain how dysfunctional behaviour can be traced to faulty thinking processes
- led to the successful treatment of depression and OCD using CBT
- methodological weakness
- studies us tasks with little in common with natural everyday experiences
- artificial test materials are relatively meaningless in everyday life
- e.g. memory tests
- don't try to understand the way in which memory is used in everyday life
- unable to generalise findings to real life situations
- methodological strength
- lab experiments produce reliable, objective data
- based on more than common sense and introspection
- can give a misleading picture of mental processes which aren't consciously accessible
- reductionist
- ignores influence of human emotion and motivation
- affects our ability to process information e.g. anxiety /memory
- can explain real world behaviour
- Assumptions
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