evaluation

• + scientific

  + practical applications

  -reductionist

  -lacks ecological validity
• • one strength of the cognitive approach is that it is scientific
  • the research done is highly replicable, cognitive research relies on lab experiments which use standardised procedures making them reliable.
  • Furthermore, the research involves high levels of control, such as tightly controlled environments which allows extraneous variables to be minimised
  • this means that the approach is capable of making valid cause and effect statements about the relationship between internal mental processes and behaviour
• • one strength of the cognitive approach is that it has practical applications.
  • this is because the assumptions of the cognitive approach have led to the development of cognitive behaviour therapy. Based on the idea that people with mental illnesses such as depression, have irrational thought processes and therefore make irrational inferences. CBT has been shown to successful in treating depression by helping patients replace their irrational thoughts with a more rational alternative.
  • this means that the ideas of internal mental processes affecting behaviour can be used to improve the lives of people in the real world.
• • one weakness of the cognitive approach is that it lacks ecological validity.
  • Memory experiments involve participants being exposed to a meaningless stimuli such as a list of words/numbers in order to test the capacity of short term memory. Normally we use our memory to remember things that are meaningful to us.
  • furthermore, the eyewitness testimony experiment involved participants watching a video of a car crash. A video has little emotional value as the participants' lives were not directly threatened.
  • this means that the studies used to support the cognitive approach are not realistic and therefore unreliable.
• • one weakness of the cognitive approach is that it is considered reductionist.
  • this is because the computer analogy oversimplifies basic ideas to a complex level by explaining human behaviour using terms such as input, output and processing. It doesnt take into consideration factors such as emotion.
  • critics argue that we cannot fully understand the complexity of human emotion without considering factors such as inherited biological traits or personality. Furthermore, Bothwell argues that memory of eye witness testimony is affected by a personality trait called 'neuroticism'. Those who are 'neurotic' will have poor recall whereas more 'stable' individuals recall more accurately.
  • therefore, the cognitive approach oversimplifies human behaviour and can therefore be accused of machine reductionism.