cognitive approach

Subdecks (3)

Cards (149)

  • ASSUMPTION 1: INTERNAL MENTAL PROCESSES
  • Humans are seen as information processers
  • How information received from our senses is processed directs ho we behave
  • Cognitive psychologists look at how various cognitive functions work together to help us make sense of the world.
  • Some of the internal processes psychologists are interested in are:
    • Attention (We focus on information we are presented with)
    • Perception (We take in information through the senses)
    • Memory (We attempt to recall/store the information)
    • Language (We communicate the information to others)
    • Thinking (The ways in which we manipulate and make sense of information to make decisions)
  • Investigating internal mental processes
  • A problem with the cognitive approach is that thoughts can not directly be observed or measured.
  • Modern psychologists use experiments to make inferences about internal processes
  • Griffiths (1994)
  • Aimed to investigate the internal mental thought processes of gamblers vs non-gamblers by getting them to ‘think aloud’ while playing on a fruit machine
  • The study found that gamblers were more likely to irrational verbalisations e.g. ‘I lost because I wasn’t concentrating’ or ‘this machine likes me’
  • ASSUMPTION 2: THE COMPUTER ANALOGY
  • Cognitive psychologists suggest that mind works in a similar way to a computer
  • It compares how we take information (input) store it or change it (process) and then recall it when necessary (output).
  • The Multistore Memory Model (Atkinson and Shriffrin 1968)
  • ASSUMPTION 3: SCHEMATA
  • SCHEMATA are packets of information that he hold in relation to an object or event
  • Help us to make sense of the world, providing short cuts to identifying things that we come across.
  • Our schemata develop as we grow and have more experiences with our environment
  • Schemata are not always correct
  • Can be the basis for stereotypes, causing racism, sexism etc.
  • Can cause us to misremember events that do not fit our schema
  • Allport and Postman (1947).
  • They investigated the effect of stereotypes on recall. They showed white participants a picture of a black person being held at knifepoint by a white man.
  • Participants invariably remembered the open razor as being in the hand of the black man, whereas in fact it was held by the white man.
  • relationships Internal Mental Processes
  • Perception and memory are two of the main processes used when taking in and analysing information
  • We may perceive someone’s looks or actions in a positive/negative way which may affect whether we choose to spend time with them or not
  • Memory e.g. having a positive/negative memory of someone can also affect whether we choose to form a relationship with them or not, we may also be influenced by memories of past relationships
  • relationships Schemas
  • We may associate certain traits with people because of the way that they look
  • ‘The Halo Effect’ is when we associate positive personality traits with people who are physically attractive
  • Self-schemas can affect who we interact with e.g. interacting with people who we percieve to be a similar level of attractiveness to ourself (the matching hypothesis)
  • CBT therapy
  • The cognitive approach suggests that a possible cause of mental illness is maladaptive internal mental processes
  • For example, people with depression may pay more attention to negative information in their environment
  • Or have a tendency to perceive information in negative ways
  • This may lead to symptoms such as low mood and social isolation
  • LINK TO SCHEMATA
    Aaron Beck proposed that depressed people have developed negative schemas of three things – the self, the world around them and their
  • This is referred to the Negative Cognitive Triad