Cognitive Approach

Cognitive psychology: it concerned with the internal, mental processes in explaining behaviour as opposed to external actions that can be observed.
1. assumption 1: computer analogy
  1. compares the human mind with a computer
    1. compares how we take in information (input), change /store it (process) and recall it when necessary (output)
      1. During the process stage we actively use the cognitiave process of perception, attention, memory and so on. thus the mind is compared with the hardware of a computer software
        One example of the approach is the multistore model of memory (Atkinson and Shiffrin 1968
2. assumption 3: shemas
  1. Schemas are organised packets of information that are built up through experience and stored in our long term memory.
    1. Generally schemas are derived from past experiences but can be redefined through further interactions with people and the world around us
      1. Schemas do not necessarily represent reality as they are often built up via social exchanges rather than personal interactions
        Schemas take different forms; e.g event schemas known as scripts and role schemes which tell us about different roles
3. internal mental process
  1. where essential cognitive processes all work together to enable us to make sense of and respond to the world around us
  2. Some of the most well studied cognitive process include perception, attention, memory and language.
  3. Our mental processes work together within a split second to allow us to respond to the world around us.
    1. known as information processing
  4. investigating IMP
    1. refer to the processes going on inside your head as introspection
      1. developed by Wilhelm Wundt
        Wundt opened the first experimental psychology laboratory in Germany in 1879 to try and investigate thinking in a scientific and systematic way.
        Highly trained research assistants would be given a stimulus and would report what the stimulus made them think and feel
        While some question the validity of introspection as an objective scientific tool, it is still used today;
        eg Griffiths 1994 which looked at gamblers and if regular gamblers were more irrational
4. relationship formation
  1. Schemas
    1. The packets of knowledge we have about other people may govern how we feel and act towards them
      1. E.g. Dion et al 1972 demonstrated that people believe that physically attractive people also have attractive personal qualities. Known as the halo effect
        Therefore if we perceive a person to be physically attractive we may also think of them as having good qualities
        Self-schemas refer to how we feel about ourselves and there are important in relationship formation
  2. internal mental process
    1. The way we believe others to be will determine whether we desire to enter into a relationship with them.
      1. If we have positive memories of past relationships we may be driven to forming new relationships. If our memories are negative and we remember being hurt we may be reluctant to form new relationships even with people who we like
  3. example
    1. Self-schemas refer to how we feel about ourselves and govern our self-concept (how we perceive ourselves). They are important in the matching hypothesis
      1. According to matching hypothesis, how we perceive ourselves in terms of physical attractiveness will influence who we want to engage in relationships with
        we are attracted to those we feel match us in terms of physical attention.
        So if our self-concept is strong and we perceived ourselves to be highly attractive, we will try our luck with highly attractive others.
        If we perceive our self to be low in attractiveness we will not go for those we perceive as attractive for fear of rejection
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
1. assumes that our thoughts influence our emotions and behaviours
  1. believes that psychological disorders stem from faulty or irrational thinking and if a person is to change this then they need to change their thinking pattern.
    1. Aaron Beck proposed that depressed people have developed negative schemas of three things – themselves, the world around them and their futures. – cognitive triad
2. Automatic thought: first thing that comes to your mind, built through schemas
3. CBT combines both the cognitive and behaviourist approach
  1. Cognitive- the therapist works with the client to help them identify negative thoughts that are contributing to their problems
  2. Behaviourist- the therapist encourages the client to engage in reality testing, either during the session (e.g role play) or as homework. In particular the client will have to work on various things outside of the therapeutic setting in order to aid their recovery.
4. Dysfunctional thought diary/ reality testing
  1. clients are asked to keep a record of the events leading up to any unpleasant emotions experienced.
    1. They should record the automatic negative thoughts associated with these events and rate how much they believe in these thoughts (1-100%).
      1. clients are required to write a rational response to the automatic thoughts and rate their belief in this rational response
        Finally clients should re-rate their beliefs in the automatic thoughts
5. Cognitive restructuring
  1. Once the client has revealed more about their thought patterns to the therapist, they can then work on identifying and changing negative thinking patterns.
    1. This is done collaboratively and is also known as ‘therapy during therapy'
      1. A client may feel distressed about something they have overheard, assuming they were being spoke about. During CBT that client is taught to challenge such dysfunctional automatic thoughts for example by asking themselves ‘wheres the evidence?’
        By challenging the dysfunctional thoughts and replacing them with more constructive ones, clients are able to try out new ways of behaving.
6. Pleasant activity scheduling
  1. The technique involves asking the client to plan for each day over a period of time that will include one pleasant activity a day.
    1. It could be something that gives a sense of accomplishment or something that will involve a break from the normal routine.
      1. It is thought engaging in these pleasant activities that will induce more positive emotions and that focusing on new things will detract from negative thinking patterns.
        This is an example of a behaviour activation techniques: helping clients change their behaviour
  2. The technique involves asking clients to keep a record of their experience, how they felt and their circumstance
    1. If it didn’t go as planned, the client is encouraged to explore why and what might be done to change it
      1. By taking action that moves toward a positive solution and goal, the patient moves further away from negative thinking and maladaptive behaviour
7. effectiveness
  1. research support
    1. A number of studies have compared its effectiveness against drug therapy in terms of treating severe depression.
      1. Jarrett et al 1999 found that CBT was effective as some antidepressant drugs when treating 108 patient with severe depression over a 10-week period
        Hollon et al 1992 found no difference in CBT when compared with a slightly different kind of antidepressant drug in a sample of 107 patients over a 10 week period
    2. Suggests that CBT is not always more effective than drug therapy
  2. therapist conpetence
    1. Competencies in CBT include: ability to structure sessions, ability to plan and review assignments (homework), application of relaxation skills and the ability to engage and foster good therapeutic relations
      1. Kuyken and Tsivrikos 2009 claim that much as 15% of the variance in outcomes of CBT effectiveness may be attributable to therapist competence
  3. Individual difference
    1. May be more suitable for some than others
      1. consider differences when examining effectiveness
        CBT appears to be less suitable for people who have high levels of irrational beliefs that are both rigid and resistant to change
        Simons et al 1995 says it also appears to be less suitable in situations where high levels of stress in the individual reflect realistic stressors in the person’s life that therapy cannon resolve
  4. Empowerment
    1. Empowers clients to develop their own coping methods and recognise that people have free will to do this
      1. CBT has become increasingly popular vs drugs/psychoanalysis
        Most widely used therapy by clinical psychologists in the NHS
8. Ethical issues
  1. Patient blame
    1. assumes that the client is responsible for their disorder
      1. positive thing in that they are empowered to change
        Important situational factors may be overlooked which are contributing to their problems such as family life or stuff they cannot change
        Therefore blaming the individual not necessarily helpful as it may take other aspects of their life to change in order to help them feel better
  2. what is rational?
    1. concerns who judges an irrational thought
      1. Whilst they may seem irrational to a therapist they may not actually be irrational
        Alloy and Abrahamson 1979 suggest that depressive realists tend to see things for what they are and normal people have a tendency to distort things in a positive way; they found that depressed people were more accurate in their estimates of the likely hood of a disaster than non-depressed individuals
        The ethical issue is it may cause more damage to self esteem than good (psychological harm)
9. Loftus and Palmer 1974
  1. concerned with the inaccuracy of eye witness testimony (EWT)
    1. One explanation offered for this is the questioning by officials may affect a witnesses perception
  2. Methodology:
    1. 2 experiments
    2. Laboratory experiments
    3. independent groups/measures design
    4. E1 had 45 participants, E2 had 150 participants
  3. procedures
    1. experiment 1
      1. Split into groups of 9; 5 groups
        Shown 7 film clips of different traffic accidents, ranged from 5-30s per clip
        The clips were originally made as part of a driver safety film
        After each clip they were given a questionnaire to recall the account of the accident they had just seen and were asked specific questions about the accident
        Critical question ‘about how fast were the cars going when they ___ each other?’ the blank space was filled in according to each group
        Hit; smashed; collided; bumped; contacted
        Speed estimate was recorded in mph
    2. experiment 2
      1. This experiment measures whether leading questions bias a person’s response or actually alter the memory that is stored
        Showed a film of multiple car accidents with the actual accidents lasting less than 4s
        They were asked a set of questions including the critical question about speed
        Divided into 3 groups of 50
        Group 1 ‘ how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?’
        Group 2 ‘how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?’
        Group 3, control group, they were asked no questions at this staged
      2. One week later they were called back to the laboratory and were asked further questions
        Critical question was ‘did you see any broken glass?’ there was no glass in the film however
        All groups were asked these questions
  4. findings
    1. Mean speed estimates were calculated for each experimental group
      1. Contacted – 31.8
        hit – 34
        bumped – 38.1
        collided - 39.3
        smashed - 40.8
      2. words increase speed estimates show, important in courts etc. 31.8 is likely to be forgiven but 40.8 is likely to be punished
    2. Similar to experiment 1, smashed received higher speed estimates
      1. groups- 1 (smashed); 2 (hit); 3 (control)
        yes: 16; 7; 6
        no: 34; 43; 44
      2. did you see any broken glass?
    3. the findings indicate that the form of a question can affects an eye witness’s answer to a question proposed 2 explanations for this:
      1. Conc' 1: Response bias factors: the different speed estimates occur because the critical word influences or biases a persons priority
      2. Conc' 2: The memory representation is altered: the critical word changes a persons memory so that their perception of the accident is affected. Some critical words would lead someone to have a perception of the accident having been more serious
        If the second conclusion is true we would expect participants to ‘remember’ other details that are not true
        Loftus and palmer tested this in their second experiment. The findings from experiment 2 suggest that the effect of leading questions is not the result of response-bias but because leading questions actually alter the memory a person has for the event
        These findings can be understood in relation to research on the effects of verbal labels on to be remembered forms
        Carmichael et al 1932: provided evidence for the effect of verbal labels. participants were shown a set of drawings and then provided with 1/2 verbal labels and asked to redraw the image; drawing was affected by the label
        Verbal labels cause a shift in the way information is represented in memory in the direction of being more similar to the suggestion given by the verbal label
    4. Evaluation
      1. Methodology
        controlled experiment
        Loftus and palmer conducted their research using experiments
        One advantage of this is that it demonstrates a causal (not casual) relationship; by deliberately manipulating the IV we can see the casual effect on the DV and draw a causal conclusion
        This is especially true in a laboratory experiment where potential confounding variables are easier to control
        ecological validity
        Not the same as watching a real accident happen; people may not take it as seriously or they may not experience the same emotional arousal
        In real life EWT may be more accurate i.e foster et al 1994 and yullie & cutshall 1986
        - Foster et al 1994: found that participants who witnessed what they believed to a real life robbery and that their testimonies would ne used in court had far more accurate recall of the events
        - Yullie and cutshall 1986: brought in real life witnesses of an armed robbery and tested their knowledge four months later. Even with leading questions their recall of events was accurate
        Contrast buckout 1980
        - Buckout 1986: a real life study with 2000 participants watching tv where a 13 second clip was shown, and participants were asked to identify a person from the clip via phone. Only 14% had got it correct
        the sample
        The participants were college students; may be more influencable than others.
        Not representative of everyone; + is it can be applied to specific age group
        Another study found young people more confident in answer; could be good or bad, confident because theyre right vs confidence which mislead people into believing false information
        Age group is more at risk of accident- good to see how they’ll respond in questioning
        - Schacter et al 1991: elderly people have accurate recall of events but poor recall of where the information came from in the first place
        ethical issues
        lack of consent
        Did not gain valid consent
        If aware of the aims then it could have affected participants behaviour
        Arguably deceptive – is it acceptable though to avoid bias to help greater population
        Consented to test just not to specific aim/reasons
        psychological harm
        Watching film clips could still be traumatic, perhaps they had a relative die in a car crash etc
        Less harmful than being exposed to a real crash
        Avoids harm by using films
        Could feel tricked etc
        Kept confidential
      2. - Braun et al 2002: college students were shown (fake) adverts for Disneyland, all of them had been before, some of the characters shown were inconsistent eg bugs bunny who is not part of Disney and then ariel who at this stage was not part of the theme park at this time.
  5. The reliability of eye witness testimony
    1. Not reliable
      1. Post event information
        In Loftus and Palmer 1974 the information suggested after the event became incorporated into the original memory.
        Loftus and Zanni 1975 found that 7% of those asked ‘Did you see a broken headlight?’ reported seeing one whereas 17% of those asked ‘Did you see the headlight?’ reported seeing one.
        The post event information was the work ‘a’ or ‘the’.
        The research clearly demonstrates that even subtle changes in the wording used in questioning can influence the recollection of the participant
        This suggests that whenever a witness is question by anyone their recollection of the event may be distorted
      2. Crimes are emotive
        Eye witnesses may not be reliable because the crimes they witnessed are unexpected and emotionally traumatising
        Freud argued that extremely painful or threatening memories are forced into the unconscious mind (repression) as an ego defence mechanism
        In modern day, psychologists might call this ‘motivated forgetting’ but in either form perhaps EWT are not reliable due to the eye witness’s trauma
      3. Child witnesses are not reliable
        Children as eye witnesses are often regarded as unreliable because they are prone to fantasy and their memories may be especially affected by suggestions made by others.
        Researchers have been interested in finding out if children are accurate eye witnesses – especially in line up identification
        Line ups do not always include the target individual because otherwise a suspect could be selected because he/she fits an erroneous description.
        A metanalysis by Pozzulo and Lindsay 1998 drew data from a number of studies that had tested 2,000 participants between them.
        The researchers found that children under the age of 5 were less likely than older children/ adults to correctly identify the target. Children aged 5-13 years did not differ significantly from adults when the target was present but when the target was not present they were more likely to make a mistake.
        It was thought that this was due to children being more sensitive about what they are asked to do ; feel as though they cant say no – a false positive
      4. Memory is reconstructive
        Schemas are used to help us process information quickly. However one drawback with schemas is that the information already held in our schemas may distort our memory of an event
        For example in your ‘criminal’ schema you will have an expectation of what a criminal will look like. These expectations may be derived from new reports, movies and television programmes.
        When we later have to recall the information, these expectations may have been incorporated into our memory which can lead to an inaccurate recall.
        Yamey 1993 asked 240 students to look at videos of 30 unknown males and classify them as good/bad guys.
        There was a high agreement amongst the participants, suggesting that there is similarity in the information stored in the bad guy and good guy schema
        In the same way any preconceived ideas about the facial features of criminals may influence us when making decisions on suspects in a line up or photo array. This suggests that eye witnesses may not select the actual criminal but the individual who looks most like a criminal.
    2. Reliable
      1. Child witnesses are reliable
        Davies et al 1989 reviewed the literature discussing children used as witnesses and came to some interesting conclusions
        children between the ages 6-7 and 10-11 are fairly accurate in the memories of an event, they do not usually ‘make things up’ and they do not deliberately lie when giving testimony
        In addition their memory for important details is not significantly altered by adult suggestions after the event.
        These conclusions challenge many of the claims made by other researchers
        Anastasi and Rhodes 2006 found that all age groups are most accurate when recognising an offender from their own age group.
        This may mean that if the child witness had observes children committing staged crimes, perhaps they would be more reliable in identifications.
      2. Crimes are emotive
        Some psychologists believe that when we experience events which are very emotionally shocking and/or which hold personal significance we create a particularly accurate and long lasting memory; flashbulb memory
        There is evidence that the hormones associated with emotion, such as adrenaline, may enhance the storage of memories (Cahill ad McGaugh 1995).
        This suggests that the emotion surrounding a crime may actually lea to more, rather than less, reliable memories.
      3. memory is reconstructive
        In many crimes, eye witnesses know the perpetrator of the crimes and as such do not need to refer to their schemas
        For example, RapeCrisis reports that 90% of rapists are known to their victims. This means that the eye witness’s ability to identify the assailant is likely to be reliable even when the crime is traumatic
        As we can see in Yuille and Cutshall research, when research is conducted with eye witnesses to real life crimes their accuracy is much better than laboratory-based research.
        If the memory was reconstructive, you would have expected the eye witness recollections to have faded over time and to have been susceptible to leading questions; however this was not the case in Yuille and Cutshall
      4. post event information
        Eye witness research is misleading as it tends to focus on details that are tricky for us to estimate (e.g. speed) or details that are not central to the incident and this may be more susceptible to corruption
        Not all research suggest that post event information is misleading, Loftus (1979b) showed participants slides of a man stealing a large bright red purse from a woman’s bag.
        The participants were later exposed to information containing subtle errors or a more obvious one, purporting that the purse was brown.
        Although participants were often wrong about ‘peripheral’ items, 98% correctly remembered the purse was red.
        This suggests that eye witnesses recollection for central or key details may be more resistant to distortion from post event information than previously suggested.
    3. Evaluation
      1. Strengths
        Mediational Processes
        One major advantage of the cognitive approach, especially when compared with behaviourism, is the focus on the important ‘processes’ that occur between stimulus and response
        Behaviourism doesn’t look at what goes on in the ‘black box’ but the cognitive approach tries to explain mediational processes (e.g. perception and memory) and how it affects us
        This has helped explain practical elements of human behaviour; look at ways of improving memory using retrieval cues
        Important contributions
        Applied in therapy (CBT) to treat disorders such as depression
        Applied to the field of developmental psychology; e.g. theories on how children learn have been applied in schools to teaching techniques
        Piaget 1970: developed a theory suggesting children think differently to adults; e.g. 8/9 year old children will need to see a mathematical problem in concrete form (sticks, blocks etc) to solve it whereas an adult wont
        Has advance memory research such as eye witness testimonies – effected police questioning etc
        scientific approach
        Lends itself to objective and controlled scientific researc
        e.g. memory research has been conducted under strict laboratory conditions and evolved over time to include brain scanning to pinpoint specific areas of the brain
        Cognitive neuroscience is a field devoted to pinpointing the exact biological mechanisms involved in our cognitive process
        Using scientific methods they have been able to confidently predict emotions, cognitions and behaviours
      2. weaknesses
        nature and nurture
        While the cognitive approach does consider both internal and external factors it fails to consider important elements of nature and nurture
        e.g. the role of genes in human cognition is ignored yet research into intelligence had consistently looked into the influence of genes through twin studies
        important social and cultural factors are often ignored which seemed unrealistic
        e.g. Piaget failed to consider the role of culture and gender on the development of thinking in children
        determinist approach
        schemas are an important assumption and people acquire schemes through direct experience
        e.g. Piaget suggested the cognitive development is essentially the development of schemes
        another important way we acquire schemas is through social interaction; we acquire stereotypes and these may determine the way we interpret or act in a situation
        mechanistic approach
        another criticism is that it portrays human behaviour as being like a machine
        it is inevitable due to the approach being based of being like computers but raises philosophical issues – who is better?
        It ignores social factors; i.e. in depression it ignores the events in life that may have caused it and focuses on the thinking pattern instead
        Ignores emotional factors; computers will always recall information exactly as it is not influenced by emotion but a human may not

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