Cognitive Approaches in Psychology

In this essay I will outline 2 nuzzlees in psychology, comp are and contrast them as head discussing the nature and education debate regarding both plan of attackes. I will be examining a theoriser from each blast outlining and evaluating his guess including the positive everytributes along with the negative. Fin ally I will include a therapy from each theorist and salute. The deportmentist near focuses on the concept of explaining deportment by observation, and the belief that our environment is what causes us to extradite disparately and suffer illnesses.The Behaviourist approach believes that demeanour is playd by each and every individuals bangs. This could include their background, social and home living circumstances. Behaviourist psychologists argue that when we are born our mind is tabula rasa meaning a blank space state and that events taking ordinate in our life time flock affect and multifariousness the air we behave. Behaviour is the the result of s timulus response, i. e all conduct no matter how complex quarter be reduced to a simple-minded stimulus response. All behaviour is catcht from the environment.We learn new behaviour done classical and operant learn. Classical conditioning is stimulus- response. If a stimulus that results in a emotional response is iterate along with an virtually other stimulus which does non cause an emotional response, because eventually the second stimulus will result in the akin emotional response. Classical conditioning is therefore reading by association. galore(postnominal) assurances are made on the behaviourism approach, for example one assumption made is that there is no mind or body dualism and that every involvement we do is because of behaviour and not because of the mind.A second assumption would be that discovering a stimuli that causes behaviour associations mingled with stimlulus and response will allow us to predict and hold backler behaviour. They withal viewed i nformation as a change of behaviour payable to experience. However some critics purpose against the behaviourist view that behaviour is intractable by our enviromnets as psychologist Garrett (1996) adumbrateed that behaviour is now skeletal systemd by what goes on inside their heads and not simply by what goes on in the orthogonal environment (p. 19) Operant conditioning is a order of learning that occurs through retorts and punishments for behaviour.Through operant conditioning, an association faecal matter be made between a authorized behaviour and a consequence for that behaviour. For example if a advantageously thing is presented and a certain behaviour is encouraged therefore the behaviour will increase, this is called positive reinforement. However if the good thing is countern absent then the behaviour will decrease. For example is a dog is told to cause the ball and every time it fetches the ball it sucks rewarded with a work. This would influence the dogs behaviour to al shipway fetch the ball as it will be rewarded.Another primaeval feature of the behaviourist approach is the social learning scheme. The social learning theory focuses on the learning that occurs within a social context. It considers that mountain learn from one another including ofttimes(prenominal) concepts as observational learning, imitation, and modeling. It says that throng can learn by observing the behaviour of others and the government issues of their behaviour. The cognitive approach deals with metal mathematical processes or cognitions. These mental processes include retrospection, intellection and perceptions. Cognition delegacy knowing. in that locationfore cognition is the mental act or process by which knowledge is acquired. Cognitive psychology has been influenced by the exposements in computer attainment and comparisons have often been made between how a cumputer works and we process information. The main focus of the cognitive approach i s how information comed from our senses is g goful by the brain and how this processing affect how we behave. Cognitive processes show examples of vatical constructs. This means that we can not directly analyse processes much(prenominal) as thinking but we can dissect what a person is thinking found on how they act.Cognitive psychologists use laboratory experiments to study behaviour. This is because the cognitive approach is a scientific one. These experiments would involve participants taking part in memory tests in strictly controlled conditions. An assumption made about the cognitive approach is that there populates a circular relationship between learning, meaning and memory. The bag for cognitive theories follows this patern in which what is learned is affected by its meaningfulness, the meaning is driven by what is remebered and the memory is affected by what we learn.The cognitive approach places it egotism in direct opposition to the behaviourist approach which mos tly ignores mental processes. The cognitive approach is internal whereas the behaviourist is external as it focuses on the serviceman environment. The cognitive approach examines behaviour which is directed through the mind quite a then the body. It studys the thought processes, memory, language, perception and decision qualification. Whereas the Behaviourist approach examines our behaviour by our responses to our surroundings and the events taking place around us which whitethorn influence us to act in a certain way through imitation.It assumes that we learn things by associating certain events with certain consequences and that we will behave in the way that achieves the most desirable consequences. There are many methods in which the cognitive approach examine. Such as the holistic method which is a view that all aspects of peoples needs such as the mental, physical and social should be winn into account and seen as a whole. The nature and raising debate is one of the longe st runway debates in the area of psychology in which theorists have various contrary views and opinions.Nurture is the view that everything we learn is through inter serve with our surrounding environment, this could include with people, family and hoi polloi media. Some assumptions of this approach would be that the education theory did not brush off that genetics exist but argues that they simply made no remnant to how we behave and act. Studies on children temperament showed the most crucial evidence for the nutrify theory. Another would be that the bringing up argument is most represented by the behaviourist approach as behaviourists believe that all behaviour is the outcome of learning through conditioning.The nature theory focuses on the heredity and specialised genes which can determine passing on of traits such as nub colour and skin colour. The nature theory would suggest that even personality, word of honor and aggression is also encoded in our DNA. Some assump tions of this approach would be that behaviour is innate, conditions such a schizophrenia show genetic links and a large amount of research shows that there is a link between hormones and aggression. Behaviourism follows the nurture approach as it studies that we learn from our environment, hence making this approach nurturist.It believes that our behaviour is influenced by our surroundings. Watson- the father of behaviourism quoted Give me a dozen healthy infants and my own specified world to bring them up in and I will garantee to take anyone at random and involve him to become any kind of specialist I might postulate doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant chef and yes beggar and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tenancies, abilities, vocations and race of his ancestors. Watson is clearly stating that he could change any person from any different social background and race if he could bring them up in his own way.His statement potently argues the nurture side of the debat e. He argued that human behaviour could be teach depending on their surroundings. On the other hand the Cognitive approach is an interaction between the two nature and nurture. As much as it focuses on reactions of the senses to the brain and the mind which make it nature it also has many nurture altributes also. The cognitive psychologist would recognise that experience and the environment also contribute and shape these innate abilities. Piagets therory backed this up as he believed that macrocosm use their experiences to construct new savvys.He agreed that both nature and nurture are important, humans move through universal floors due to increment however the rate they mature in depends on experience. He utter that people are, by nature active contributors to their own development. Piagets argued that both nature and nurture interact to produce cognitive development. He verbalise that the nature side helps the maturation of the brain and the body, along with the ability to percieve and learn. Whereas the nurture helps with the adaptation of children and how they respond to their enviroment. Bandura was a behaviourist theorist.He believed that there are third sources of models which influenced humans behaviour, these included the family, the mass media and the sub-culture. He conducted a number of experiments in which he carried out on children. cardinal of his experiments involved an inflatable Bobo skirt, his condition was to investigate the make of observing aggression in an adult model. The routine of this experiment was for it to take place in a playroom containing a range of toys. Young children watched an adult attacking a large inflatable Bobo boo by hitting it with a hammer and saying prisoner of warOnce the adult left the playroom, the behaviour of the children was then observed. A control classify of children who did not see the adult attack the bird were also observed in the playroom. The results showed that the children who had s een the adult attack the doll also attacked the doll in similar ways. However the children who had not seen the adult attack the doll did not. The conclusion to this was that children learned particular behaviours towards the Bobo doll through observational learning and then copied the behaviour when given a chance.Two years later he conducted a similar experiment however this time it was to observe the set up on modelling by children of seeing a model strengthen or punished for a behaviour. This experiment, like the previous involved a bunch of children watching and adult kick and attack a Bobo doll but this time get rewarded for it. Another set of children watched the same thing however saw the adult get punished for it. The children in the group that saw the model being punished were later offered a reward if they could reproduce the behaviour they had observed.The results showed that the children in the group that saw the model get punished for the attack were less likely to imitate that behaviour. This experiment reason that observation is enough for behaviour to be learned, however reinforcement is needful for the behaviour to be modelled. The values of Banduras social learning theory were that it extended the operant conditioning theory. It foc utilize on the idea of the influence of the social environment in behaviour therefore providing an explanation for heathen and individual differences.It could account for individual differences and allowed for more complex human behaviour. Banduras theory had a role to play in personality theory and introduces the idea of vicarious learning. Although the criticisms are that his theories are reductionist, environmental and determinism. Reductionist ways of explaining behaviour often examine one single cause ignoring other explanations. Reductionism attempts to understand and describe the human behaviour in terms of simple components or units. Any explanation of behaviour at its simplest can be described as re ductionist.This approach reduces a complex behaviour to a simple set of variables which offer the possibilities of identifying a cause and effect. The reductionist approach is therefor a from of determinism. Determinists believe that it is possible to predict behaviour by identifying the cause of behaviour. His theories were also criticised as being environmental, meaning that the environment that he uses in his experiments can affect the human behaviour. The use of violence towards a doll in his experiments were not ethical as he simply used children.It was also sociably incorrect as it was influencing violence to receive a reward. The biological influences are ignored, lack cohesiveness and static excludes influences such as emotions. Jean piaget was a psychologist who studied the development of childrens agreement and how their minds work. His theory on how the childrens mind works and develops has been hugely influential, peculiarly in educational theory. Piaget was particul arly interested in the way in which a childs mind matures in the different developmental stages and how their maturing increases their capacity to understand their world.His theory was that all infants have the same structures and they all have innate reflexes and schemas. He believed that children cannot undertake certain tasks until they are psychologically mature enough to do so. He thought that childrens thinking develop at different stages, and that at certain points the mind would mature into different capabilities such as the starting signal transition taking place at 18 months, then at the age of 7 and 11 or 12. He meant that before these ages children could not have a capable understanding of certain things in certain ways.The stages which took place according to this theory were foremost the sensorimotor stage which takes place between birth and two years. At this stage the child can identify itself and acts as an agent of action purposely banging on pots and pans to mak e noises to hear the reaction. The child can differentiate self from objects and learns object permanence realising that objects still do exist even if they are not in sight. The second stage is the pre- in operation(p) stage. This is the stage in which the child learns to use language and images to identify objects.However their thinking is still egocentric indicating that they cannot see things from another persons point of view. This stage usually takes place from the age of two till seven. The third stage is called the concrete usable stage, this takes place between the ages of seven and eleven. The final stage is called the formal ope logical stage, at this stage children start to think about the future and ideological problems. The childs cognitive structure is more like that of an adults and includes abstract reasoning. His theory was successful in the fact that they used his theory as a basis for scheduling in the school curriculum.His theory has a huge influence on the u nderstanding of cognitive development and it was the first comprehensive theory of childrens cognitive development. His theory also challenged the conventional idea of the child being passive in development, also as his theory was scientifically based this made it come across as more accurate. However his theory has received some criticism, some critics challenged some of his developmental stages such as the sensorimotor stage and the pre-operational stage. Gelman questioned what Piaget viewed about children as young as four not being able to take on another persons point of view.Gelman believed that it was possible for children to do so. Behaviour therapy refers to techniques based on classical conditioning. This therapy consists of using learning principles to change maladaptive behaviour. There are a number of various behaviour therapies including systematic desensitisation. This therapy is a form of counter conditioning using a hierarchy of fear. One example could be to remove a phobia of animals. The longanimous is taught how to free so that relaxation and fear cancel each other out, to do this hypnosis or tranquillisers may be used.It is believed that it is impossible for a person to experience two opposite emotions at the same time. The systematic part of the therapy involves a recorded series of contacts with the object of the phobia. Whilst relaxing a least shake image of the object is introduced to the patient until this can be done without the patient having any feelings of anxiety. Some of the therapies based on classical conditioning are legal, such as the systematic desensitisation therapy. However it is mostly legal only for anxiety disorders and addictions. They are more rough-and-ready in phobias than in psychotic disorders.An advantage is that the therapies are relatively quick and only take a few months to work as oppose to psychodynamic treatment which can take years. There is also a high success rate, McGrath found that systematic d esensistisation to be powerful for around 75% of people with phobias. In the case of single sessions success, if conducted in one session it is proved that 90% of patients with phobias made vast improvements and some were even fully recovered. Systematic desennsitisation helped treat one of the most difficult phobias to treat called agoraphobia, this therapy however helped between 60-80% of cases.Critics of these therapies would suggest that many patients with phobias may have no recollection of bad experiences with the object and simply just have a phobia, therefore the therapies would not be effective and solve the problem. Psychodynamic theorists would say this is due to the symptom being a sign that something unconscious is wrong with the patient. Another disadvantage is the unpredictable effects that the therapy can have on the patient such as means attacks and hyperventilating. The cognitive approach has many therapies to explain and modify behaviour.Cognitive forms of thera py include the Ellis rational therapy, which is now more commonly known as rational emotional behaviour therapy. Ellis came to conclusions about patients negative thoughts and their tendencies to catastrophise situations making things seem so much worse then they actually are. This therapy focuses on when irrational thoughts are seen as the main cause of all types of emotional distress and behaviour orders. The ask of this therapy is to exchange the irrational unreasonable with the more positive and realistic beliefs and ways of thinking. Patients are encouraged to look on the bright side.Ellis identify patients irrational beliefs and ideas which are emotionally self defeating and are mostly associated with psychological problems such as negative thoughts and feelings about ones self. Patients are told to practice certain positive statements like I can do rather then I cant do to help them create a more positive state of mind. The benefits of using such therapies are that it is a structured therapy with outcomes which are achievable, these methods are becoming more commonly used as they are short term and are cost effective aswell as economically effective.This therapy is appealing towards patients who find insight therapies which look unintelligible into their inner emotions and problems seem less threatening and intimidating. Although there are disadvantages of this therapy. It may not uncover the problem completely, however it does almost try to dower patients to help themselves with their issues and feel better. It also may not work well for adults who are not willing to take part and collaborate with the therapist to achieve a new way of thinking. It may also not be successful for those who feel that they cant achieve self happiness without something or someone else contributing towards it.This therapy is mostly successful for clients despicable from anxiety disorders, stress management and sexual problems. Studies have shown that this therapy is m ore effective in depression than drugs are and the relapse rate is proved to be lower with cognitive behavioural therapy. This from of therapy has been proved to be more effective then anti depressants. In conclusion, I have included all the points mentioned in the introduction that I said I would include in my essay, I have outlined and evaluated two approaches and discussed two theorists and therapies for each approach.