Cognitive Approach

Question 1

Implication of the cognitive approach?

Answer 1

Dysfunctional behaviour can be treated by helping people to change their thought processes. For example, unrealistic pessimistic thoughts could be replaced by more realistic thoughts.

Question 2

Advantage 1 of cognitive approach?

Answer 2

Has many useful applications, it can be used to improve childcare and education. For example, loftus and palmers research on memory suggests that police officers need to avoid using leading questions when interviewing witnesses as this may alter their memories. However, much cognitive research, including loftus and planet is lab based and therefore, may not be generalisable to the real world.

Question 3

Advantage of cognitive approach?

Answer 3

Illustrates differences in the way people think, this is a strength because it may provide explanations of how specific cognitive deficits influence behaviour. For example, baron Cohen’s research suggests the deficit of lack of theory of mind may cause the behaviours we associate with autism. However, there may be other deficits in addition to cognitive ones that contribute to people’s behaviour. For example,there may be genetic or social factors also contributing to Autism.

Question 4

Disadvantage of cognitive approach?

Answer 4

May be considered reductionist, it doesn’t provide a full explanation of human behaviour as it ignores factors like social and biological contributions. For example, baron Cohen’s research into autism ignores issues like hormone levels, however, a reductionist approach allows for an in depth, precise investigation of a particular area so can be useful.

Question 5

Disadvantage of cognitive approach?

Answer 5

Tends to be lab based, experimental reductionism may become a problem along with a lack of ecological validity, meaning the findings aren’t reflecting real cognitive processing. For example, baron Cohen’s study on autism took place in controlled conditions, using a task with low mundane realism. Therefore, his findings on theory of mind may not reflect everyday cognitive functioning of people with autism.

Question 6

Key assumption of the cognitive approach?

Answer 6

Internal mental processes such as memory, thinking, reasoning, problem solving and language are important features in influencing human behaviour.