History of the origin and development of cognitive psychology

Fighting with your own self

Cognitive dissonance occurs when a person experiences discomfort due to a discrepancy between two cognitive elements. To relieve this discomfort and restore balance, cognitions must be adjusted in some way.

To test his theory, Festinger decided to study the behavior of members of a religious sect. He observed people who believed that our planet was doomed and would soon be destroyed by a massive flood. Many took this belief so far that they sold their homes and quit their jobs in anticipation of the impending disaster. But the great flood never happened. Festinger carefully watched their reaction.

Some admitted that they had been blinded and left the sect; but the most ardent adherents soon enough proposed a new interpretation of events that confirmed their original idea. In particular, they began to claim that the Earth was saved by their boundless faith. In other words, when a conflict between cognitions arose, sect members tried to change their beliefs in such a way that harmony was restored.

Scientific definition

Cognition is the act of knowing expressed in the form of an emotion, action, idea, belief, value or attitude. For example, understanding that you caught a thrown ball, that a song makes you feel happy, or that you like the color green is a cognition. A person can simultaneously perceive many different cognitions, and all of them are in dissonant or consonant relationships with other cognitions.

The path to the formation of a new science

Cognitive psychology originated in the mid-20th century, during an era of rapid development of technology and computing. Scientists are faced with the need to substantiate the interaction between humans and modern technologies from a psychological perspective. The main interest of the new field was the study of cognitive, that is, human cognitive abilities. Perception was seen as a fundamental act on which the foundation of the human psyche is built. All sorts of experiments and studies have been carried out to explore the possible limits of human abilities in relation to processing and storing information in their memory.

It is worth noting that the founders of the science include psychologists Fritz Heider (the theory of cognitive balance) and Leon Festinger (the theory of cognitive dissonance). But noticeable progress was facilitated by a meeting in 1956 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where representatives of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineering and specialists in the field of information theories gathered. This meeting is still considered a real revolution in cognitive psychology; issues of the formation of language and memory under the influence of computer technology were raised there.

Cognitive psychology received its name thanks to the researchers Jerome Bruner (Study of Cognitive Development, 1967) and Ulrik Neisser (Cognition and Reality, 1976), who published their works, telling the public about the subject of their research. Subsequently, the Center for Cognitive Psychology was organized, where the processes of cognition, thinking, aspects of developmental psychology, etc. were studied.

By choosing the term “cognitive..”, we opposed ourselves to behaviorism. Initially, we thought about using the concept of “mentality”. But “mental psychology” sounded too ridiculous, and “common sense psychology” would send us to the field of anthropological research, “folk psychology” is similar to Wundtian social psychology. As a result, we settled on the term “cognitive psychology.”

George Miller, co-founder of the Center for Cognitive Psychology

One of the famous psychologists working in this area was the Swiss Jean Piaget. Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Neuchâtel devoted himself for a long time to his passion for psychoanalysis, which was fashionable at that time. While working with children, Piaget conducted a number of interesting experiments. Through tests, he established the chain of logical operations and the integrity of the general structure of the child’s thinking.

Piaget talked about changes in human intelligence and its possible adaptation to the environment with each stage of development. He identified four cognitive stages:

• Sensorimotor – external manipulation and the beginning of work with internal symbols (0-2 years).
• Pre-operative – building associative connections and transductive reasoning (transitional processing of information from one image to another), centralization of consciousness on conspicuous objects, attention to the external state (2-7 years).
• Stage of concrete operations - a system of integrated actions is formed, logical operations with classes are established, their hierarchy is built, operations occur only with specific objects of study (7-11 years).
• The stage of formal operations is the transformation of consciousness into a hypothetical-deductive one, the construction of mental sentences and reasoning, the systematic identification of variables, their combination (11-15 years).

In 1925, Piaget, after a series of significant experiments, came to the discovery of children's egocentrism. His theory states that children up to a certain age are focused only on themselves and their inner experiences. You can often see a picture of a small child or teenager, being close to a parent, another child, or even alone, talking about his experiences or simply voicing his thoughts, without any need for feedback.

An Experiment in Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance occurs when a person is forced to do something that deep down he does not want to do. In this case, dissonance is created between the cognition “I don’t want to do this” and actual behavior. A person's actions that are clearly inconsistent with his beliefs are called forced compliance.

Since no one can change their past actions, the only way to reduce dissonance is to change the attitude towards their actions. To clearly demonstrate the phenomenon of forced compliance, Leon Festinger and James Carlsmith conducted the following experiment.

Theories of the cognitive approach by S. Asch, D. Krech, R. Crutchfield

These theories, unlike previous theories, do not find support for their research in the principle of correspondence; the basis of the theories of these authors are the following provisions:

1. The peculiarities of a person’s behavioral reactions can only be considered if his integrity is recognized;
2. The main element of the holistic organization of human behavior is the process of cognition;
3. Perception in this case is considered as the relationship between incoming data and the cognitive structure of the individual, and the learning process is considered as a process of cognitive reorganization.

In general, the following conclusions are characteristic of the cognitive approach in social psychology:

• the main source of information and data and the determining factor influencing a person’s behavior are his existing cognitive processes and education, expressed in knowledge, understanding, and formed judgments;
• the possibility of qualitative interpretation of states of dissonance and prediction of certain manifestations of human behavior in most cases is associated with human psychology, which acts both as an explanatory principle and as a kind of norm for comparing the actual behavior of subjects with it.

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Classic study of cognitive dissonance

1. The subjects are divided into two groups. The first group is not told what it has to do; the second group is told that the lesson will be extremely interesting and exciting.

2. Next, the experiment participants perform a series of routine, incredibly boring, monotonous tasks. for example, for the first half hour they alternately move twelve spoons from the tray and back with one hand, for the next half hour they again turn the chips on the board a quarter turn with one hand. At the end of the cycle - having turned all forty-eight chips in one direction - they must return them to their previous position.

3. After completing the experiment, the subjects are asked how interesting it was for them to complete these tasks.

4. Here it is worth releasing about a third of the participants - this is the control group. Before disbanding, people discuss what can be done to improve the design of future research.

5. Everyone else is given the right to become experimenters themselves. Mm will need to tell the next group of participants about the tasks that they will have to complete in an extremely positive light. They promise to pay half of the group one dollar for this, and the other half - twenty.

6. Then the subjects are interviewed again, asking them to rate four different parts of the experiment and evaluate: did they find the tasks performed interesting and exciting (on a scale from -5 to +5 points); whether the experiment helped you learn more about your own skills (on a scale from 0 to 10 points); whether they think the experiment is measuring something really important (on a scale of 0 to 10); They would like to take part in a similar study in the future (on a scale from -5 to +5 points).

Cognitive Psychology: Theory of the Dual Process of Thinking

In 1890, philosopher, psychologist and founder of functionalism, William James, proposed that we have two types of thinking - intuitive understanding and logical reasoning. When analyzing information, the first - subconscious, automatic, involuntary - is significantly superior to the second in speed, but inferior to it in attention to detail and learning ability.

Subsequently, the idea that the same phenomenon can occur in two different ways or as a result of two different processes was called “dual process theory.” In one form or another, this concept has been reflected in social, personality, cognitive and clinical psychology, and has also been used in decision theory and behavioral economics.

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A little history

An American pragmatist and functionalist, James, in his work “Principles of Psychology,” considers human consciousness as a change of states or an individual flow, in which emotions and instincts, as well as associations, play a large role.

Thoughts and images, according to the scientist, enter consciousness from past experience, giving rise to abstract ideas and analogies with the present. Such associative knowledge, being reproductive, i.e. based on known information, differs from truly logical thinking, which is used by a person in fundamentally new situations and is somewhat similar to turning to a map to overcome obstacles on the ground.

The dual process model has become widespread among researchers studying phenomena in social and cognitive psychology, for example, the formation of public opinion, stereotypes, selective attention, working memory, etc. Thus, developed in 1986 by Richard E. Petty and John Cacioppo John Cacioppo's elaboration likelihood model describes two different pathways for the emergence of judgments and related decisions.

The first, or basic, is the path of careful reflection on the situation, careful analysis of available information and conscious argumentation. A person resorts to this method when the level of his competence and motivation is high enough to draw reasonable and correct conclusions. The second, or workaround, is to casually speculate about the issue and label it as a result of disinterest in the issue or lack of knowledge.

Another interpretation of the dual process theory belongs to Jonathan Evans, a professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Plymouth.

In his opinion, two processes can be distinguished in people’s thinking - heuristic and analytical: one serves to select information relevant to the current situation, and the second - to form judgments based on it. All other, “inconvenient” information is eliminated by consciousness at the first stage and is not allowed for analysis.

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Dual thinking and rationality

In general, the interpretation of James's idea and the direct designation of two mental processes as intuitive understanding and logical reasoning belong to the Israeli-American psychologist and founder of the doctrine of behavioral economics, Daniel Kahneman.

Kahneman, by analogy with James's associative thinking, defined understanding as a quick, subconscious, involuntary conclusion, often of an emotional nature, which is based on past experience and habits, and therefore difficult to correct or influence. In contrast, he cites reasoning: a slow, gradual and much more flexible process under the control of consciousness and responsible for the formation of rational opinions and attitudes.

Daniel Kahneman at the Digital-Life-Design conference in Munich. Source

To confirm the hypothesis that understanding is an unconscious act that is almost impossible to control, he gives a so-called “thought experiment”: you can stop yourself from thinking about something, but forcing yourself to stop understanding, for example, your native speech is much more difficult.

In the process of analyzing and processing information, a person uses both systems of thinking. At the same time, the role of rational judgment is seriously overestimated by people: only a small part of the perceived information reaches conscious analysis, and the remaining information remains unclaimed.

Such “blindness” is associated with the limitations of an individual's past experience, as well as the extent to which new data correlates with the psychic or mental model of a particular person, for example, his profession or general knowledge.

In fact, among all the thought processes occurring in the human brain, controlled thinking is only the tip of the iceberg, but since the unconscious is hidden from our understanding and is difficult to study, it is logical, rational thinking that seems to determine us, despite the fact that in life people behave very inconsistently.

Kahneman paid special attention to the formation of judgments and decision-making by people under conditions of uncertainty, for which, together with W. Smith, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002. He developed prospect theory, in which he illustrated that a person makes a judgment about the positive outcome of a choice based on a subjective opinion about its correctness or usefulness, without taking into account real facts.

This tendency of people to exaggerate personal losses and underestimate likely profitable prospects underlies such inconsistent phenomena of the human psyche from an economic point of view as the “endowment effect”, “status quo bias”, unequal assessment of risks in conclusion betting, various gambling games, etc.

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Similar theories

In 2004, two German scientists - Fritz Strack and Roland Deutsch - identified two types of thinking, which they called reflective and impulsive systems, the difference between which is that they rely on different things when making decisions - knowledge and accurate information or to ready-made diagrams, i.e., virtually without thinking.

Ron Sun, professor of cognitive science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, proposed the CLARION dual learning model. The main idea of ​​this concept is that in the course of cognitive activity a person absorbs knowledge at two interconnected levels: external (explicit learning), when rapid, primary assimilation of new material occurs, and internal (implicit learning) - through the gradual consolidation of the information received.

A slightly different approach to data processing was developed by Canadian psychologist Allan Paivio. He developed the dual coding theory, according to which the process of cognition occurs using two independent but coordinated systems - verbal and nonverbal perception.

Verbal and non-verbal information create different “codes”: visual, responsible for tasks of a spatial nature, and verbal, based on language and abstract symbolism.

The scientist’s main hypothesis is that the nonverbal system had an earlier development in evolution, and therefore visual images and images are much more efficiently processed by the brain and stored in memory. Therefore, during the learning process, it is advisable to use both types of information in order to increase the retention of the material covered.

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System 1 and System 2

Despite all the variety of theories, the essence of the dual process comes down to the fact that in the human brain there are two distinct, but interconnected types of thinking, two cognitive reasoning systems, which developed separately during evolution, since they were responsible for fundamentally different tasks.

These systems are increasingly divided by scientists not according to the conscious factor, but according to their functional orientation. As a result, it was decided to combine all the characteristics of both functions of thinking under the collective terms System 1 and System 2, proposed by the authors Stanovich and West in the article “Individual differences in thinking: implications for the debate about rationality?” (Stanovich, K E., West, R F. “Individual difference in reasoning: implications for the rationality debate?”, 2000)

The table below illustrates the main differences between the two systems:

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Automaticity of the thinking process

The involuntary, hidden nature of the work of the first system was discussed in detail by psychologist John Bargh, who studied the role of automaticity and unconscious processing of social information in a laboratory at Yale University.

A mental process, according to the scientist, can be called “automatic” only if it does not fulfill any of the following conditions:

1. Awareness, i.e. a person is not aware of what is happening in his own mind. This happens for three reasons - you do not recognize the presence of a stimulus (subcortical perception); you don’t know how this stimulus is perceived or interpreted by your consciousness (activation of stereotypical thinking); not seeing how the stimulus influences your judgment or actions (false attribution).
2. Intentionality, that is, the mental process began without any conscious intention or desire.
3. Controllability, i.e. a person is not able to stop the process before it is completely completed.

Another characteristic of an automatic system is high efficiency due to low resource consumption: no cognitive effort is required to carry out automatic analysis, everything happens as if by itself.

That is why the dual process theory has also made significant contributions to such areas of social psychology as stereotyping, categorization and social judgment.

The fact is that the involuntary, automatic nature of one side of thinking has a very large influence on a person’s perception of other people. We often use information we perceive about the appearance, age, gender, nationality or social role of others to unconsciously divide them into groups or categories and attribute characteristic features to them - stereotypes.

This categorization allows us to form an opinion about others without making significant efforts: the activation of ready-made patterns of social relations occurs without the participation of consciousness. The only way to avoid a stereotypical response is a controlled cognitive process, when a person shows enough will and desire to objectively evaluate other people.

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Problem Solving and the Unconscious

UTT, or Unconscious thought theory, which states that our brain is capable of performing complex mental tasks without the participation of consciousness and does it even better than under its control, was proposed by Dutch scientists Ap Dijksterhuis and Laurent Nordren ( Loran Nordgren) in 2006.

According to their concept, conscious thinking about a problem (CT, conscious thought) is effective only in cases where the problem contains a smaller number of variables or its solution is reduced to the simplest logical operations. In more important questions, according to the authors, the answer always “pops up” from the subconscious, that is, the person himself does not understand how exactly his thought process occurs.

This gave rise to the idea that the unconscious is superior to consciousness in its importance in the thinking process, and scientists have identified 6 principles that separate one from the other:

1. The principle of unconscious thought

This principle recognizes the existence of two different types of thinking: conscious and unconscious. The first occurs when “a cognitive or affective process is directed toward an object or task that is the focus of attention,” whereas in the second, the object or task moves beyond the focus of the reflector.

2. Capacity principle

According to cognitive psychologist George Miller, a person cannot store more than 7 +/- 2 pieces of information in his working memory, and this rule does not apply to the unconscious.

3. Top-down vs bottom-up principle

Due to the limited capacity of working memory, the conscious mind is forced to process information systematically - with the help of definitions and diagrams, while the unconstrained subconscious absorbs the data in its entirety, after which it “gives” a ready-made solution.

4. The principle of weightiness

Unconscious thinking is more effective than conscious thinking in more important and complex issues, since people make better decisions when they are not too focused on weighing the pros and cons, but rather distracted from the task at hand.

5. The principle of the rule

The fact that when making decisions, consciousness uses strict formal rules, and the subconscious is an associative process, does not exclude that the subconsciously found answer will not comply with the laws of logic. Outwardly, they are even completely indistinguishable.

6. The principle of rapprochement or convergence

This principle is well known to Nobel Prize laureates and artists. When asked what the secret of their genius is, many of them answer that it was enough for them to understand the essence of the problem and forget about it, as after some time something told them the right solution. Such cooperation is especially noticeable in extreme situations: where conscious thought reaches a dead end, the powerful unconscious comes into force.

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How to use this in business?

The described theory is also reflected in behavioral economics, since the dual nature of thinking has a serious impact on people’s economic decision-making.

Buying decisions involve both involuntary and controlled mental processes, but depending on the person or situation, the final conclusion may differ. In this regard, you need to have a firm idea of ​​which side of thinking you are addressing.

An example is a situation in which the product is based either on rational, selfish behavior or on a social motive. For different people, each of these stimuli will be more attractive than the other, and this preference will constitute the automatic, impulsive side of their psyche.

However, this does not mean that the initial choice cannot be changed: under the control of consciousness, under the influence of additional factors - social pressure or monetary gain - a person can change his mind and act in a way “unusual” for him. The theory of duality explains such diversity in people’s purchasing behavior, in contrast to the standard idea of ​​differences in tastes and interests, by which side of thinking was involved in making a decision.

High conversions to you!

Based on materials from wikipedia.orgimage source zinografie
07-08-2015

Interaction with other sciences

It is now believed that cognitive psychology and neuroscience are developing in parallel with each other. This is because both sciences study similar areas of the human brain. The difference lies in the focus of psychology - on the study of the reactions of the human psyche to external stimuli, and neurobiology - on the study of the reactions of neurons in the brain. At the same time, many psychologists, such as S. Gerber and A. Newell, do not consider the results of research in the field of neurobiology applicable to human psychology, because the answers to questions from one science are almost impossible to adapt to another.

New stage of research

American neurophysiologist, physician and psychologist Karl Pribram, collaborating with the famous researcher in behavioral psychology Karl Lashley, developed a holographic model of the functioning of the human psyche, which led to a unique discovery. Memory is not concentrated in separate areas of the brain, but is distributed across all parts. This discovery revolutionized cognitive psychology, since it was previously believed that it was the middle lobes of the brain that were responsible for the perception and storage of information. Pribram's theory and experimental results are not fully accepted, but are indirectly confirmed by most subsequent experiments.