Psychology is one of the youngest sciences, which is not always given due attention. However, it is simply impossible not to notice its rapid development in recent years. But scientists still do not consider it a unified science, because today it has many directions that put forward their own theories of the organization and perception of mental reality by man. This prevents representatives of different directions from sharing knowledge and enriching each other with it.
Cognitive psychology (representatives of this movement are actively working on its development, developing methodology) is the direction that interests the scientific world more than others. And this is not at all surprising, because it reveals a person as a thinking being and constantly analyzing his activities. This is the basis of all cognitive behavioral psychology, which originated in the middle of the last century and is still in the stage of active development. From the article, readers will have the opportunity to become better acquainted with this relatively new trend in science. And also learn about the main representatives of cognitive psychology, its provisions and tasks.
General characteristics of the new direction
Cognitive psychology (representatives of this direction have done a lot to popularize it and set the main tasks) currently occupies a fairly large section in psychology as a science. The very name of this movement is derived from the Latin word meaning “knowledge.” After all, it is the one most often referred to by representatives of cognitive psychology.
The conclusions that were drawn by this scientific movement later became widely used in other disciplines. First of all, of course, psychological. They are regularly addressed by social psychology, educational psychology and psycholinguistics.
The main difference between this direction and others is the consideration of the human psyche as a certain set of patterns formed in the process of understanding the world. Followers and representatives of cognitive psychology, unlike their predecessors, pay great attention to cognitive processes. After all, they provide the necessary experience and the opportunity to analyze the situation in order to make the right decision. In the future, the same algorithm of actions will be used in similar situations. However, under changing conditions, he will also change. That is, human behavior is determined not so much by the inclinations and influences of the external environment inherent in it, but by mental processes and abilities.
Cognitive psychology and its representatives (U. Neisser, for example) believe that all knowledge acquired by a person during life is transformed into certain schemes. They are stored in specific memory cells and retrieved from there when necessary. We can say that all the activity of an individual occurs within this framework. But we cannot assume that they are static. Cognitive activity occurs constantly, which means that new schemes regularly appear and old ones are updated. Representatives of cognitive psychology do not consider attention as something separate. It is studied in the totality of all cognitive processes, such as thinking, memory, perception, and so on.
History of the scientific direction
We can say that cognitive psychology owes its emergence to American scientists. It was they who showed serious interest in human consciousness in the forties of the last century.
Over time, this interest has generated a large number of research papers, experiments and new terms. Gradually, the concept of cognition is firmly established in psychology. It begins to act as a determinant not only of human consciousness, but also of almost all of its actions. Of course, this was not yet cognitive psychology. Neisser laid the foundation for serious research in this direction, which later began to overlap with the work of other scientists. They also placed first place a person’s knowledge about himself and the world around him, which allows him to create new behavioral patterns and acquire certain skills.
It is interesting that initially this direction was difficult to consider homogeneous. This trend has continued to this day, because cognitive psychology is not a single school. Rather, it can be described as a wide range of tasks united by a common terminology and study methodology. With their help, certain psychological phenomena are described and explained.
Unusual experiment
With the gradual decline of the dominance of behaviorist concepts in 1971, psychologist Philip Zimbardo of Stanford University decided to take a bold step. Purpose of the study: to study the behavioral characteristics of a person in cruel conditions (limited freedom of action and will, pressure on moral principles). The recruitment of volunteers took about a month; not everyone was ready to calmly go to torture and obey any instructions. A total of twenty-four people were selected. In order to maintain the purity of the experiment, the candidates were divided into two groups. The first half included guards, and the other half included so-called prisoners. A laboratory assistant and an assistant psychologist acted as the main guards; Zimbardo himself became the manager of this research prison.
The subjects were "arrested" in their homes under false pretenses and under the direction of the Palo Alto police. The prisoners were transported to a fenced area, processed, assigned a number and placed in compartments. From the first minutes, the scientist began to record the mental reactions of the experiment participants and observe their behavior.
The experiment was originally designed to last two weeks, but ended after just six days due to the fact that things quickly got out of control. The “prisoners” were mocked, humiliated and even used physical violence. The “guards” quickly got used to the role and began to show sadistic tendencies, depriving the prisoners of sleep, forcing them to hold their hands up for a long time, etc. Many “prisoners” already experienced severe emotional distress and a feeling of depression on the third day of the experiment.
A significant result of the experiment can be considered the book by F. Zimbardo entitled “The Lucifer Effect” (2007), in which he described the effect of cognitive dissonance (a conflict of emotional reactions in the human mind) and the inherent humility of a person before obvious personal authority. Particular attention was paid to the influence of public opinion and the degree of government support, which can justify or reject an individual's views.
This was the most striking experiment in the field of cognitive psychology. For ethical reasons, no one else made similar attempts to repeat the experiment.
Cognitive psychology: main representatives
Many consider this branch of psychology to be unique, because it practically does not have a founder who inspired others. We can say that different scientists created scientific works united by a single idea at approximately the same time. Later they became the basis for a new direction.
Therefore, among the representatives of cognitivism, it is necessary to highlight several names who made a serious contribution to the development of this movement. For example, George Miller and Jerome Bruner organized a specialized scientific center fifty-seven years ago, which began studying problems and setting tasks in a new direction. These include memory, thinking, language and other cognitive processes.
Seven years after the start of the research, U. Neisser published a book in which he spoke in detail about the new direction in psychology and gave its theoretical justification.
Simon also made a major contribution to cognitive psychology in the middle of the last century. Its representatives, I would like to note, often began their research completely by accident. They were led to cognitivism by their interest in certain aspects of human consciousness. This is exactly what happened to Herbert Simon. He worked on creating a theory of management decisions. He was very interested in decision-making processes and organizational behavior. Despite the fact that his scientific work was aimed at supporting the scientific theory of management, it is also very actively used by representatives of cognitive psychology.
Further development of interest
In the subsequent years of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, researchers delved deeper into the field of human-computer interaction. A theory that portrays the psyche as a kind of center that can perceive a finite number of signals emanating from the environment and then processed by the human brain has gained wide popularity. The human cognitive system was viewed as similar to a computer system, with input, output, and information storage devices.
Psychologist George Miller conducted a number of interesting tests to determine human memory abilities. So, as a result of the experiment, Miller found out that we can remember no more than 7-9 characters at a time. It could be nine numbers, eight letters, or five or six simple words.
Key Ideas
In order to more accurately imagine what is included in the sphere of interests of this movement in psychology, it is necessary to outline its main ideas:
- Cognitive processes. These traditionally include thinking, memory, speech, imagination, and so on. In addition, cognitive psychology also considers the emotional sphere of personality development, because without it it is impossible to create behavioral patterns. Intelligence also takes part in this process, and cognitivism takes great interest in the study of artificial intelligence.
- Studying cognitive processes from a computational perspective. Psychologists draw parallels between human cognitive processes and modern computers. The fact is that an electronic device collects, processes, analyzes and stores information in almost the same way as the human psyche.
- The third idea is the theory of staged information processing. Each person works with the received data in several stages, most of this process occurs unconsciously.
- Determining the capacity of the human psyche. Scientists believe that it has a certain limit. It’s just not clear at the moment what it depends on and how much it varies among people. Therefore, psychologists are trying to find mechanisms that will in the future make it possible to most effectively process and store incoming information.
- The fifth idea is to encode all processed data. Cognitive psychology broadcasts the theory that any information receives a special code in the human psyche and is sent for storage to a specific cell.
- One of the ideas of the new direction in psychology is the need to conduct research only using chronometric means. In cognitivism, the time that a person spends searching for a solution to any given problem is considered important.
The ideas listed above seem very simple only at first glance; in reality, they are the basis on which a complex chain of scientific research and research is built.
Sections
Modern cognitive behavioral psychology includes the following sections :
- thinking, decision making;
- perception;
- development;
- pattern recognition;
- speech;
- attention;
- imagination;
- memory;
- intelligence (and this includes natural and, to some extent, artificial).
Read about what cognitive dissonance is here.
Cognitivism: provisions
The basic principles of cognitive psychology are quite simple and understandable even to a person far from science. It is noteworthy that the main goal of this direction is to find explanations of human behavior from the point of view of cognitive processes. Scientists place emphasis not on inherent character traits, but on experience and knowledge acquired as a result of conscious activity.
The main provisions of cognitive psychology can be presented as the following list:
- study of the sensory process of cognition of the world;
- study of the process of assigning certain qualities and characteristics to other individuals by people;
- studying the processes of memory and creating a certain picture of the world;
- understanding the unconscious perception of events and so on.
We decided not to list all the provisions of this scientific movement, but highlighted only the main ones. But even after studying them, it becomes clear that cognitivism studies the processes of cognition from different angles.
Methodology
Almost any cognitive psychology study must first involve a laboratory experiment. In this case, a number of installations are distinguished; most often they consist of three components:
- all data is isolated from mental formations;
- behavior is a consequence of cognition and experience;
- the need to consider behavior as something holistic and not divide it into its component elements.
What are the consequences
What does the patient receive after therapy:
- He understands what causes unpleasant experiences in him.
- He knows how to deal with such experiences in a gentle way.
- He is less fixated on grievances and traumas of the past.
- He has new opportunities for self-knowledge.
- His emotional state improves.
Cognitive psychology helps people understand what makes up their unpleasant experiences. A cognitive scientist will briefly and clearly, with the help of exercises and experiments, explain how to cope with difficulties by changing the tactics of your perception, behavior and assessments.
Features of cognitive psychology
It is interesting that scientists have been able to identify a special scheme that controls the behavior of an individual in certain situations. Cognitivists believe that the primary thing in a person’s knowledge of the world around him is impression. It is sensory perception that triggers processes that subsequently transform knowledge and impressions into a certain chain. It regulates human behavior, including social behavior.
Moreover, these processes are in constant motion. The fact is that a person strives for inner harmony. But in connection with gaining new experience and knowledge, the person begins to experience a certain disharmony. Therefore, he strives to streamline the system and gain even more knowledge.
Models of attention
Problems of attention are often studied in the field of cognitive psychology.
It was representatives of this industry who developed the most interesting models of attention . The main ones include:
- selective attention patterns;
- attention as a perceptual action;
- attention as mental effort.
Selective
Selective attention models are associated with the names of D. Broadbent, K. Cherry.
The main idea of this theory is that the structure of information processing has a certain bottleneck or filter, a funnel.
The main subject of discussion of selective attention models is to identify the location of this filter (at what stage of information processing) and by what principles information is selected , that is, its selection.
Perceptual action
Attention as a perceptual action was considered by W. Neisser , who criticized the selective model.
He believed that attention is the focus of the main flow of information processing activity on a limited part of the available input. That is, he defined it as a process of active choice .
Mental effort
Attention as a mental effort is also called the capacitive model of D. Kahneman.
He noted the presence of limitations in an individual's ability to perform mental work.
By attention, D. Kahneman understood it as a kind of internal effort , the implementation of which requires resources. Thus, the act of attention depends to a greater extent not on the desires of the individual, but on the objective complexity of the task assigned to him.
This video is about metaphors and models of attention in cognitive psychology:
Cognitive dissonance: definition
The individual’s desire for inner harmony and the discomfort experienced at this moment is called “cognitive dissonance” in psychology. Every person experiences it at different periods of life.
It arises as a result of contradictions between knowledge about the situation and reality or the knowledge and actions of the individual. At the same time, the cognitive picture of the world is disrupted, and that same discomfort arises, pushing a person to a series of actions in order to re-enter a state of harmony with himself.
Causes of dissonance
As you already understand, it is impossible to avoid this condition. In addition, there are a lot of reasons for its appearance:
- logical inconsistency;
- inconsistencies in behavior with the samples accepted as the standard;
- contradiction of the situation to past experience;
- the occurrence of disturbances in the habitual pattern of cognitive behavior.
Any item on the list can seriously affect the behavior of a person who begins to actively look for ways out of an unpleasant state. At the same time, he considers several possible algorithms for solving the problem.
How does a CBT session work?
The session takes place 1-2 times a week depending on the desire, capabilities, and need for the client. A classic session does not last longer than 50-60 minutes. The thing is that longer therapy tires the client. Therefore there is no point in therapy longer than 1 hour.
In cognitive behavioral therapy, the psychologist gives homework to the patient (an example of such a task)
Before the session, the client completes homework. Completing such tasks is 70% of the success of therapy. It is impossible to achieve good results from just one hour of therapy 1-2 times a week. Therefore, it is important to complete the psychologist’s tasks. Answers to tasks will help the psychologist form a holistic picture, understand what is a priority for the client and choose the right further course of action.
For example, the occurrence of negative emotions in certain situations is caused not by the situation itself, but by the individual’s attitude towards it. Since all external information passes through the prism of the psyche and is transformed, causing negative emotions.
Therefore, a recorded negative emotion will help a psychologist create an action plan that will help change a person’s habitual pattern of assessments and judgments. Thus, the attitude towards such situations will change.
Cognitive approach: brief description
Cognitive scientists are very interested in conscious human behavior. It is this that becomes the main subject of scientific research. But this is done from a certain point of view in order to reveal as best as possible the main tasks posed by psychology.
The cognitive approach allows us to understand exactly how a person perceives, deciphers and encodes information extracted from the surrounding world. Thus, using this approach, the process of comparison and analysis of the obtained data is revealed. In the future, they help make decisions and create behavioral patterns.
What does a patient receive after CBT sessions?
If the patient regularly completed tasks and practiced new behavior patterns developed together with a psychologist, then the quality of life improves.
Thanks to this therapy, a person learns to understand himself and think positively.
A person begins to think differently , as he uses a different scheme of actions, assessments and judgments. In the future, situations that bothered the patient will not cause difficulties.
Psychology of personality constructors
It is impossible to consider cognitivism without the theory of personality constructors. It is basic when studying people's behavior in different situations. To describe it briefly, we can say that people brought up and living in different conditions cannot perceive and evaluate reality in the same way. Therefore, when they find themselves in equal conditions, they often perceive the situation completely differently and make unequal decisions.
This proves that the individual acts as a researcher who relies only on his knowledge, and this allows him to find the right solution. In addition, the individual can calculate subsequent events arising from the decision made. Thus, certain schemes are formed, called personal constructors. If they prove themselves, then they continue to be used in identical situations.
How does a consultation with a cognitive behavioral psychologist work?
The consultation is divided into several stages. The first of these is determining the client's condition. The psychologist, through leading questions, learns about how the week, day went, and how the client feels.
A conversation with a psychologist should take place in a calm and friendly atmosphere
Next, based on the client’s condition, a further plan is determined, according to which you can understand what today’s conversation will be about. It will be focused on what is priority now for the client, what worries the most. A prerequisite will be for clients to complete their homework.
He will need to analyze his behavior, his reactions to various life situations. He conducts various experiments under the guidance of a psychologist, tries new models of behavior. Keeping a diary is also a common practice. This could be a diary of emotions (negative and positive) or achievements.
Albert Bandura's theory
Even before the advent of cognitive psychology, scientist Albert Bandura developed a theory that now forms the basis of the scientific field. The theory is based on the fact that basic knowledge about the world around us arises in the process of observation.
Bandura argued in his writings that, first of all, the social environment gives the individual an incentive for growth. From it knowledge is drawn and the first chains are built, which in the future will act as a regulator of behavior.
At the same time, thanks to observations, a person can predict how his actions will affect other people. This allows you to regulate yourself and change your behavior pattern depending on a particular situation.
In this theory, knowledge and the ability to self-regulate are prevalent in relation to intuition and natural instincts. All of the above resonates perfectly with the basic tenets of cognitivism. That’s why Albert Bandura himself is often considered one of the founders of a new direction in psychology.
Cognitive psychology is a very interesting scientific movement that allows you to better understand a person and the motives that encourage him to act in accordance with certain rules.
George Kelly: Cognitive Theory of Personality
George Kelly, a practicing clinical psychologist, was one of the first personologists to emphasize cognitive processes as a core feature of human functioning. In accordance with his theoretical system, called the psychology of personal constructs, a person is essentially a scientist, a researcher who seeks to understand, interpret, anticipate and control the world of his personal experiences in order to effectively interact with it. This view of man as a researcher underlies Kelly's theoretical constructions, as well as modern cognitive orientation in personality psychology. Kelly strongly advised his fellow psychologists not to view subjects as passive organisms “reacting” to external stimuli. He reminded them that the subjects behaved in the same way as scientists, drawing conclusions from past experiences and making assumptions about the future. His own theory, highly original and different from the mainstream psychological thinking then prevalent in the United States, was largely responsible for the current wave of interest in studying how people understand and process information about their world. Walter Mischel, a prominent cognitive psychologist, credited Kelly as a pioneer of the cognitive aspect of personality. “What surprised me... was the accuracy with which he foresaw the directions in which psychology would develop over the next two decades. In fact, everything that George Kelly talked about in the 1950s turned out to be a prophetic premise for the psychology of the 1970s and ... for many years to come.”
Biographical sketch
George Alexander Kelly was born in a farming community near Wichita, Kansas in 1905. At first he studied in a rural school, where there was only one classroom. His parents later sent him to Wichita, where he attended four high schools for four years. Kelly's parents were very religious, hardworking, and did not tolerate drinking, playing cards, or dancing. The traditions and spirit of the Midwest were deeply revered in his family, and Kelly was an adored only child.
Kelly attended Friends University for three years and then Park College for one year, where he received a bachelor's degree in physics and mathematics in 1926. He initially considered a career as a mechanical engineer, but, partly influenced by inter-university discussions, turned to social problems. Kelly recalled that his first psychology course was boring and unconvincing. The lecturer spent a lot of time discussing learning theories, but Kelly was not interested.
After college, Kelly attended the University of Kansas, studying educational sociology and labor relations. He wrote a dissertation based on a study of leisure time practices among Kansas City workers and received a master's degree in 1928. He then moved to Minneapolis, where he taught a language development class for the American Bankers Association and an Americanization class for future American citizens. He then worked at a junior college in Sheldon, Iowa, where he met his future wife, Gladys Thompson, a teacher at the same school. They married in 1931.
In 1929, Kelly began his scientific work at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. There in 1930 he received a bachelor's degree in education. Under the guidance of Sir Godfrey Thomson, an eminent statistician and educator, he wrote a dissertation on the problems of predicting success in teaching. That same year, he returned to the United States at Iowa State University as a candidate for a doctorate in psychology. In 1931, Kelly received his doctorate. His dissertation examined common factors in speech and reading disorders.
Kelly began his academic career as a professor of physiological psychology at Fort Hay College, Kansas. Then, in the middle of his depression, he decided that he should “do something other than teach physiological psychology” (Kelly, 1969, p. 48). He became involved in clinical psychology without any formal training in emotional problems. During his 13-year stay at Fort Hays (1931-1943), Kelly developed a program of mobile psychological clinics in Kansas. He and his students traveled a lot, providing the necessary psychological assistance in the public school system. From this experience numerous ideas were born that were later incorporated into his theoretical formulations. During this period, Kelly moved away from the Freudian approach to therapy. His clinical experience suggested that people in the Midwest suffered more from prolonged droughts, dust storms, and economic hardships than from libidinal strength.
During World War II, Kelly, as a Naval Aviation psychologist, led a program to train local civilian pilots. He also worked in the aviation branch of the Bureau of Medicine and Naval Surgery, where he remained until 1945. This year he was appointed assistant professor at the University of Maryland.
After the end of the war, there was a significant need for clinical psychologists, as many American military personnel returning home had a variety of psychological problems. Indeed, the Second World War was an important factor influencing the development of clinical psychology as an integral part of health science. Kelly became a prominent figure in this field. In 1946, he entered the national field of psychology when he became professor and director of the department of clinical psychology at The Ohio State University. During his 20 years here, Kelly completed and published his theory of personality. He also conducted a clinical psychology program for the top graduates of higher education institutions in the United States.
In 1965, Kelly began working at Brandeis University, where he was appointed to the Department of Behavioral Sciences. This post (a professor's dream come true) gave him greater freedom to continue his own scientific research. He died in 1967 at the age of 62. Until his death, Kelly was compiling a book from the countless reports he gave over the past decade. A revised version of this work was published posthumously in 1969, edited by Brendan Maher.
In addition to the fact that Kelly was an outstanding teacher, scientist, and theorist, he held key positions in American psychology. He was president of two divisions—clinical and counseling—of the American Psychological Association. He has also lectured extensively in the United States and abroad. In the last years of his life, Kelly paid great attention to the possible application of his theory of personality constructs in resolving various international problems.
Kelly's most famous scientific work is the two-volume work “The Psychology of Personal Constructs” (1955). It describes his theoretical formulations of the concept of personality and their clinical applications. The following books are recommended for students wishing to become familiar with other aspects of Kelly's work: New Directions in Personality Construct Theory (Bannister, 1977); “Psychology of the Personal Construct” (Landfield, Leither, 1989) and “Development of the Psychology of the Personal Construct” (Neimeyer, 1985).
Cognitive theory of personality
The cognitive theory of personality is close to the humanistic one, but it has a number of significant differences. The main source of personality development, according to Kelly, is the environment, the social environment.
Cognitive theory of personality emphasizes the influence of intellectual processes on human behavior. In this theory, any person is compared to a scientist who tests hypotheses about the nature of things and makes predictions about future events. Any event is open to multiple interpretations.
The main concept in this direction is “ construct
"(from the English construct - to build). This concept includes the features of all known cognitive processes (perception, memory, thinking and speech). Thanks to constructs, a person not only understands the world, but also establishes interpersonal relationships. The constructs that underlie these relationships are called personality constructs. A construct is a kind of classifier-template for our perception of other people and ourselves.
Kelly discovered and described the main mechanisms of the functioning of personal constructs, and also formulated a fundamental postulate and 11 consequences. The postulate states that personal processes are psychologically canalized in such a way as to provide a person with maximum prediction of events. All other corollaries clarify this basic postulate.
From Kelly’s point of view, each of us builds and tests hypotheses, in a word, solves the problem of whether a given person is athletic or non-athletic, musical or non-musical, intelligent or non-intelligent, etc., using the appropriate constructs (classifiers). Each construct has a “dichotomy” (two poles): “sports - non-sports”, “musical - non-musical”, etc. A person arbitrarily chooses that pole of a dichotomous construct, that outcome that better describes the event, i.e. has better predictive value.
People differ not only in the number of constructs, but also in their location. Those constructs that are updated in consciousness faster are called superordinate, and those that are updated more slowly are called subordinate. For example, if, having met a person, you immediately evaluate him from the point of view of whether he is smart or stupid, and only then - kind or evil, then your construct “smart-stupid” is superordinate, and the construct “kind- evil” – subordinate.
Friendship, love and generally normal relationships between people are possible only when people have similar constructs. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a situation where two people communicate successfully, one of whom is dominated by the “decent-dishonest” construct, and the other has no such construct at all.
The constructive system is not a static formation, but is in constant change under the influence of experience, i.e. personality is formed and develops throughout life. The personality is predominantly dominated by the “conscious”. The unconscious can only relate to distant (subordinate) constructs, which a person rarely uses when interpreting perceived events.
Kelly believed that individuals have limited free will. The constructive system that a person has developed over the course of his life contains certain limitations. However, he did not believe that human life is completely determined. In any situation, a person is able to construct alternative predictions. The outside world is neither evil nor good, but the way we construct it in our heads. Ultimately, according to cognitive scientists, a person's fate is in his hands. The inner world of a person is subjective and, according to cognitivists, is his own creation. Each person perceives and interprets external reality through his own inner world.
Each person has his own system of personal constructs, which is divided into two levels (blocks): 1. The block of “core” constructs is approximately 50 basic constructs that are at the top of the construct system, i.e. in the constant focus of operational consciousness. A person uses these constructs most often when interacting with other people. 2. The block of peripheral constructs is all other constructs. The number of these constructs is purely individual and can vary from hundreds to several thousand.
Holistic personality traits appear as a result of the joint functioning of both blocks, all constructs. There are two types of holistic personality: a cognitively complex personality (a personality who has a large number of constructs) and a cognitively simple personality (a personality with a small set of constructs).
A cognitively complex person, compared to a cognitively simple one, is distinguished by the following characteristics: 1) has better mental health; 2) copes better with stress; 3) has a higher level of self-esteem: 4) is more adaptive to new situations.
