The Cognitive Approach

The cognitive approach to understanding human behaviour emerged as a reaction to behaviourism in the early to mid-20th century. Behaviourism introduced classical conditioning, which demonstrated how links are formed between stimuli and responses, and operant conditioning, which showed how behaviours are shaped through reinforcement and punishment. It continues to be applied in modern education through techniques such as personalized learning, where individual rewards and feedback are used to reinforce desired behaviours and motivate students.

However, the cognitive approach focuses on the importance of mental processes in understanding observable behaviour, with the mind acting as an information processor that bridges the gap between a stimulus input and the behavioural output. Exactly how humans process sensory information is the content of cognitive psychology and psychologists have developed cognitive models, such as the computer model of information processing, memory models and language development, to try to explain this.

The reliability of human cognitive processes and how they are affected by our different individual, social and cultural experiences and by language used to communicate ideas were the first areas of interest. Early in the 20th century, psychologists investigated how we organize and interpret information through mental frameworks, or schemas, shaping our perceptions and memories. This model still has explanatory value today.

The dual processing model, another key theory of the cognitive approach, suggests that our minds process information both consciously and unconsciously, leading to cognitive biases that influence our behaviour and decision-making. Cognitive theories are powerful in applied psychology and used to explain human development and the prevalence and prevention of health problems and learning.