Describe the contributions to society of the Cognitive and Psychodynamic Approaches
Describe the contributions to society of the Cognitive and Psychodynamic Approaches, and compare the two approaches in terms of their scientific status (18)
The Cognitive Approach provides two contributions to society; Reliability of Eyewitness Testimonies and Cognitive Interviews. The cognitive interview technique has been developed from a number of models of memory and forgetting from the cognitive approach, which is used to interview eyewitnesses of crimes. The major two contributors are cue-dependency theory from Tulving (1975), and reconstructive memory of Bartlett (1932). Cue-dependency theory can lead to the reconstruction of crimes to improve the effectiveness of eyewitnesses, which is also supported by Bartlett’s ideas of reconstructive memory who suggested that we interpret things to make them make sense to ourselves: this process, Bartlett suggested, caused us to omit certain details of the events and to focus too much on others. Tulving suggested that remembering is better when state (physical and emotional) and context (environmental) cues are just as they were at the time of learning. Thus, recreating the situations of the crime can lead to an improved recall from eyewitnesses. The cognitive interview exploits the psychological knowledge these theories contribute, as well as the research of studies such as Loftus and Palmer (1974), to prevent leading questions, and to provide witnesses with state and context cues (such as how they were feeling or what they were planning to do when the event happened), to improve remembering. Eyewitness testimony plays a large part in court judgements, and sometimes the entire outcome of the trial can depend solely on an eyewitness’ testimony. This illustrates the importance of ensuring such a testimony is as reliable as possible. Studies such as Loftus and Palmer (1974) and Yarmey (2004) have shown that leading questions can affect the recall of eyewitnesses, suggesting unreliability and that they should not be
The Cognitive Approach provides two contributions to society; Reliability of Eyewitness Testimonies and Cognitive Interviews. The cognitive interview technique has been developed from a number of models of memory and forgetting from the cognitive approach, which is used to interview eyewitnesses of crimes. The major two contributors are cue-dependency theory from Tulving (1975), and reconstructive memory of Bartlett (1932). Cue-dependency theory can lead to the reconstruction of crimes to improve the effectiveness of eyewitnesses, which is also supported by Bartlett’s ideas of reconstructive memory who suggested that we interpret things to make them make sense to ourselves: this process, Bartlett suggested, caused us to omit certain details of the events and to focus too much on others. Tulving suggested that remembering is better when state (physical and emotional) and context (environmental) cues are just as they were at the time of learning. Thus, recreating the situations of the crime can lead to an improved recall from eyewitnesses. The cognitive interview exploits the psychological knowledge these theories contribute, as well as the research of studies such as Loftus and Palmer (1974), to prevent leading questions, and to provide witnesses with state and context cues (such as how they were feeling or what they were planning to do when the event happened), to improve remembering. Eyewitness testimony plays a large part in court judgements, and sometimes the entire outcome of the trial can depend solely on an eyewitness’ testimony. This illustrates the importance of ensuring such a testimony is as reliable as possible. Studies such as Loftus and Palmer (1974) and Yarmey (2004) have shown that leading questions can affect the recall of eyewitnesses, suggesting unreliability and that they should not be