The Rise of the Cognitive Perspective
Rise of the Cognitive Perspective
Throughout the history of modern psychology there has been no greater breakthrough than the development of the cognitive perspective. From the beginning of the late 1950 's, the cognitive perspective has dominated all other forms of psychology, but to better understand why this perspective rose so quickly one must first understand what it is. The cognitive perspective can best be described as a genre of psychology "concerned with how people acquire, store, transform, use and communicate information." Its rise in popularity and usage can be best attributed to four main historical and cultural factors: it was the first challenge to the learning perspective, the beginning of World War II, the computer and information process model, and brain scan technology. The most prominent and important reason why the cognitive perspective rose was because it was the first challenge against the, although very important but very flawed, learning perspective; used before. The learning perspective did not provide an account for all aspects of human behavior. To them conscious thought and mental processes were irrelevant, all that mattered was what was taught to them. There way of measuring mental processes was called the Stimulus-Response Theory. In this method they would reduce all responses to associations; if one did something good, it/he/she was given a treat and it/he/she would do it again, but if it/he/she did something bad it/he/she was reprimanded and it/he/she would not do it again. Although this theory is very important it mostly applies to animals rather than humans. The Cognitive perspective, on the other hand, gives a deeper insight in to what really happens in one 's mind. It takes into account what the person really is thinking. It says that the way people behave is affected by the way they understand the situation. The cognitive perspective 's concept was- we must focus on concepts and how they are learned- where as the
Throughout the history of modern psychology there has been no greater breakthrough than the development of the cognitive perspective. From the beginning of the late 1950 's, the cognitive perspective has dominated all other forms of psychology, but to better understand why this perspective rose so quickly one must first understand what it is. The cognitive perspective can best be described as a genre of psychology "concerned with how people acquire, store, transform, use and communicate information." Its rise in popularity and usage can be best attributed to four main historical and cultural factors: it was the first challenge to the learning perspective, the beginning of World War II, the computer and information process model, and brain scan technology. The most prominent and important reason why the cognitive perspective rose was because it was the first challenge against the, although very important but very flawed, learning perspective; used before. The learning perspective did not provide an account for all aspects of human behavior. To them conscious thought and mental processes were irrelevant, all that mattered was what was taught to them. There way of measuring mental processes was called the Stimulus-Response Theory. In this method they would reduce all responses to associations; if one did something good, it/he/she was given a treat and it/he/she would do it again, but if it/he/she did something bad it/he/she was reprimanded and it/he/she would not do it again. Although this theory is very important it mostly applies to animals rather than humans. The Cognitive perspective, on the other hand, gives a deeper insight in to what really happens in one 's mind. It takes into account what the person really is thinking. It says that the way people behave is affected by the way they understand the situation. The cognitive perspective 's concept was- we must focus on concepts and how they are learned- where as the