Evolution of Cognitive Psychology

Cognitive development is defined as gradual orderly changes by which mental processes become more complex and sophisticated, or the scientific study of how human beings develop in certain orderly stages as they get older. The actual study of cognition refers to the process of knowing; it is the study of all mental activities related to acquiring, storing, and using knowledge (Microsoft, 2001, p.3). How we as humans develop cognitively has been thoroughly observed and researched by Jean Piaget. He was a cognitivist: he believed that our environment stimulates us to learn on our own (make our own intelligence).

Cognitive psychology high light the way human acquire, process, store information and interpret social psychological phenomena such as the self as well. This means that the cognitive psychologist examines the inner processes which consist of perception, attention, memory, thinking and language. Cognitive approach has numerous application that can apply to real life such as increasing decision making precision, enhancing memory and building educative curricula to improve learning.

With the study of psychology, we have discovered the minds, and bodies and all of its functions of humans in the past and the present. Psychologists help in doing this, as they have created the information that we know, trust and use to figure ourselves and others out. A psychologist in particular that have done such is, B.F Skinner. Burrhus Frederic Skinner, better known as B.F Skinner helped in shaping the study of Behaviorism. Behaviorism is the theory that human and animal behavior that are explained in terms of conditioning without appeal to thoughts or feeling. He helped in determining this theory by creating; behaviorism, operant conditioning, reinforcers,

The Cognitive Psychology studies mental processes on how humans think. It includes skills that allow you to learn, process information, and memorize. In 1950’s cognitive psychology originated in feedback to Pavlov, Watson, and Darwin school of thought of psychology behaviorism.

In his article, Sadd (2012) explains the relationship of evolutionary psychology and culture, particularly regarding popular culture. He argues the theory of evolution is widely applicable in multiple disciplines. While evolution theory is essentially biological in nature, it can also give us insight to our culture, society and human behaviours. According to Sadd, recurrent themes in cultural forms could be explained by evolutionary psychology. He uses example of song lyrics and collective wisdom to demonstrate his point. Sadd discusses the current approaches used to study popular culture and considers the reasons evolutionary psychology is largely being resisted by the academic society studying popular culture. Asides from being used to

Cognitive psychology began around 19th century. Different approaches have been used to trace the roots of psychology. It is also known that cognitive psychology was out numbered by behaviorism but later revived, bringing into being cognitive revolution. The paper discusses cognitive revolution in the history of cognitive psychology as the most influential part in the practice of modern psychology.

Cognitive psychology is a modern school of psychology that departs from the traditional view of psychology as primarily a function of responses to stimuli and patterns of conditioned responses. It does not reject the behaviorist school of psychology as much as it expands its scope to include elements of responses and behavior that are not fully addressed by behaviorism (Gerrig & Zimbardo, 2009). Cognitive psychology appreciates the value of observational data and empirical or "scientific" analysis but rejects the introspection-oriented methods relied upon within Freudian psychodynamic psychology. Generally, cognitive theory suggests that perception and corresponding external behavioral responses are dictated by a much more complex set of variables than cause and effect or the one-dimensional focus of classical conditioning (Gerrig & Zimbardo, 2009). It incorporates internal states of mind as well as subjective variables such as social learning and belief, the cumulative impact of previous experiences, individual desires and perspective, and personal motivation. It also emphasizes the significance of differences in brain structure and function from individual to individual as elements that contribute to the perceptions and responses of different individuals to experiences that are objectively similar (Pinker, 2002).

Behavioural psychology began in the 20th century. Behavioural psychology concentrated on observing behaviour and determined to make psychology a scientific discipline. Behavioural psychology was seen as an significant change to the other schools of thought in psychology that were around at the time.

The concept of cognitive psychology came about in the 1950s, discovered by two psychologists named Wilhelm Wundt and Edward Titchener (Cognition, pg. 8). It was previously thought that psychology could not study the world directly, but these two researchers founded the idea of introspection, meaning to observe and record our own mental lives (Cognition, pg. 9). Although introspection seemed like an ingenious way to directly study people, it turned out to have a couple intrinsic limitations. First, it did not account for unconscious thoughts. For

The need to study the past; in order, to understand and improve the future is the inherent mission of history. The study of psychologies past endeavors to help future generations of psychology-minded individuals how the past discoveries that were implemented, and altered within the field. As with any history, knowing the successes, and possible mistakes in the within the field development can only assist future experiences. In examining the history of the psychology, upcoming psychology students are able to talk over the age-old debate of nature versus nurture. The beliefs of Darwinism still pervade the field. Researchers still stand by their positions in the ongoing argument of nature vs. nurture and how studying psychology can improve critical thinking (cite book).

Cognitive psychology began emerging in the 1950’s. As highlighted by Kraiger and Salas (1993), this was partially as a response to behaviorism. Critics noted that behaviorism failed to explain how some internal development processes impacted behavior. Cognitive psychology focuses on how individuals acquire process and in the long run store information. Currently, cognitive psychology concentrates on few key human characteristics which include:

The modern period of psychology has been dominated for the most part by the school of Behaviorism. The ideas of Behaviorism have been useful for understanding why human beings, in general, act and react as they do in certain situations. However, Behaviorism has been much less effective in explaining the variations in behavior among different individuals in the same situation.

Cognitive Psychology is the scientific study of the mind as an information processor. It is the area that focuses on internal mental processes such as thinking, decision making, Problem-solving, language, attention, and memory.

In its most general sense, Behaviorism, also known as behavioral psychology, is a theory of learning developing as a result of the propositions and beliefs shared by a group of people who has influenced educators’ view of learning. The term behavioral psychology refers to a psychological approach which principally concerned with stimulus-response activities and emphasizes the role of environmental factors in a learning process, to the exclusion of own free will. There is a tenet of behavioral psychology that “only observable, measurable, an outward behavior is worth investigating” (Bush, 2006, p. 14). Historically speaking, behaviorism was originated in the 1880s and develops gradually in the twentieth-first century and beyond. Skinner and Watson were categorically the two major behaviorist

Shortly after Skinner wrote his book, a young linguist named Noam Chomsky (1959) wrote a strong critique of the Behaviorist theory for language learning.  Chomsky’s main argument against Behaviorism was this: