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Area Evaluation - Coggle Diagram
Area Evaluation
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Strengths/Weaknesses
Strengths
Cognitive psychology is very scientific, based mainly on laboratory experiments. This means that its conclusions are more likely to be reliable because large amounts of data will be collected and compared. *Lab experiments have standardised procedures, making them reliable.
Experiments are also likely to be high in internal validity as they will attempt to control all extraneous variables so that only the IV can affect the DV.
It has many useful applications to the real world, for example in therapy, or in analysing witness statements in court.
Computer models can be built to test ideas that we could not do on humans. These are ethically much better than using either humans or animals.
Weaknesses
Because it only looks for the causes of our behaviour in our thought processes, the cognitive approach is reductionist. It ignores possible causes for our behaviour that could have come from, for example, our social environment or our biology.
Lab experiments are low in ecological validity because they create unusual situations for participants. This may lead participants to behave strangely, producing behaviour that is not representative of normal life. This means that we cannot be completely confident about generalising the findings.
Because it tries to find laws about behaviour that it can generalise to whole populations, the cognitive approach ignores individual differences. It treats us as all working the same way and ignores the factors what might make us all unique.
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Defining Prinicples
If maladaptive behaviour is a result of faulty thinking then we can develop therapies that attempt to address these
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The mind is mechanistic: we process information like a computer and behaviour is therefore highly predictable