Similarly to the biological approach, there are many overlaps between the cognitive approach and the options of abnormal psychology, development, health and human relationships. For example, the psychology of cognitive processes and their reliability can explain clinical biases in diagnosis of disorders, debates regarding the etiology of disorders and also inform their treatment. Watch out for more of these!
Can we learn to love anything or anyone if we just hang around them long enough?
One of the Cognitive Approach studies that we cover in our fabulous book, ‘Psychology Sorted, Book 1’ is by Slovic et al. (2017) and which concerns the Affect Heuristic. The Affect Heuristic is a cognitive bias composed of several dimensions, one of which is: The ‘mere exposure effect’: this may be a factor in the affect heuristic. It involves a favourable (‘good’) … Read More
Child Poverty
Psychology comes right up to date with the study of the effects of child poverty on cognitive and social development. In Psychology Sorted we make the link between child poverty, brain imaging technology and child development. We could just as easily have also added in an abnormal psychology link to mental health, for as child poverty rates in the US and … Read More
Research from Psychology Sorted: Social Identity Theory
How we develop our social identity is still a hot topic today, and for those of you studying the effect of technologies, especially social media, on social identity, there is a developing literature on the subject. But we should start with the classic minimal groups paradigm from Tajfel (1971), found in our new book Psychology Sorted, as it is still so … Read More
Cognitive biases – don’t let them confuse you.
Studying the reliability of thinking and decision-making leads us into the slightly complex world of System 1 (fast) and System 2 (slow) thinking and heuristics. Teaching cognitive biases is straightforward, and less is more. The key point is that we are inclined to base our current thinking and decision-making on past experiences and present perceptions. Our memories distort the past, … Read More
Psychology Sorted cognitive research: The effect of digital technology on memory and learning
There has been a lot in the news recently about the effect of social media on mental health, but less about the effect on school and university students of reading or responding to texts during lectures. As students expect to be ‘connected’ throughout the day, gradually mobile phones have been finding their way into classrooms and lecture halls. Students often … Read More
Cognitive Dissonance theory explains a lot.
Cognitive dissonance theory was developed by Leon Festinger in 1957, and, for an old-ish theory is in very good health today. Cognitive dissonance is the discomfort we feel when trying to reconcile our beliefs with our actions and cognitive dissonance theory explains how we try and reduce this. An excellent example to illustrate this is teenage smoking. We all have … Read More
Social media ‘addiction’ – the evidence.
While most of us think of addiction as the physical and psychological dependence on a substance such as alcohol, cigarettes or any kind of drugs, the word has also been used for psychological dependence on behaviours like shopping, eating, gambling, and now screen time – especially the time that adolescents spend on social media. But what is the evidence for … Read More