Question

Describe the social and cultural conditions that led to the rise of cognitive psychology. Argue whether cognitive psychology represents further growth in the field of psychology or the development of a new science.

Answer 1

Cognitive Psychology as a theoretical and applied field emerged in the middle of the 20th century and it organised a strong opinion in favour of understanding the mental processes as the primary area of interest within Psychology. It marked a shift from the earlier focus on abstract psychoanalytic and existential concepts such as the unconscious motivation, anxiety, ‘Dassien’ and emotions as the primary cause of behaviour and instead provided theoretical models based on the scientific and technological developments of the time as a way to approach the human mind.

Several social and cultural conditions were responsible for creating the ripe conditions for the popularity of the cognitive perspective. The roots of the cognitive movement are traced back to gestalt psychology, behaviorism, even humanism. However, it received its major impetus from the thinkers from linguistics( Naom Chomsky), neuroscience, philosophy (Bertalanffy), and computer engineering ( Alan Turing). In Parti Kaur, the 20th century witnessed the development of the first modern computers by Turing and the field of artificial intelligence. There was a greater zeal towards understanding the human mind based on the analogy of a computer programme which functions in terms of step wise inputs and outputs. Furthermore, Thinkers like Chomsky refute do the behaviourist idea about the developments of language a social a stimulus-response chain and instead argued about a cognitive basis of language based on information processing. Thus, the growth of a more scientific outlook in the American society post the Second World War directly led to a greater acceptance for adopting such an information processing model for a study of human beings as well.

As a result, what emerged in the latter half of the twentieth century is something called the cognitive movement. While It initially formed as an opposition to behaviourism, rejecting its reductionist and anti-mentalistic S-R model, it soon got organised into an independent field with a sophisticated and rigorous methodology based on the scientific philosophy of verifiability of empirical data. Today, cognitive psychology has made increasing contributions within psychotherapy through theoretical models such as Ellis’s ABCD approach to mental health where the focus is on changing the patient’s maladaptive thought she and beliefs to reduce the symptomatic behaviours. The reliance of research in neuroscience and Brain scanning has widened the scope and efficacy of psychiatric treatments and understanding the role of biological factors in behaviour and cognition. Thus, in a way, cognitive science is proving to be an independent scientific field which is branching out the scope of human consciousness through an interdisciplinary orientation.