Cognitive Approach to Behaviour
The cognitive approach explains behaviour through mental processes-memory, attention, schemas, thinking and decision making-often using models and laboratory experiments. SL questions test whether you can describe a model, support it with research, and evaluate the evidence, especially ecological validity and the reductive nature of models.
Core rules and concepts
- Multi-store model (Atkinson & Shiffrin): sensory register → short-term store → long-term store, linked by attention, rehearsal and retrieval. Glanzer and Cunitz's serial position curve supports separate stores: primacy (LTM) and recency (STM); a filled delay reduced recency.
- Working memory model (Baddeley & Hitch): STM is not unitary. A central executive coordinates the phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad and episodic buffer. Dual-task studies support separable components, though the executive is vaguely defined.
- Schema theory: schemas organise knowledge and guide encoding and retrieval. Bartlett's "War of the Ghosts" found participants reconstructed an unfamiliar story toward their cultural expectations, supporting reconstructive memory; the method was informal and culturally biased.
- Reconstructive memory: Loftus and Palmer found leading questions changed speed estimates, and "smashed" versus "hit" altered later broken-glass reports. Post-event information can distort memory, but demand characteristics and low stakes limit real-world claims.
- Thinking and decision making: dual-process accounts separate fast, automatic System 1 from slow, deliberate System 2. Tversky and Kahneman's heuristics reveal predictable biases, yet artificial tasks limit generalisation.
Worked example
Question: "Explain how one cognitive model is supported by research." Reasoning: name the WMM and its components; use Baddeley and Hitch's dual-task finding-performance drops when two tasks compete for the same component but less when they use different ones. State the link: this pattern supports separable stores. Evaluate: controlled lab tasks are low in ecological validity.
Traps
- Treating the MSM as "the memory" rather than a model.
- Claiming Loftus and Palmer proved memory is always false.
- Confusing encoding, storage and retrieval.
- Using schema theory without naming the specific schema.