cognitive and behaviourist

compare and contrast the cognitve and behaviorist approach in terms of simialrities and differences

table

similarity - successful application to the real world

Cognitive Approach

• Legal impact:

  • Loftus & Palmer — showed eyewitness testimony is unreliable, influencing legal reforms.

  • Innocence Project: 68–75% of wrongful convictions involved mistaken eyewitness ID.

• Clinical impact:

  • Led to CBT, widely used by NHS for treating depression and anxiety.

• Theoretical focus:

• Explores internal mental processes.

• Limitation: Relies on self-report and inference, reducing objectivity.

Behaviourist Approach

• Everyday impact:

  • Gill (1998) — rewards increased chore completion in children.

  • McAllister et al. (1969) — teacher praise/disapproval shaped classroom behaviour.

• Theoretical focus:

• Focuses on observable behaviour.

• Limitation: Ignores internal processes and meaning, may miss underlying causes.

Judgement

• Cognitive: Targets thought processes, effective in clinical/legal contexts.

• Behaviourist: Targets learned behaviour, effective in education and everyday settings.

• Both: Valuable, but differ in depth vs objectivity.

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differnce - nature v nurture

Cognitive Approach

• Interactionist: Considers both innate mental processes (nature) and environmental influences (nurture).

  • Example: Language acquisition (nature) and schemas shaped by experience (nurture).

• Strength: Offers a balanced explanation of behaviour.

• Limitations:

• May underplay genetic influences.

• May neglect wider social factors (e.g., culture, education).

Behaviourist Approach

• Entirely nurture-based: Behaviour is learned through environmental interaction.

  • Example: Bandura’s Bobo doll — children imitated aggression when model was rewarded.

• Strength: Strong empirical support for learning through reinforcement.

• Limitation: Ignores genetic and internal influences, limiting scope for biologically influenced behaviours (e.g., MAOA-L gene and aggression).

Judgement

• Cognitive: More comprehensive, integrating nature and nurture.

• Behaviourist: Narrower, purely environmental — less effective for explaining biologically rooted behaviours.

similairty - scienfic v unscientific

Cognitive Approach

• Investigates internal mental processes using lab experiments.

  • Loftus & Palmer: Standardised procedures to study eyewitness memory.

• Early reliance on introspection (low objectivity), but now uses brain imaging (e.g., MRI).

• Led to cognitive neuroscience, boosting scientific credibility.

• Limitation: Involves inference, reducing objectivity and reliability.

Behaviourist Approach

• Focuses on observable, measurable behaviour.

  • Skinner: Rat studies showed reinforcement shaping behaviour.

• Uses animal studies for high control of extraneous variables.

• Avoids inference → greater objectivity and reliability.

• Limitation: Lacks explanatory depth for internal processes.

Judgement

• Behaviourist: More methodologically rigorous, high control and objectivity.

• Cognitive: Increasingly scientific via neuroscience, offers greater explanatory depth.

• Both: Empirical, but differ in what they measure and how deeply they explain behaviour.

conclusion

• both are valuable for their real world application and scientific mdoels

• the cognitive approach provide a more comprehensie understanding by considering internal mental processes and the interaction of nature b nurture

• allowing personal change such as CBT

• whlst the behaviourist approach is more objective and methdologically rigorous , focussing on obserbale behavioru and predictability but ifnores internal and biologcal infleunces

• overal cognitive approach offers greaer explanatory depth

• behavioirst excel in control and reliability