Cognitive Psychology: Basic Assumptions and Social Cognitive Theory

Vocabulary flashcards covering the core assumptions of cognitive psychology, bottom-up and top-down processing, and Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) mediating mechanisms and model influences.

Cognition

The mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses.

Bottom-up Processing

The processing that involves taking sensory input from the environment and assembling and integrating it to determine what is being observed.

Top-down Processing

The processing of sensory information using pre-stored information in memory, models, ideas, and expectations to interpret incoming data.

Soft Determinism

The belief in cognitive psychology that there is an element of free will in all behavior and that changing one's thinking enables one to change one's behavior.

Cognitive Misers

The assumption that humans avoid expending mental effort whenever possible, leading them to rely on mental short-cuts called heuristics.

Heuristics

Mental short-cuts relied upon by individuals to avoid expending mental effort when processing information or making decisions.

Attention (in SCT)

The first cognitive mediating mechanism in Bandura's theory; observers must attend to modeled behavior to learn it, which can be influenced by attractiveness, relevance, distractions, fatigue, and cognitive abilities.

Retention (in SCT)

The cognitive mediating mechanism wherein an observer must be able to remember and form a mental representation of observed behavior to produce it immediately or later.

Potential (Reproduction)

The physical and/or mental ability of an observer to carry out and replicate the modeled behavior.

Self-Efficacy

A person's belief in their ability to succeed in a particular situation, considered essential to Social Cognitive Theory because individuals will only attempt to model a behavior if they believe they can succeed despite setbacks.

Motivation (in SCT)

The desire of an observer to reproduce an observed behavior based on the expectation of a specific outcome or reward.

Vicarious Reinforcement

The tendency to repeat or imitate behaviors for which others are observed being rewarded, motivating the learner as if they had received the reward themselves.

Social Learning / Observational Learning

Learning that occurs through the observation of the behaviors of others.

Identification (Model Factor)

A factor influencing imitation where observers are more likely to replicate the behavior of a model who is an in-group member or similar to themselves.

Consistency (Model Factor)

A factor influencing imitation where the model's behavior reliably leads to success or positive outcomes over time, making them more likely to be viewed as worth imitating.