Cognitive Approach

Main assumptions

• Cognitive psychology

• Simplify and structure

• Organisation

• Shaped by past experiences

• Structures can be unhelpful

• Thoughts → actions

Cognitive psychology

• Information processing, thought attention, perception, memory

• Sees the human being as a complex but orderly information processing system

• We develop relatively stable ways of processing information which shapes, for

• We integrate, organise, store and retrieve information

• We develop characteristic patterns of thinking

Simplify and structure

• Using selective attention we have to simplify and structure the available information due to limited processing capabilities

Why do we organise information?

• saves mental resources as we are surrounded by more information than we can use

• understand using small pieces of information

Organisation influenced by past experiences

• Positive experience shape positive expectations

• Negative experiences shape negative expectations

When can organisation be unhelpful?

• In new, foreign situations cognitive organisation can ‘fail’ us

• Stuck in ‘negative’ perceptions, thinking patterns

Thoughts lead to actions

Our perception of the world, the way we regard ourselves, the way we set our goals and plan are examples of how our cognition influences our behaviour

Schema

• mental template that categorise information based on prior knowledge and experience

• Cognitive structure that imposes order on perception

• We each have our own schematic organisation and set of schemas

Self-Schema

• cognitive generalisations about the self, derived from past

• experience, that organise and guide the processing of information related to the self

• Guide what you say and think about yourself, what you do and how you feel

• Self-perpetuating

• maintained by a bias in what we attend to, remember, and what we are prepared to accept as true about ourselves.

• easy to encode and recall what is consistent with self

• Negative vs. positive self-schema

• Past and future

Past self schema

We not only have conceptions of who we are in the present, but we also have memories of ourselves in the past and visions of ourselves in the future

Future self-schema

• Future-oriented representations of ourselves are referred to possible selves – are conceptions of the self one expects, wants to be/wishes, fears, and ought to be in the future

• Possible selves can play a powerful role in motivating and regulating goal-directed behaviour Discrepancies between current and possible selves predict affective states

• Sometimes negative, sometimes positive

George Kelly’s core concepts

• Believed people operate as a scientist in their personal lives

• Personal constructs

• bipolar dimensions

• Corollaries

Operate as a scientist

• Each have our own construct of reality

• we make anticipations/expectations/hypotheses

• Engage in behaviours to test this

• Improve understanding or adjust to reality based on tests

• Using this we develop our own way of interacting with the world

Personal constructs

• mental representations to help interpret and predict experiences in the world

• based on how we perceive and categorise different people, events, situations, etc

• Based on perceptions of past experience

• Used as basis for future perceptions, interpretations and behaviours

Maintained personal constructs have predictive efficacy

• If reinforced and strengthened they predict events

• If they do not predict you might adjust that construct

• If personal constructs predict events well then they will be reinforced and strengthened

• Over our lifetimes, we have been testing and re-testing our personal constructs

• We test our constructs against other people

• People with similar constructs → basis for friendship, love, understanding

Personal construct structure

• Bipolar dimensions allowing for constructive alternativism

  • e.g. good vs bad, friendly vs unfriendly

• Organised in a coherent hierarchy that can change over time

Corollaries

• Types of rules for the organisation or modifications of our personal constructs

• kelly identified 11

5 key corollaries

1. Organisation corollary

2. Dichotomy corollary

3. Experience corollary

4. Communality corollary

5. Range of convenience corollary

Organisation corollary

The hierarchical organisation of constructs for a given individual

Dichotomy corollary

Bipolarity of constructs

Experience corollary

We may change constructs, based on experience

Communality corollary

People with similar personal constructs will behave in similar ways

Range of convenience corollary

• Some constructs are applicable to many situations, but others are more narrow

• How widely we apply our constructs is unique to an individual

George Kelly’s assessment

Rip Grid technique

Rip grid technique

• Creating a list of people you know

• Then, people are compared in the list

• How people are similar and how they are distinct

• Provides an indication of how someone views the world

Rip Grid technique critique

• Is not a standardised score

• difficult to interpret

• Is not quantitative

• reliant on the ability of someone to describe the construct

• people interpret words differently

Cognitive therapy Kelly

• Therapist has to make them aware and understand their subjective worldview

• controlled elaboration challenge maladaptive constructs and replace them

• Self-characterisation sketches

Self-characterisation sketches

client would write about themselves in 3rd person, therapist would write out a role play for the client to act out.

Explanation for psychological disorders

Kelly believed that people experiencing psychological problems are not construing the world around them accurately. Whereas Ellis believed that emotional problems are from irrational beliefs.

Therapeutic approaches

• Kelly: cognitive therapy

• Ellis: Rational emotive therapy

• Cognitive therapy Aaron Beck

Strengths and weaknesses

• Empirical validity

• Applied value

• testable concepts

• Description

• Heuristic value

• Explanation

• Comprehensiveness

• Parsimony

Strengths

• developed through empirical research findings

• Most of the cognitive structures used to account for individual differences have been subjected to extensive investigation in controlled laboratory experiments

• The number of journal articles and doctoral dissertations examining cognitive concepts has risen dramatically over the past few decades.

• Researchers in other areas of psychology, such as developmental and social psychologists, are conducting research that often complements and extends what is known from the cognitive personality perspective

Criticisms

• the concepts are sometimes too abstract for empirical research.

• That exactly is "personal construct" or "possible self'? How do we know if schema is being used? How many schemas are there, and how are they related?

• Cannot agree on clear operational definitions

• Do we need to introduce these concepts to account for individual differences in behavior?

• Introducing schemas or possible selves may be unnecessary and perhaps even an obstacle to understanding personality.

• Another source of concern about the cognitive approach to personality is that there is no single model to organize and guide theory and research

Rational Emotive therapy

• Help clients challenge these demanding irrational beliefs and replace with rational ones

• Direct, honest and blunt in session

• ABC model

ABC

• Activation event → Beliefs → emotional Consequences

• you would be asked how you could logically go from (the experience) to (the emotion). Why should personal setback or loss cause such strong negative reaction? The answer is that you must be using middle step in this sequence, B-the irrational Belief

Example of rational emotive therapy

Imagine that you fail an important class (A). If you then fall back on the irrational belief "I need to do well at everything to be considered worthwhile" (B), you'll lead yourself to the conclusion that this is catastrophe and become excessively anxious (C). rational emotive therapist would point out that, whereas failing is certainly an unfortunate event-and something you'd prefer didn't happen-it does not warrant extreme anxiety. Expecting everything to work out well all the time will only lead to disappointment and frustration.

Goal of rational emotive therapy

First, clients must see how they rely on irrational beliefs and the fault in their reasoning. Second, the therapist works with the client to replace irrational beliefs with rational ones.

Empirical validity

Research into memory attention and schemas in laboratory settings, RET however Kelly’s theory is not subject to experimental rigor

Applied value

Contributions to therapy and organisations and assessments

Testable concepts

some concepts can be operationalised others like how we construct schemas are too complex

Description

Ellis is clear whereas Kelly is reliant on complex language

Heuristic value

Stimulated a lot of research and is complimented by other perspectives research

Parsimony

Is not parsimonious as it relies on needlessly complex structures that are unobservable