Cognitive perspective in psychology

1. Cognitive Perspective
Instructor: Rustam Ali

2. Schools and Perspectives in Psychology
• Structuralism
• Functionalism
• Behaviorism
• Gestaltism
• Psychodynamic
• Biological Perspective
• Cognitive Perspective
• Existential Perspective
• Humanistic Perspective
• Cultural Perspective
• Islamic Perspective

3. Cognitive Perspective
• Cognitive psychology is the school of psychology that examines
internal mental processes such as problem solving, memory, and
language.
• In other words, psychologists from this perspective study cognition
which is ‘the mental act or process by which knowledge is acquired.’
• “Cognition” refers to thinking and memory processes, and “cognitive
development” refers to long-term changes in these processes.
• Studied all those methods which help an individual to know, perceive,
organise and give meaning to the stimulus to retain in his mind
reorgnise as his past experience and lead him to react accordinbg to
the changing situation

4. Cognitive Perspective Focus
• It accepts the use of the scientific method and generally rejects
introspection as a valid method of investigation, unlike
phenomenological methods such as Freudian psychoanalysis.
• It explicitly acknowledges the existence of internal mental states
(such as belief, desire, and motivation), unlike behaviorist psychology.
• Cognitive theory contends that solutions to problems take the form of
algorithms, heuristics, or insights.

5. History of Cognitive Psychology
• Cognitive psychology is one of the more recent additions to psychological
research.
• Though there are examples of cognitive approaches from earlier researchers,
• cognitive psychology really developed as a subfield within psychology in the late
1950s and early 1960s.
• The development of the field was heavily influenced by contemporary
advancements in technology and computer science.

6. Major areas of cognitive Psychology
• Neural Basis
• Sensation
• Perception
• Memory
• Language
• Learning
• Thinking
• Reasoning
• Problem solving
• Knowledge representation,
• Categorization
• Schemas

7. Early Roots of Cognitive Perspective
• In 1958, Donald Broadbent integrated concepts from human-performance
research and the recently developed information theory in his
book Perception and Communication, which paved the way for the
information-processing model of cognition.
• Ulric Neisser is credited with formally having coined the term “cognitive
psychology” in his book of the same name, published in 1967.
• The perspective had its foundations in the Gestalt psychology of Max
Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler, and Kurt Koffka, and in the work of Jean Piaget,
who studied intellectual development in children.

8. Noam Chomsky Work
• Although no one person is entirely responsible for starting the
cognitive revolution,
• Noam Chomsky was very influential in the early days of this
movement.
• Chomsky (1928–), an American linguist, was dissatisfied with the
influence that behaviorism had had on psychology.
• He believed that psychology’s focus on behavior was short-sighted
and that the field had to reincorporate mental functioning into its
purview if it were to offer any meaningful contributions to
understanding behavior (Miller, 2003).

9. Language Acquisition Device (LAD) 1960
• Proposed by Noam Chomsky the LAD concept is an instinctive mental
capacity which enables an infant to acquire and produce language.
• This theory asserts that humans are born with the instinct or innate
facility for acquiring language.
• Children do not learn a new language but naturally acquire it through
an innate language device
• Neurological system in human brains that supports language
acquisition.
• All humans have a universal Grammar(UG).

10. Jean Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development
• Instead of approaching development from a psychoanalytic or
psychosocial perspective, Piaget focused on children’s cognitive
growth.
• He is most widely known for his stage theory of cognitive
development, which outlines how children become able to think
logically and scientifically over time.
• As they progress to a new stage, there is a distinct shift in how they
think and reason.

12. 4 Major Models of Cognitive Perspective
• Cognitive perspective by Aron Beck
• Cognitive perspective by Albert Ellis
• Cognitive perspective of appraisal and coping
• Cognitive behavioural model

13. Cognitive perspective by Aron Beck

14. Aaron T. Beck
• He is known as the father of Cognitive Therapy.
• Beck took a different approach to therapy for his depressed patients,
• It opened the door to a new way of doing things.
• "five most influential psychotherapists of all time."
• He has made a lasting impact on the mental health world through his work.
• He developed a cognitive therapy which focuses on the way a person is thinking.
• Beck believed that if you could challenge the person's negative thinking, and
replace it with better thoughts, you could have a positive impact on the health of
the individual.

15. What Is Cognitive Therapy?
• Through his work, Beck became convinced of the impact that thoughts had on an
individual.
• He developed a cognitive therapy which focuses on the way a person is thinking.
• It deals with people's thoughts and behaviors and the impact that they have on that
person.
• Instead of focusing on working back to a person's past and childhood, cognitive
therapy focuses on the thoughts that the person is having at present.
• During his work as a psychiatrist, Beck began to see that his depressed patients
tended to have negative thoughts.
• This is what set him on the path to discovering how a person's thoughts impact their
behavior.

16. How It Works
• It's not that people didn't know that people with depression had negative
thoughts, it is what order they came in.
• Beck believed that when someone was allowing their thoughts to be negative, it
led to depression.
• He believed that thoughts, feelings, and behavior were all linked together.
• When someone thought negatively, they then felt bad, which causes them to
behave poorly.
• Then, it becomes a cycle. When the person acts poorly, they have negative
outcomes to situations which causes them to have more negative thoughts.
• Beck saw that the way to break this cycle was actually by changing the thoughts
before focusing on changing the behavior.
• He believed that if a person is working on correcting their thoughts, they would
eventually see that their feelings and behavior would change because of it.

18. 3 Dysfunctional Belief Themes
• "I am defective or inadequate." When people are depressed, they tend to
personalize everything that happens to them. They believe that the reason that
negative things happen to them is that they are inadequate or defective. So,
instead of seeing that there may be an outside cause of a situation, they
internalize the situation. It happened because there is something wrong with
them.
• " All of my experiences result in defeats or failure." This type of thinking keeps
someone struggling with depression in the state for even longer. They do not
want to try something new or try to get the help they need because they fail at
everything they do. If they are going to fail anyway, then why even try would be
a question they would ask themselves.
• "The future is hopeless." Beck believed that when someone was suffering from
depression that they were consumed with the thought that the future is
hopeless. When you look at the first two types of thoughts, it will make sense
why someone would think this way after a while.

19. Changing your thinking
• The first step in changing your thinking is to discover what negative and wrong thoughts
you are having.
• Then, cognitive therapy works to help identify thought patterns that are established in a
person's mind.
• These patterns lead to distorted thoughts that lead to undesirable feelings and
behaviors.
• When the patterns and thoughts have been identified the individual than learns the
skills to change the thoughts.
• Clients that are undergoing cognitive therapy are taught how to identify the difference
between their thoughts and reality.
• They learn how important their thoughts are and to monitor them.
• Therapy will also include receiving homework that challenges the beliefs and behaviors
of the client.
• For example, it may require that the client put themselves into a social situation that
they would normally avoid.
• As they do the homework, they focus on putting their new skills into practice.

20. Cognitive perspective by Albert Ellis

21. Albert Ellis
• Ellis was born in Pittsburgh in 1913 and raised in New York City.
• He was an American psychologist and psychotherapist who founded
Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. (REBT)
• His parents were divorced when he was 12
• A serious kidney disorder turned his attention from sports to books,

22. Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT)
REBT -Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy- begins with ABC!
• A is for activating experiences, such as family troubles, unsatisfying work, early childhood
traumas, and all the many things we point to as the sources of our unhappiness.
• B stands for beliefs, especially the irrational, self-defeating beliefs that are the actual
sources of our unhappiness.
• C is for consequences, the neurotic symptoms and negative emotions such as depression
panic, and rage, that come from our beliefs.
• It is our irrational beliefs that create long-term, disabling problems! Ellis adds D
and E to ABC: The therapist must dispute (D) the irrational beliefs, in order for
the client to ultimately enjoy the positive psychological effects (E) of rational
beliefs.

24. Arguments
Irrational beliefs of client
1. “I must be outstandingly
competent, or I am worthless.”
2. “Others must treat me
considerately, or they are
absolutely rotten.”
3. “The world should always give me
happiness, or I will die.”
The therapist
1. Is there any evidence or this belief?
2. What is the evidence against this
belief?
3. What is the worst that can happen if
you give up this belief?
4. And what is the best that can
happen?

25. 12 Irrational Ideas
• The idea that it is a dire necessity for adults to be loved by significant others for almost
everything they do -- instead of their concentrating on their own self-respect, on winning
approval for practical purposes, and on loving rather than on being loved.
• The idea that certain acts are awful or wicked, and that people who perform such acts should
be severely damned -- instead of the idea that certain acts are self-defeating or antisocial, and
that people who perform such acts are behaving stupidly, ignorantly, or neurotically, and would
be better helped to change. People's poor behaviors do not make them rotten individuals.
• The idea that it is horrible when things are not the way we like them to be -- instead of the
idea that it is too bad, that we would better try to change or control bad conditions so that
they become more satisfactory, and, if that is not possible, we had better temporarily accept
and gracefully lump their existence.
• The idea that human misery is invariably externally caused and is forced on us by outside
people and events -- instead of the idea that neurosis is largely caused by the view that we take
of unfortunate conditions.
• The idea that if something is or may be dangerous or fearsome we should be terribly upset and
endlessly obsess about it -- instead of the idea that one would better frankly face it and render
it non-dangerous and, when that is not possible, accept the inevitable.
• The idea that it is easier to avoid than to face life difficulties and self-responsibilities -- instead
of the idea that the so-called easy way is usually much harder in the long run.

26. • The idea that we absolutely need something other or stronger or greater than ourself
on which to rely -- instead of the idea that it is better to take the risks of thinking and
acting less depen dently.
• The idea that we should be thoroughly competent, intelligent, and achieving in all
possible respects -- instead of the idea that we would better do rather than always need
to do well and accept ourself as a quite imperfect creature, who has general human
limitations and specific fallibilities.
• The idea that because something once strongly affected our life, it should indefinitely
affect it -- instead of the idea that we can learn from our past experiences but not be
overly-attached to or prejudiced by them.
• The idea that we must have certain and perfect control over things -- instead of the
idea that the world is full of probability and chance and that we can still enjoy life
despite this.
• The idea that human happiness can be achieved by inertia and inaction -- instead of
the idea that we tend to be happiest when we are vitally absorbed in creative pursuits,
or when we are devoting ourselves to people or projects outside ourselves.
• The idea that we have virtually no control over our emotions and that we cannot help
feeling disturbed about things -- instead of the idea that we have real control over our
destructive emotions if we choose to work at changing the musturbatory hypotheses
which we often employ to create them.

27. Cognitive perspective of appraisal and coping

28. Cognitive perspective of appraisal
• The concept of cognitive appraisal was advanced in 1966 by psychologist
• Richard Lazarus in the book Psychological Stress and Coping Process.
• Cognitive appraisal refers to the personal interpretation of a situation that
ultimately influences the extent to which the situation is perceived as
stressful.
• Appraisal theory is the theory in psychology that emotions are extracted
from our evaluations of events that cause specific reactions in different
people.
• Essentially, our appraisal of a situation causes an emotional, or affective,
response that is going to be based on that appraisal.

30. Coping
• The person’s constantly changing cognitive and behavioral efforts to
manage specific external and/or internal demands that are appraised as
taxing or exceeding the person’s resources
• Three key features:
• Process oriented – focuses on what is actually thought and done in the stressful
encounter
• Contextual – considers the appraisal of the demands during the stressor and
available resources
• Adaptive (changes) – coping is a shifting process from one form of coping to another
as the status of the person-environment relationship changes
• Coping is a major factor in the relationship between stressful and
adaptive/maladaptive outcomes (e.g., depression, somatic illness)

32. Cognitive behavioural model

33. Developing healthier thinking
• Cognitive behavior therapy is based on a cognitive theory of psychopathology.
• The cognitive model describes how people’s perceptions of, or spontaneous thoughts
about, situations influence their emotional, behavioral (and often physiological)
reactions.
• Individuals’ perceptions are often distorted and dysfunctional when they are distressed.
• They can learn to identify and evaluate their “automatic thoughts” (spontaneously
occurring verbal or imaginal cognitions), and to correct their thinking so that it more
closely resembles reality.
• When they do so, their distress usually decreases, they are able to behave more
functionally, and (especially in anxiety cases), their physiological arousal abates.

34. Cognitive model explains
• Individuals also learn to identify and modify their distorted beliefs, their basic understanding of
themselves, their worlds, and other people.
• These distorted beliefs influence their processing of information, and give rise to their
distorted thoughts.
• The cognitive model explains individuals’ emotional, physiological, and behavioral responses as
mediated by their perceptions of experience, which are influenced by their beliefs and by their
characteristic ways of interacting with the world, as well as by the experiences themselves.
• Therapists use a gentle Socratic questioning process to help patients evaluate and respond to
their automatic thoughts and beliefs—and they also teach them to engage in this evaluation
process themselves.
• Therapists may also help patients design behavioral experiments to carry out between sessions
to test cognitions that are in the form of predictions.
• When patients’ thoughts are valid, therapists do problem solving, evaluate patients’
conclusions, and work with them to accept their difficulties.

35. Cognitive behavioural model

36. The Cognitive Model
• The cognitive model describes how people’s thoughts and
perceptions influence their lives.
• Often, distress can distort people’s perceptions, and that, in turn, can
lead to unhealthy emotions and behaviors.
• CBT helps individuals learn to identify and evaluate their “automatic
thoughts” and shift their thinking to be healthier.
• The cognitive model is at the core of CBT, and it plays a critical role in
helping therapists use gentle Socratic questioning to develop
treatments.

37. Thanks