...Cognitive Psychology Psych 560 May 20, 2013 Prof. Pitt Cognitive Psychology The brain is one of the major faculties that provide sense to human life. The numerous and various abilities of the human brain are truly amazing. However, although it is a common thought that man may think extraordinarily, human emotions have great influence to how human beings think, and use his brains. It is the reason why any activity facilitated or performed by the brain is called a mental processes or cognition. Cognition refers to the process that involves mental or cognitive ability such as in learning, comprehension, judging, thinking, problem-solving, remembering and recalling (Kendra, 2011). Neisser (2009) defined cognition as the “act of knowing, and cognitive psychology is the study of all human activities related to knowledge”. (Page 1) Cognitive psychology is a part of the larger field of cognitive science and is related to various disciplines in psychology such as neuroscience, linguistics, and philosophy. The main thrust of cognitive psychology is how the people acquire, store and process information. Compared with other dominant approaches in psychology for example, the behaviorism approach which is concerned with the observable behaviors, the cognitive approach focuses on internal mental states. Unlike psychoanalysis which is focused on subjective perceptions, the cognitive psychology...
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...Evolution of Cognitive Psychology as a Discipline PSYCH560/Cognitive Psychology December 3rd 2011 Evolution of Cognitive Psychology as a Discipline Cognition Cognition is typically referred to as the procedure of obtaining, retaining, using and applying information or knowledge. It can sometimes be defined as the science of knowing. Cognition “refers to all processes by which the sensory input is transformed, reduced, elaborated, stored, recovered, and used” (Neisser, 1967). When defined broadly, cognition includes the processing of emotions; however, if defined narrowly, it excludes emotion processing. Cognition includes all the mental processes. For example, attaining knowledge and understanding, thinking, remembering, assuming, perceiving, judging and even analytical problem-solving are all part of cognition. Given such a comprehensive definition, it is evident that cognition is concerned in everything a human being might probably do; every psychological experience is a cognitive experience. However, although cognitive psychology is related to all human activity rather than a few segments of it, the apprehension is that it is from a specific point of view yet other viewpoints are evenly justifiable and essential. The Interdisciplinary Perspective & Emergence of Cognitive Psychology As well as being part of psychology as a whole, cognitive psychology is also part of the more general interdisciplinary subject of cognitive...
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...Foundations of Psychology This paper will identify the major schools of thought in psychology and examine their major assumptions. The two beginning schools of thought were structuralism and functionalism. The major schools of thought in psychology are the psychodynamic, behaviorist, cognitive, and evolutionary perspective. This paper will also identify the primary biological foundation of psychology linked to behavior. These primary biological foundations are the central nervous system and the behavioral genetics. Psychodynamic Perspective The Psychodynamic perspective is a school of thought that was initially developed by Sigmund Freud. This perspective focuses on three main points. The first point is that an individual’s actions are determined by the way thoughts and emotions are connected in the individuals mind. The second point is that most of the mental events happen outside of conscious awareness. The third point is that the mental events that happen tend to conflict with each other. Many psychologists disagree with this theory because there is nothing that relates scientifically. The psychologists that agree with this theory are working on incorporating the concepts into scientific psychology (Kowalski & Weston, 2011). Behaviorist Perspective The behaviorist perspective focuses on what is common between the environmental events and the actual observable behaviors. “According to behaviorist, scientific knowledge comes from using experimental methods to study...
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...Foundations of Psychology Jacob Wilkins PSY 300 July 29th 2013 Genevieve Molina Abstract A large part of psychology is devoted to discovering and treating mental health issues, but that's just the beginning when it comes to applications for psychology. As well as mental health, psychology can be used for a variety of issues that affect our health and daily life. Throughout the history of psychology it has branched into different thought. These schools of thought are used to explain different views on human thought and behavior. The different schools of thought in the field of psychology are; psychodynamic, behaviorism, cognitive, and the evolutionary perspective. While these schools of thought are sometimes seen to compete against each other, collectively each perspective has helped our understanding of psychology as a whole. The psychodynamic perspective is the approach that is considered the most popular with the discipline of psychology. Sigmund Freud, a Viennese physician. First developed this theory in the late 19th century. This approach was based on the fact that people's problems can not only be caused by physical pain or conscious thoughts, but by powerful unconscious motives. This way of thinking became popular due to its ability to explain human behavior. The psychodynamic perspective is based on three ideas. "First, people’s actions are determined by the way thoughts, feelings, and wishes are connected in their minds. Second, many of these mental events...
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...Foundations of Psychology Dorothy Forrest June 8, 2012 Sarah Bihms Foundations of Psychology The miscellaneous condition of psychology is a scientific investigation of humankind mind, body, and behavior. Psychology includes different departments of psychology to apprehend and supervise observations on the mental technique of a person mind and behavior. Psychology is regularly used to establish the secrecy of the human behavior. Observation was the way to study a person mind to become aware of the mental conscious and unconscious states. As time went by psychology was established, alone with some major schools of thoughts. The paper below will examine the foundation of psychology, identify the major schools of thought in psychology, and examine their major underlying assumptions such as, behaviorism, psychoanalytic/psychodynamic, humanistic, and cognitive. In addition, it will identify the primary biological foundations of psychology linked to behavior such as, brain, central nervous system, peripheral nervous System, and genetics/evolution. Behavioral Theory Behavioral psychology, also known as behaviorism, is a learning theory established on the notion that behaviors are gathered by conditioning. Conditioning develops from influenced of the environment. There are two major types of conditioning classical and operant. Classical conditioning is a procedure used in behavioral training where a naturally stimulus is paired with a response. Operant conditioning...
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...Organizational Psychology Alisa M. Davis Psych 570/Organizational Psychology March 28, 2012 University of Phoenix Organizational Psychology The field of organizational psychology focuses more on group type settings and situations, usually in offices and workplace environments. This field of psychology takes research and theories to intervene and communicate numerous strategies and applies them in group situations in both workplace and non-workplace settings. Psychologists in this field are usually focused on helping individuals better understand his or her interactions with others, so that each individual can better work together to accomplish goals at hand. This paper will define organizational psychology and explain the evolution of the field of organizational psychology. This paper will also compare and contrast organizational psychology with related disciplines and analyze the role of research and statistics in the field of organizational psychology. Definition of Organizational Psychology According to Rutgers On-line Dictionary (2007) the definition of organizational psychology has an in-depth meaning. The definition consists of intervening in a situation that deals with individuals in order to achieve one or numerous objectives. These objectives usually involve raising or improving performance, improving relationships and systems, enhancing equity and fairness and increasing subjective well being (Jex...
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...heated arguments against science, particularly psychology and biology, seem to center around a perceived threat against humanity. For example, evolution was and still is challenged, in large part, because to believe in evolution means accepting natural selection and similarity among evolved species. Evolution threatens the uniqueness and even the superiority of humankind, according to many opponents. Similarly, the possibility of language in primates is refuted by many, I believe, in large part because this cognitive ability has been believed to be reserved only for humans. John Searle seems to be making a similar argument against what he refers to as “strong” artificial intelligence. Searle argues that “instantiating a program” (422) cannot lead to understanding as a human, or even an animal understands. Searle argues that machines or programs lack “intentionality”, and are meaningless. I sympathize with Searle that it is difficult to accept a machine that shares cognitive capabilities with a human. Such a hypothesis seems to challenge the core values of humanity, such as our individuality and our unpredictability, or diversity. The rational human mind is something that has set humans apart from all other things even before Descartes’ “cogito ergo sum.” However just as evolution and language capabilities among primates have challenged core beliefs about humanity, more recent discoveries made in cognitive neuroscience and cognitive...
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...Evolutionary cognitive neuroscience Evolutionary Psychology – ISSN 1474-7049 – Volume 5(1). 2007. -233- Keywords: evolutionary cognitive neuroscience, modularity, evolved cognitive adaptations ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ Introduction Evolutionary Cognitive Neuroscience (ECN) integrates comparative neuroscience, archeology, physical anthropology, paleoneurology, cognitive primatology, evolutionary psychology, and cognitive, social and affective neuroscience in an effort to identify and describe the neural mechanisms that have been forged by selection pressures during human evolutionary history that define the human mind, as well as identify comparative neural mechanisms for cognition. In its simplest form, evolutionary cognitive neuroscience is the merging of the fields of evolutionary psychology and cognitive neuroscience using methodology from both disciplines and guidance from evolutionary meta-theory. In this coalescence, the identification of neural substrates of psychological adaptations is paramount. A recent volume (Platek, Keenan, and Shackelford, 2007) presents the first comprehensive overview of this emerging discipline, which is briefly reviewed here (see also Platek and Shackelford, under contract). This article consists of three major sections: 1) historical antecedents to and current state of evolutionary cognitive neuroscience, 2) a brief introduction to methods available to the evolutionary...
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...Foundations of Psychology When people hear the word psychology they may not always perceive it as a science. The science of psychology is based on the mental processes and behavior of human beings, and in some cases, animals. The foundations of psychology rely heavily upon four individual schools of thought. This includes the following perspectives: psychodynamic, behaviorist, cognitive, and evolutionary (Kowalski & Westen, 2009). Although the biopsychological approach is not considered as one of the four major schools of thought within psychology, it plays an important role in the foundations of psychology. These perspectives focus on a unique viewpoint or approach toward the field of psychology and each brings new ideas and theories to the table. The Psychodynamic Perspective It can be said that Sigmund Freud was the father of the psychodynamic perspective of psychology. Freud developed this perspective based upon the idea that the unconscious self is responsible for certain “underlying wishes, fears, and patterns of thought from an individual’s conscious, verbalized thought, and behavior” (Kowalski & Westen, 2009, p. 13). Essentially, the psychodynamic perspective suggests that people’s actions and thoughts are influenced by unconscious factors that they may not be aware of. The goal of psychodynamic psychologists was to discover how these unconscious factors influence the behavior and mental processes of human beings. Due to the nature of this perspective psychologists...
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...Foundations of psychology May 09, 2011 Foundations of psychology There are many schools of thought within the study of psychology. Commonly, most people are only aware of a few of the general therapies and some of the research connected with psychology, but there are far more schools of thought and study in the field of psychology than what the public may be aware of. The four main perspectives concerning psychology is divided by schools of thought. Each of the four schools of thought is based on different studies and assumptions where the causes and treatments are concerned, in reference to psychology. The main four schools of thought are psychodynamic, the behaviorist, cognitive, and the evolutionary. The Psychodynamic Perspective The school of psychodynamic was “founded by Sigmund Freud ( HubPages Inc, 2011),” and evolved from Freud’s theories that all people have “powerful unconscious motives that underlie their conscious intentions. (Kowalski, R. & Westen, D. (2009)” A few of the issues that Freud and his followers focused on was repressed issues from one’s past, and helping people bring foreword these past issues so they may be dealt with by using reason, helping people face the nature of their problems. Freud believed that people can be totally unaware of their subconscious motivations and process that affect their conscious thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and intentions. The psychodynamic...
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...Foundations of Psychology John Stafford University of Phoenix PSY/300 Abstract There are several major approaches to psychological study with several other disciplines falling under these primary approaches. Ranging from psychodynamic to evolutionary perspectives, and rarely sharing a unified paradigm, psychology has advanced since the late 1800s to be a wide-ranging field of human study. Foundations of Psychology The study of psychology found roots in philosophy. However, Wilhelm Wundt, who founded the first psychological laboratory, led the recognition of psychology as a science in 1879. In the mid-to-late 1940s standards were put into place for the doctoral programs designed to place emphasis on a general knowledge of psychology. This knowledge included the history of psychology, and modern disciplines of physiological, comparative, developmental, and social psychology. Students were also required to gain an understanding of research methods, advanced statistics, and psychological scaling (Zlotlow, Peterson, & Nelson, 2011). Behavioral Foundations of Psychology The major topics covered in behavioral psychology include evolution, heredity, and adaptation and learning, mating habits, parenting behaviors, and primate study. Behavioral psychology primarily focuses on the study of animal behavior to obtain a deeper understanding of human behavior. Studies like Ivan Pavlov’s (1849-1936) research on classical conditioning, also referred to as “Pavlov’s Dogs,” he...
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...Cognitive psychology is a scientific subset of psychology that studies mental processes including thinking, memory, perception and learning. This discipline focuses on cognition and acquiring information. Cognitive psychology studies how an individual distinguishes, learns and retains information; thinks, rationalizes and responds. Cognitive psychology, according to the text, focuses on how a person feels on the inside. (Willingham, 2007). 1.2 Identify key milestones in the development of cognitive psychology as a discipline. Cognitive psychology developed as a deeper analysis of mental processes associated with behavioral psychology (behaviorism). The development of cognitive psychology is largely attributed to Aaron Beck and Albert Ellis. Its development includes several milestones and key approaches which make cognitive psychology one of the most important disciplines of psychology. The basic foundation of cognitive psychology is Alderian psychology. The evolution of cognitive psychology is evident in several main approaches which are presently influential: Ellis’s “Rationale Emotive Therapy” Beck’s works in cognitive therapy Computational cognitive approach Cognitive neuropsychology 1.3 Discuss the importance of behavioral observation in cognitive psychology. Observation must be made in order to understand and explain behavior. Cognition, in the mental and inner sense, can only be measured by observing behavior patterns; inner states are not visible. 1.4 Explain...
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...required readings for this essay, cited on the reference page, I was able to explore several views that help support my position on human nature. I believe that human nature is derived from a complex combination of genetic, or physiopsychology, behavioral, or cognitive psychology, and environmental, or social psychology. Simply put, human nature is a combination of both trait and state psychology. There are certainly practical advantages for considering even the simplest understanding of human nature as it relates to business, culture and productivity all of which I intend to prove throughout this reaction paper. Let’s examine physical psychology in more depth. Research has provided us with information suggesting that a person is born with certain abilities as it relates to the make-up of the brain, nerves, hormones and other physical factors. These items collectively create our psychological core of which sets limits as to how much information we can process. In other words, when we are born we’re “hard-wired” with a certain capacity to process and interpret information at some level. According to Nicolson (1998), humans are hard-wired due our drive for survival which stems from Darwin’s theory of evolution. This theory suggests that human nature, or life for that matter, all stems from the human ability to naturally evolve for survival and efficiency over the span of our existence. Aligned is the theory of natural selection which specifies that nature will automatically...
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...Foundations of Psychology PSY 300 August 8, 2011 Teresa Neal Foundations of Psychology The human being is a complex and sometimes mystifying being. Our actions, behaviors, emotions, mannerisms, and functions are all so complicated and sometimes mystifying. Questioning why we do what we do, act the way we do, behave in a certain manner, or react to a situation, even asking these questions in general is the very reason for the study of Psychology. Psychology is the scientific investigation of mental processes and behavior, and as stated in our book, psychology lies in the intersection of biology and culture [ (Kowalski & Westen, 2009) ]. Throughout the journey of psychology there have been many brilliant and ground breaking scientists and psychologists who’ve laid the foundations for what is studied today. Through these journeys many schools of thought and perspectives have been formed into this foundation which we still use today. It is said that Psychology is between biology and culture, it is meaning that biology covers the central nervous system and within that system are the areas with which control many of our mental processes. Culture has a place on the opposite boarder of psychology because how and where we grew up effects the way we are in regard to our behavior and reactions to situations. While Psychology is said to border biology and culture, it is said to be born from philosophy. When Philosophers started looking for more answers in regard to the nature...
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...than Rational: Evolutionary Psychology and the Invisible Hand @ Leda Cosmides; John Tooby The American Economic Review, Vol. 84, No. 2, Papers and Proceedings of the Hundred and Sixth Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association (May, 1994), 327-332. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8282%28 199405%2984%3A2%3C327%3ABTREPA%3E2.O.CO%3B2-9 The American Economic Review is currently published by American Economic Association. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.j stor.org/journals/aea.html. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of scholarly journals. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. http://www.jstor.org/ Fri Sep 10 17:38:04 2004 Better than Rational: Evolutionary Psychology and the Invisible Hand ...
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