COGNITIVE THEORIES: what they are, types and examples

Cognitivism appeared in the sixties with the research of U. Neisser, who made the first theoretical formulation in Cognitive Psychology (1967), has been expanded with the investigations of A. Collins, G.A. Miller, D. Norman, G. Mandler, D.E. Rumelhart, J.S. Bruner, to lead to a first doctrinal corpus with H. Gardner in Science of mind (1985) and with M. Minksy with The society of the mind (1986), where the cognitivist position recognizes its debt to philosophy, anthropology, neuropsychology, computer science and cybernetics.

Therefore, cognitivism is not a psychological school, but an orientation that goes back to the different currents and psychological schools, opposing behaviorism in particular. Through this Psychology-Online article we are going to see the different cognitive theories, what they are, types, examples, definitions and authors.

Index

1. Cognitive theories of learning
2. Cognitive theories of emotion
3. Cognitive theories of motivation
4. Cognitive theories of personality

First, we will see the definition of learning from cognitive theory. According to cognitive theories, learning is a cognitive process that has its origin in the need to construct and structure the real, implicit in the interaction between the self and the environment, and is studied by analyzing the changes that occur in the cognitive structures of the person and in her personality.

Cognitive psychology, in effect, shares with behaviorism the conviction that the study of learning must be objective and that learning theories must spring from the experimental evidence. Whereas, however, behavioral theories study learning as a "molecular" fact, analyzing stimulus-response connections, Cognitive theories study learning as a "molar" event, analyzing changes in the subject's cognitive structures and her personality.

According Jerome brunercognitively oriented psychologist and pedagogue, each individual possesses the intrinsic motives for learning, a concept which is still valid taking into account the phenomena of cognitive motivation that may be conditioned for the adult. Bruner defined learning as the phenomenon of "obtaining information from someone using another person's mind," an act of discovery, not a random event. It implies waiting to find regularity and reports in the environment, so that the solution of the problems through structured inquiry strategies is an integral part of learning new notions. However, it must be added that, when examining the relationship between motivation and learning, multiple factors intervene that determine, according to various elements, the success of learning. Cognitive theories particularly emphasize the constructive nature of the learning process; hypertextual patterns allow the subject to learn that he perceives himself as a constructor of the learning domain. In this article we talk about learning theories according to Bruner.

Cognitive matrix teaching methods aim to give students the ability to observe, invent, discover cognitive strategies adapted to the given context. The teacher, offering ideas and feedback, builds a structure that will be useful for each student to autonomously control her learning processes. The educational and teaching systems based on cognitivism focus, therefore, on the transmission by the student of mental models that you must follow, acquiring cognitive skills and cognitive learning that allow you to act with effectiveness.

In this article you will find more information about the cognitive theory of learning and Piaget's theory of cognitive development.

Fritz heider (1958) seems to be the pioneer of cognitive theories of emotions, indicating the nexus between emotions and cognitive states and highlighting their reciprocal influence. Cognitive processes condition our emotions and vice versa.

• For example, if an individual has admiration (pleasant emotion) for another, he may begin to believe (thoughts) that he possesses numerous virtues.
• On the contrary, if he experiences, for example, envy (unpleasant emotion) towards the other, he will be able to attribute (thoughts) various negative characteristics to him. Therefore, our knowledge can be conditioned by the presence of an emotion.

The basis of modern cognitive theories of emotions can be found in that of Magda B. Arnold (1960), who, in addition to having had a direct and indirect influence on later theorists, suggested that the evaluation (appraisal) of an event is the basis of any emotional reaction. Emotions, with all the physiological changes related to them, begin with the cognitive evaluation of what happens in the environment (situational antecedents) and the same situation can provoke different emotions in different people, depending on the evaluation done. Hence, cognitive therapy seeks to modify interpretations, thoughts and beliefs to generate other types of emotions accordingly. In this article on the cognitive behavioral therapy we talk about cognitive techniques.

In the 1980s, more and more cognitive psychologists began to study the emotions, hitherto of predominant interest in the psychodynamic tradition. Thanks to this attention, theories of the evaluation of emotions multiplied, and an illustrative example was the model Stimulus Evaluation Check (SEC) by Klaus Rainer Scherer (1984). The author proposed a network for the study of the evaluation process (appraisal) of an event-stimulus, very important since in relation to it the emotional reaction would be had. The multiplicity of the elements that concur in the event evaluation process, by the individual, would explain why the same eliciting situation can produce different emotions in people different. Later, Scherer (2001) himself revised his model, formulating the Sequential Control Theory of Differentiation of Emotions.

In the same years, Ortony, Clore and Collins (1988) also studied the contribution of knowledge in emotional processes. From their theory, in which they also examine the relationships between events, agents, and objects, we bring the idea that there is a kind of chain reaction that starts from targeting (conscious or unconscious) of the individual in an event, which inducing an emotion, prepares you for action.

The basic needs theory made by Mcclelland marked a milestone in the study of cognitive determinants of motivation. David Mcclelland identifies three main reasons:

• The need for success (or success) reflects the desire for success and the fear of failure.
• The need for membership combines the desire for protection and sociality with the fear of rejection by others.
• The need for can it reflects the desire for dominance and the fear of dependency.

Individuals differ in the strength of each of these motives, in addition, situations vary in the degree to which they are related and stimulate one motive or another. A significant role is attributed to cognitive processes that catalog stimuli in relation to motives, determining the nature and intensity of Motivating vectors, the implicit motives that drive action, originate from external incentives that trigger emotional reactions specific. Later, with learning, a cognitive scheme is developed that organizes these reactions emotions in positive and negative categories, thus delineating the stimuli to look for and those to to keep away. With experience and learning, an increasing number of situations are associated with these strong incentives, consolidating the motive and transforming it into explicit motivation.

The Weiner's attribution theory it is based on retrospective judgments about the causes (internal or external) attributed to its benefits.

• People who attribute their achievements to their personal abilities, and their failures to insufficient commitment, perform more difficult tasks and persist despite failures.
• Otherwise, those who associate their failures with capacity deficits and their successes with situational factors will tend to compromise little and easily give up early difficulties.

The expectation-value theory (J. W. Atkinson, V. H. Vroom, Fishbein and Ajzen), in its various formulations, links motivation both to the expectation about the occurrence of certain results, and to the attractiveness of such results. What distinguishes the different models is the type of motivation to which the theory applies: for Atkinson (again proposing the theory of needs Mclelland's basic principles) success motivation, for Ajzen and Fishbein the subjective norm, for Vroom the conviction that behavior is achievable with commitment. In this article we talk about Vroom's expectation theory.

Finally, the conscious goal-centered theories They are based on the ability to set challenging goals and evaluate your own results is one of the main motivational mechanisms. The motivation expressed through the search for stimulating standards has been confirmed in the field of research on the choice of objectives (theory of the goal setting by Edwin A. Locke and Gary P. Latham).

Cognitive theories of personality began to develop in the second half of the 59s, they had a wide expansion in the 60s and 70s and then they became a current model of reference very followed also in the therapy of disorders of personality.

A first relevant theory, partially assimilable to the new cognitive approaches, is that elaborated by George R. Kelly: its theory of personal constructions affirms that the personality is an integrated organization based on schemes or constructions through which the individual knows, interprets and is modified in relation to the environment. The individual is a kind of scientist who lives life as an experiment, with predictions and verifications about the effects of his own behavior. Kelly's theory found wide application in clinical psychology and psychotherapy.

Also research on cognitive styles by Hernán Witkin et al. (1954), by Leon Festinger on the cognitive dissonance (1957), by George S. Klein on the cognitive control of motivation and Fritz Heider on attribution (1958), contributed to the cognitive change in the study of personality in the 1960s.

The internal debate of the theories of the personality on the given relief or the structure of the person or the environmental situation was oriented towards the conception of a dynamic interaction between person and environment guided by expectations, goals, schemes, constructions and self-regulation of the individual. The most important contributions in this historical evolution towards a interactionist theory on cognitive foundations are those of Albert bandura Y Walter mischel. In this approach, in which the person and the social environment are in interaction, the overflow of personality psychology into social psychology, and vice versa, is inevitable.

The attribution theory, made by Heider and developed by various psychologists, it was proposed at the same time as an explanation of both personality and social behavior: the theme of Social representations is an example of a current research field in which individual cognitive processes and contexts intersect. social.

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

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