Compare and contrast the Cognitive approach and behaviourist approach in Psychology?

Question

Any help would be grateful

Answer 1

Entire books have been written about this subject! But to get you started, Behaviorists focus on observable behaviors. If something is not observable, Behaviorists don't believe it has any real value. Whereas Cognitivists are concerned with thought processes - which are unobservable. Cognitivists tend to focus on changing your way of thinking. Behaviorists tend to focus on changing your overt behaviors.

Answer 2

An interesting question (one which I have not read about).

Behaviourism is a dangerous political philosophy as it implies that everybody has the same cognition. Witnesses to a single event show variance. What really happened?

Behaviourism is a desirable justice system as the actions are punished when they are at a variance to the law.

Tony Blair's Government seems to work in the exact opposite way. He believes the way he sees the world is the only way and imposes his dogmatic views on the population, and then imposes ASBOs on persons without committing an offence.

Now he proposes to give his agents in the Mental Health community authority to lock people up because he does not like their cognitive abilities.

I did not vote for him. I thought he was a ranter from the beginning. There is never been so much misery and strife in England before in my lifetime. Even Margaret Thatchers free enterprise greedy society did not cause so much grief.

Answer 3

I am a behaviouist but do not entirely agree with Garcia's answer. I am interested in what is measurable. Thus intelligence is unobservable, but IQ can be reliably and validly measured. Also thought processes are now observable with functional magnetic resonance imaging where brain areas light up, and cognitivists who ignore this will be left talking to themselves.