In what ways did cognitive psychology differ from behavioral psychology?
The gist of the psychology has been cognitive psychology and behavioral psychology, for about 60 years. For about the initial 30 years, that is, from 1920 to 1950, most of the psychological thought was empowered by the behavioral psychology. Then, in 1950, various loopholes were observed in the behavioral psychology, as a result of which, the cognitive psychology became dominant.
However, the supporter scientists of both the theories have realized that their combination could be effective in treating the patients. Behaviorism or the behavioral psychology focuses on the development of the behaviors as a result of interaction between the natural environments. It generally focuses on the conditioning, and claims that this conditioning is just the observable behavior and no genetics is involved in it.
The conditioning can be of two types, that is, the classical and the operant conditioning. While, classical conditioning focuses on strengthening involuntary actions, the operant’s conditioning focuses on the conditioning of the voluntary actions. For instance, Pavlov’s dogs were provided with a whistle sound, before offering them food. Hence, they were able to associate the whistle sound with the food.
Whenever, a whistle blowed, they started salivating. Cognitive psychology involves the attention, learning, reasoning, memory, perception, language acquisition, conceptual development, among other activities that require brain power. Hence, the Pavlov’s dogs might have shown certain behavior towards particular stimuli, but they used their brains, for example the memory of bell associated with food. This resulted in salivation.
While, behavioral psychology is completely observable, cognitive psychology is totally experiment-based. Many experiments on the animals, including, rat, cat and dogs, primates, pigeons and parrots have been performed to study the use of tools, language acquisition and the other complex activities of the brain.