COGNITIVE APPROACHES TO ATTITUDES

What is the cognitive approach?

Cognition refers to mental activities like thinking, remembering, memory, learning,
comprehension, perception, motivation, and language acquisition. The cognitive approach to
psychology focuses on these internal mental processes and how they interact to produce
intelligent behavior. The cognitive approach to learning then takes those insights and applies
them to education.
Jean Piaget developed cognitive psychology theory in the 1930s based on his research with
infants and young children. He proposed that people develop basic mental abilities throughout
their lives, each stage characterized by a different cognitive ability.
In contrast to other approaches in psychology, such as the behavioral approach, cognitive
psychologists believe it's essential to understand the internal mental processes that guide
behavior. This includes acquiring and using information, problem-solving, making decisions, and
models of memory. Cognitive science also looks at how mental processes affect our emotions
and behavior.
Cognitive psychology has contributed to many important insights, such as our understanding
of information processing models and cognitive neuroscience. Psychologists often use
experiments and case studies to study mental processes in individuals or groups. Understanding
these processes can better explain why people act and learn as they do.
What are the key assumptions of the cognitive approach?
The cognitive approach offers a unique perspective on understanding human behavior by
examining internal mental processes. For the cognitive theory to work, a few key assumptions
must be met:
Science is at the core of cognitive psychology. The cognitive approach is based on scientific
research. It uses scientific methods, such as experiments, to study cognitive processes.
Information processing explains much of human behavior. The information processing
model proposed by cognitive psychologists suggests that we take in information, store it in our
memory, and then use it to guide our behavior. By understanding how we process information,
we can better understand why we behave the way we do.
Mediation occurs between stimulus and response. Stimulus-response mediation occurs when
we receive stimuli (like a sound), and our brain processes that information to produce a response
(like moving our hand).
These assumptions form the basis for cognitive theories and models, which try to explain how
the mental processes of human cognition work.
What are cognitive processes?
The human mind constantly processes information, whether or not we're aware of it. Cognitive
processes are the mental operations we use to acquire, store, and manipulate information. Some
cognitive processes are basic, like perception and attention, while others are more complex, like
memory and decision-making.
Cognitive psychologists have identified many different mental processes:
Perception is how we interpret sensory information from the real world around us. It includes
how we see things visually and hear, smell, taste, and feel them.
Attention is how we focus our cognitive resources on particular stimuli while ignoring others. It
allows us to selectively process the most critical information at any moment.
Memory is how we encode, store, and retrieve information. Our short-term memory allows us to
hold information for a limited time. In contrast, our long-term memory can store it for much
longer. Working memory helps us remember things like where we put our keys while we're
looking for them.
Language is how we use symbols, such as words and numbers, to communicate with others. It
includes understanding spoken and written language as well as being able to produce it.
Problem-solving occurs when we use our cognitive processing to find solutions to problems.
This includes everything from simple tasks like making a phone call to complex tasks
like critical thinking.
Decision-making is how we choose between different options. It can be as simple as dressing in
the morning or as complex as accepting a job offer.
Each of these cognitive processes is essential for our survival and daily functioning. For
example, we use perception to help us avoid danger, long-term memory to remember important
information, and problem-solving to figure out the best way to achieve our goal
What is cognitive learning theory?
One of the most critical parts of effective learning is learning how to learn. Cognitive learning
theory is a branch of cognitive psychology that studies how people learn. It focuses on how the
human brain acquires, stores, and uses information.
One of the key insights of cognitive learning theory is that we are active learners who construct
our own knowledge. We don't just passively receive information from the world around us — we
actively engage with it and make sense of it using our cognitive processes. This is known as
cognitive construction.
The term "metacognition" is a crucial concept in cognitive learning theory. Metacognition
describes your awareness of your brain's thoughts and thought processes. Understanding how
thought processes work during learning allows us to direct our thoughts. By manipulating the
internal and external factors that affect our thinking, we can improve our understanding of
ourselves and others.
In addition to Piaget, several researchers have contributed to cognitive research and the
development of cognitive learning theory. Psychologist Lev Vygotsky's sociocultural theory,
which focuses on the role of culture and society in cognitive development, was influential in
cognitive learning. So was Jerome Bruner's cognitive developmental theory, which emphasizes
modes of representation like image, language, and action.
Cognitive learning theory has significantly impacted education. Cognitive science has led to the
development of new teaching methods based on cognitive models, such as cognitive
apprenticeship and problem-based learning.
The cognitive approach to learning
The cognitive learning theory is widely applied in the field of education today. The cognitive
approach focuses on enabling students to fully engage in the learning process, so they can learn,
think, and remember faster and easier.
There are three fundamental aspects of the cognitive theory of learning:
Comprehension. Cognitive models focus on comprehension. You must understand why you are
learning a particular subject.
Memory. The cognitive approach isn't about memorization — it's about developing
understanding. Connecting new knowledge to past experience improves as you learn more about
a subject.
Application. Cognitive models help you develop problem-solving abilities by transforming what
you learn into real-world expertise.
These factors work together to create cognitive learning opportunities to engage and interact with
the material, making it easier to remember and understand.
FIVE SCIENCE-BACKED STRATEGIES.
1. Practice retrieval
Practice retrieval, or recalling information from memory, is a practical cognitive approach. This
strategy helps you learn and remember information by regularly retrieving it from your short-
term and long-term memories. These low-stakes tests benefit learning by allowing you to process
and store information more deeply. In cognitive research conducted in real schools and
classrooms, retrieval practice was found to have medium or large benefits in most cases.
2. Interleave topics
Interleaving, or mixing up the topics you're studying, is also an effective strategy of cognitive
theory. When you interleave, you don't focus on just one subject at a time — instead, you switch
between topics each session. Alternating in this way forces your brain to constantly retrieve
information from working memory, which helps embed the material more deeply in your long-
term memory. In a national conference of pediatric educators that taught five cognitive learning
strategies, this method was one of the top two most effective and adopted by educators.
3. Space out your practice
Spacing out your practice, or spreading out your learning over time, is another cognitive
approach to learning that can be very effective. When you space out your studying, you take time
to learn the material and then return to it later for review. This spaced recall helps embed the
material in your memory so you can better recall it when needed.
4. Elaborate on the material
Elaboration, or adding new details to the material you're trying to learn, is also an effective
cognitive learning strategy. Elaborating on a topic strengthens cognitive processes by integrating
newly acquired information into your mental models. This way, you create long-term memories
by expressing new knowledge in your own words.
5. Generate examples or outcomes
Generation is another way to actively make sense of the to-be-learned information and integrate
it with your prior knowledge. Using this cognitive approach, you generate examples of the
learning material or create potential outcomes related to it. Research has shown that constructing
new knowledge strengthens cognitive processing and improves learning outcomes more than
passive learning activities.
Affective Component
The affective component of an attitude refers to the emotional reactions or feelings an individual
has towards an object, person, issue, or situation.

The affective domain is one of the three domains in Bloom’s Taxonomy. It involves feelings,
attitudes, and emotions. It includes the ways in which people deal with external and internal
phenomenon emotionally, such as values, enthusiasms, and motivations. This domain is
categorized into five levels, which include receiving, responding, valuing, organization, and
characterization. These subdomains form a hierarchical structure and are arranged from simple
feelings or motivations to those that are more complex.

The affective domain refers to the tracking of growth in feelings or emotional areas throughout
the learning experience. In order to be most effective, learning objectives labelled using this
domain need a very clear instructional intention for growth in this area specified in the learning
objective.

Affective Domain Categories

Within this broad range of social-emotional skills, the domain is broken into five categories that
develop from more simple to complex over time.

Receiving
One of the earliest skills is the receiving phenomena (pg. 2), which in a nutshell means the
person is able to listen and has a willingness to hear out others. At a young age, children are
taught to attend to directions from adults or demands from playmates. This early skill is a
prerequisite to finding success in later skills in the Affective Domain.

Responding
Becoming an active participant in social situations can begin effectively once the receiving skills
are mastered. Participating in discussions, asking questions, and presenting information to
others are next-level skills that create a stronger foundation for interpersonal connection and
expression.

Valuing
Once receptive and expressive communication skills are established, students can internalize
values that inform how they use their thinking and reasoning to act upon what they learn.
Appreciation, justification, invitation, and demonstration are all ways one may show this
category of thinking with interpersonal situations.

Organization
As we grow, we realize that different values and beliefs are held, and we must grapple with the
conflict of such a message. To do so, our brain engages in organization, where we contrast
different view points and create our own unique system to evaluate what we see occurring based
on our values. Each system is unique because of the various influences that are put upon the
individual in order to make sense of the unique experience they are having in the world.

Characterization
Once a person has identified various belief systems and placed value and organization on them,
the person will act based on the unique affective system they have created. For example, one
may act on an injustice through verbalization or service because of the value they have placed on
fairness and equity.

Undoubtedly, it is critical we attend to the affective domain as educators to ensure students build
everything from receiving phenomena where they can actively listen, to characterization through
which they can take informed action to positively impact their lives and others.