Cognitive turn

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Cognitive turn is the name given to a development within the paradigms of the psychological scientific community from behaviorism to cognitivism . The concept of cognitive turn ( English cognitive revolution ) goes back to William Dember, who used it in 1974 for the first time in a publication. There is no consensus about the point in time at which the turning point took place; the figures range from the 1940s to the 1970s.

Historical development

An important station in the cognitive turn was Noam Chomsky's behaviorism criticism (which is itself the subject of criticism), which he formulated in his review of BF Skinner's book Verbal Behavior . His sentence became famous

"It is quite possible - overwhelmingly probable, one might guess - that we will always learn more about human life and human personality from novels than from scientific psychology."

- Chomsky, Language and Problems of Knowledge: The Managua Lectures, Lecture 5, 1988, p. 159

(Translation: It is quite possible - very likely, one might assume - that we will always learn more about human life and human personality from novels than from scientifically driven psychology. )

Albert Bandura did pioneering work in 1965 with his "Bobo-doll experiment" , the results of which, in his opinion, could no longer be explained with behavioristic principles, but required cognitive processes (see social cognitive learning theory ). In addition, Ulrich Neisser's Cognitive Psychology from 1967 helped the knowledge of “cognitive psychology” to break through in the scientific community.

criticism

Critics deny the cognitive turn the character of a scientific revolution (in the sense of Kuhn ). The behavioristic approach was therefore - also in the opinion of leading exponents of the cognitive turn - not falsified in the sense of Popper , it did not drown in a "sea of ​​anomalies" and it was not a "degenerating research program" in the sense of Lakatos' . The trigger for the cognitive turn was not a failure of the behavioristic concept in explaining phenomena, but rather a (sociologically explainable) change in the interests of the researchers.

Empirical evidence also contradicts the thesis that the cognitive turn represents a radical change in scientific psychology: from 1979 to 1988, more articles were published in behaviorist than cognitive journals; in addition, these articles were cited more frequently. If the behaviorist approach had been replaced by the cognitivist approach , it would have been expected that cognitivist works would increasingly be published and discussed. The assertion that (behavioristic) psychology was hardly concerned with thinking , feeling , etc. before the cognitive turnaround is also incorrect . Sandy Hobbs and Mecca Chiesa checked this thesis and found numerous references in introductory textbooks from 1941–1964 (the supposed heyday of behaviorism) in which psychology is defined and treated as the science of behavior and experience (or consciousness , etc.). Not a single textbook described psychology as just the science of behavior.

Web links

supporting documents

  1. ^ William N. Dember: Motivation and the cognitive revolution . In: American Psychologist . tape 29 , no. 3 , 1974, p. 161-168 , doi : 10.1037 / h0035907 .
  2. ^ A b Sandy Hobbs, Mecca Chiesa: The myth of the “cognitive revolution” . In: European Journal of Behavior Analysis . tape 12 , no. 2 , 2011, ISSN  1502-1149 , p. 385–394 ( PDF 182 kB [accessed July 17, 2014]). PDF 182 kB ( Memento of the original from July 25, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ejoba.org
  3. ↑ Kenneth MacCorquodale: On Chomsky's Review of Skinner's Verbal Behavior . In: Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior . tape 13 , no. 1 , 1970, p. 83-99 , PMC 1333660 (free full text).
  4. ^ Noam Chomsky: Verbal Behavior. By BF Skinner . In: Language . tape 35 , no. 1 , 1959, ISSN  0097-8507 , p. 26–58 , doi : 10.2307 / 411334 ( online [accessed July 17, 2014]).
  5. ^ William O'Donohue, Kyle E. Ferguson, Amy E. Naugle: The structure of the cognitive revolution. An examination from the philosophy of science . In: The Behavior Analyst . tape 26 , no. 1 , 2003, ISSN  0738-6729 , p. 85-110 , PMC 2731437 (free full text).
  6. ↑ Thomas S. Kuhn: The structure of scientific revolutions . Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 1967, ISBN 978-3-518-27625-9 .
  7. ↑ Patrick C. Friman, Keith D. Allen, Mary L. Kerwin, Robert Larzelere: Changes in modern psychology: A citation analysis of the Kuhnian displacement thesis . In: American Psychologist . tape 48 , no. June 6 , 1993, ISSN  0003-066X , pp. 658–664 , doi : 10.1037 / 0003-066X.48.6.658 ( abstract [accessed July 17, 2014]).