What Are the Differences Between Behaviorism and Cognitivism?

Behaviorism and cognitivism both attempt to explain human behavior. Both approaches have positive aspects; however, they are very different approaches.

Overview

These two approaches to explaining human nature really could not be any more different:

• Behaviorism is the idea that the way in which people act is the key to their soul and that all of those actions have meanings.
• Cognitivism postulates that looking at the signs and symbols of the mind reveal a person's psychological disposition.

The only real similarity that these two have is that they both seek to explain human behavior, and they have both been replaced by newer ideas, one of which - cognitive behaviorism - is a mix of the two.

Concept of Behaviorism

The premise of this argument is that every thing that a living being does - acting, thinking, etc. - can be regarded as a behavior. These behaviors are important. They all have meaning in terms of a behavioral approach.

In fact, this approach says that behaviors are of the utmost importance. People who support (or supported) this theory say that the mind and psychology really take the back burner to behavior.

They also do not separate the private processes from the public processes, and they stipulate that both of these are intrinsically intertwined. For example, modern behavior analysts are particularly interested in cases of autism, because they feel that they are able to really understand a person from looking at the behaviors that he or she makes.

Language is crucial to the behavioral analyst, and it makes perfect sense. In a world where the private mind and the public behavior are intertwined, what else would be the focal point of study than that which transmits the individual thought into the public domain? You could say that a behavior analyst is looking more so at what is said or how it is said, as opposed to someone else who might look at where the meaning of the words comes from.

Concept of Cognitivism

Basically, cognitivism is the exact opposite of behaviorism. When producing observations about a person's psychology the approaches are very different:

• Behaviorism focuses on behaviors. A behavior analyst uses qualitative data.

• Cognitivism focuses on the mind. The cognitist relies on quantitative data such as experiments, measurements, and scientific methods.

Let's delve a little bit ore deeply into cognitivism, since cognitivism's goal is to delve deepy into the human psyche. When these types of analysts are looking at a person, they pay attention to the role that psychology has in a person's every day life.

They see that the internal mental states produce various signs and symbols. They do not just take these signs and symbols at face value. Instead, they work to understand how they can be deciphered and what their deep symbolic meaning might be.

Think about dream interpretation. People who interpret dreams see a symbol, and they take it to meaning something else. Usually the symbol meanings are not completely related to what the symbol is at all.

Combining the Two Approaches

As you have been learning about the differences between behaviorism and cognitivism, you are probably starting to see why they have been combined into one. Even if you are not an analyst of people, you probably recognize that both of these approaches have strong points and weak points.