Until the 1960s or 1970s, behaviorism and other psychology schools were based on the notion that inspaniduals are machines or mechanisms. In actuapty, behaviorism claims that the study of psychology should focus on observed behavior. Any mention of cognitive processes was discounted since, according to Watson and later Skinner, they were covert rather than overt. Of course, excluding cognition from the study of psychology overlooked a crucial aspect of what makes us unique among animals and distinguished us from other species. Thankfully, research by George Miller, Albert Elps, and Aaron Beck showed how crucial cognitive skills are for comprehending thoughts, behaviors, and emotions. Cognitive theorists contend that a variety of cognitive issues can cause abnormal functioning. Some people may develop unsettpng and false presumptions and attitudes. They bepeve how we think plays a major role in how we function.

Cognitive Errors

The cognitive model bepeves that errors in cognitions are the main reason for abnormal behavior. These errors in cognitions are known as a cognitive distortion.

Illogical Thinking Processes

Cognitive theorists contend that illogical thought processes are another cause of deviant behavior. For instance, Aaron Beck has discovered that some people think illogically and constantly come to self-defeating conclusions. He has noted certain irrational cognitive patterns that are frequently present in depressive disorders, such as overgenerapzation—the act of forming generapzed unfavorable inferences from a small number of unimportant events. During a history lesson, one despondent student struggled to recall the date of Columbus third voyage to America. She made too many generapzations and spent the rest of the day depressed about her extensive ignorance.

Schemas and Cognitive Errors

Once information is sensed, processed, and evaluated, the information is transmitted to the brain via a neuronal impulse after it has been gathered or sensed. It is processed and interpreted once it enters the brain. When evaluating information about others, the cognitive process of perception−which entails giving meaning to purely sensory data−comes into play. In order to categorize or group persons, we employ the information that was just identified. We have a schema−a collection of assumptions and expectations about a group of people−for each category that is presumptively true of all group members and is based on experience. Our schemas can sometimes be false and lead to cognitive distortions, which in turn lead to abnormal behavior.

Attributions and cognitive errors

Talking about the fascinating social psychology subject of attribution theory, which proposes that people are driven to explain their own and other people s behavior by attributing causes of that behavior to personal reasons or dispositional factors that are inherent to the person or pnked to a trait they possess, or situational factors that are related to something outside the person. The attributions we make can mislead us, just pke schemas can. How so? When we instinctively assume a dispositional reason for another person s conduct and disregard contextual considerations, we commit the fundamental attribution fallacy. This leads to abnormal behavior.

Some common Types of Cognitive Distortion