دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی روانشناسی شناخت: بررسی اجمالی - الزویر 2018

Beyond Cognition: Emotion and Motivation

Cognitive psychology is about knowing, but knowing is not all the mind does. In his Critique of Pure Reason (1791), the philosopher Immanuel Kant proposed that there are three “faculties of mind”, knowledge, feeling, and desire; each of these enters into a causal relationship with behavior, and none is reducible to any other. If Kant is right, then cognitive psychology cannot be all there is to psychology: the principles of cognition must be supplemented by principles of emotion and motivation. In fact, some cognitive psychologists have argued that Kant was wrong, and that our emotional and motivational states are the byproducts of cognitive activity. For example, prominent cognitive theories of emotion hold that our emotional states are, essentially, beliefs about our feelings. Put another way, cognitive theories of emotion hold that our emotional states depend on our interpretation of environmental events and our own behaviors. As William James famously put it: we do not run from the bear because we are afraid; we are afraid because we run from the bear. In response, some theorists have argued that emotions are not dependent on cognitive processing, but rather are governed by their own, independent systems. To some degree, such proposals reflect a reaction to the hegemony of the cognitive point of view within psychology. At the same time, the question of the independence of emotion and motivation from cognition is a legitimate one, and has given rise to a new interdisciplinary field, affective neuroscience, proceeding in parallel with cognitive neuroscience. Regardless of how the independence issue is resolved, it is clear that cognitive processes can influence emotions and motives. Emotions can be induced by remembering past events, and they can be altered by construing events differently. Certain “counterfactual” emotions, such as disappointment and regret, require that the person construct a mental representation of what might have been. While some emotional reactions may be innate and reflex-like, others are acquired through conditioning and social learning. As noted earlier, there is evidence that some emotional states, such as anxiety and depression, result from the perception that environmental events are unpredictable or uncontrollable; they may disappear when such beliefs are corrected. Surgical patients’ fears can be allayed (and the outcome of treatment improved) if their doctors carefully explain what is going to happen to them, and why it is necessary. The ability to use cognitive processes to regulate one’s own feelings and desires is an important component of emotional intelligence.