Strength and Weakness of Cognitive PsychologyStrengthIt mostly uses rigorous scientific methodsThe approach has had many practical applicationsThis area has worked with other areas of psychology to produce the social learning theory, social cognition and artificial intelligenceIt looks at thought processes which were ignored by other psychologists, especially behaviourists. Processes such as memory, attention and perception have been studied as they have an effect on our behaviour. Considerable research by Loftus and Palmer (1974) has shown that memories on eye witness testimony are unreliableIts theories have been applied to cognitive therapies such as Rational Emotive Therapy. This therapy has been successful in changing irrational thoughts into rational thoughts so that behaviour improves. Ellis found that Rational Emotive Therapy is successful 90% of the time

WeaknessIt is too simplisticIt ignores the complexity of the human functioningIt ignores biological influences of human functioningIt ignores emotions, conscious experience and free willIt is reductionist. An example of this is that it reduces human behaviour down to individual processes such as memory and attention. This is a weakness because the human is a product of all the processes working together and not just individual partsIt is too mechanical, it compares the human to computers in that they have similar processes. This is a weakness as humans are more complex than computers, for example emotions can affect a humans' output