| Abstract: | Presents a critical analysis of some of the major work in cognitive social, personality, and developmental psychology. It is argued that cognitivism, by virtue of the primacy it gives to the individual knower, to subjective determinants of behavior, and to formal cognitive operations, represents a set of values and interests that reproduce and reaffirm the existing nature of the social order. However, the joining of cognitive psychology with idealogy is not intended simply to unmask the values carried by the cognitivist approach. The issue of values also raises serious questions about the nature of psychological science. Four case examples are examined as the basis for the claims made in the present article: (1) the deficiencies of interactionism, (2) cognitivism's denial of reality, (3) psychological reifications, and (4) cognitive/developmental theory and the technical interest in knowledge. A concluding comment calls for a new and transformative psychology, not of what is, but of what may yet be. (71 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
