Decision Making and Cognition

Abstract

The last five years has seen a remarkable growth of interest in cognitive psychology, a topic that includes all those approaches to psychology that postulate internal, mental processes on the basis of observed behavior. Although cognition has always been a respectable area of psychology in Europe and Great Britain, the influence of behaviorism in the United States has been so strong that, until recently, the term "cognition" was considered by many to be inappropriate for use in the scientific study of behavior. In recent years this attitude has changed; there are now few psychologists who would deny the legitimacy of cognitive phenomena as a topic for psychological study. This growth of interest in cognition has led to the development of novel approaches to theory and research methodology that have had an effect on all areas of psychology.