If you think back to the first chapter, you may recall the story about the blind
men trying to describe an elephant. The point was that obtaining a completeunderstanding of human personality requires that we examine personality
from several different perspectives. Although each perspective offers useful in-
formation, each also provides only a limited view of this complex topic. That
lesson is clearly illustrated in this chapter. Each program of research examines
from a cognitive perspective a topic covered elsewhere in the book. It ’sn o t
that the research covered earlier is wrong or needs updating. Rather, the point
is that we need to examine important topics from more than one perspective if
we want to obtain a complete picture. We ’ll begin with aggression, a topic
we’ve looked at in depth from a psychoanalytic and behavioral/social learning
perspective. Next, we ’ll return to the topic of gender. In addition to the many
gender differences we ’ve touched on throughout the book, researchers find
that men and women also differ in the way they remember information.
Finally, we ’ll examine cognitive explanations for depression, another topic that
has surfaced often in this book. Investigators find that the way we process in-
formation plays a crucial role in this psychological disorder. Psychologists alsolook at cognitive styles to identify those who might be vulnerable to future
bouts of depression.
COGNITIONS AND AGGRESSION
Imagine you are strolling alone through a park. Two teenage boys walking
about 30 feet behind you suddenly quicken their pace and draw closer. What
is your reaction? Perhaps the boys are in a hurry to get somewhere. Perhaps
they are simply more energetic and walk faster than you do. Maybe they are
interested in catching up to you to ask for the time or directions. Or maybe
they want to harm you. This situation, like many we encounter, contains a
fair degree of ambiguity, and people react to it differently.
How you respond to this situation depends on how you interpret it.
Whether you see the circumstances as threatening, annoying, or benign willcause you to run away, prepare to fight, or move out of the way. This ex-ample illustrates a key concept that cognitive researchers rely on when try-
ing to predict aggressive behavior. It ’s not enough to know that a person is
high in aggressiveness, has just witnessed someone model aggression, or has
a history of being rewarded for violence. Although all of these variables play
a role, a full understanding of aggressive behavior requires that we also ex-
amine the cognitions that come into play when people encounter a poten-
tially threatening or dangerous situation (Anderson & Huesmann, 2003;
Crick & Dodge, 1994; Fontaine & Dod ge, 2006; Wilkowski & Robinson,
2008).
General Aggression Model
Whether a potentially violent encounter passes uneventfully or leads to ag-
gression depends on a large number of factors. To explain this process, one
team of psychologists have combined decades of research findings into a436 CHAPTER 16 The Cognitive Approach