Honestly speaking I have had of the word cognitive a couple of times but I have never been

bothered to check its real meaning; all I know is that it has something to do with the mind. This
was until today that I decided to do a little bit of researched as per the required reading in
which I was able to find out that it refers to the study of information processing in the human
mind. The human mind processes information just like computers in that it stores the
information, retrieves it when needed and also transforms it (Rosser-Major, 2017). Cognitive
theory is very important as it can impact our lives as students who aspire to be therapists in
future. Using cognitive theory for instance ,we can learn how to identify maladaptive patterns
of thoughts and then turn them into thoughts which are constructive, this can help in treating
phobia. This is one of the things which was new to me and I thought it would be nice to share
with the class.

The other theory was not clear to me was behaviorism; it is also at times known as behavioral
psychology. From my research I was able to find out that it’s built upon the foundation that all
behaviors can be acquired via conditioning; conditioning occurs only and only when we interact
with the environment (Rosser-Majors, 2017). And so, in a nut shell, through our interactions
with the environments, our stimuli are shaped. Based on that school of thought, it is possible to
study behaviors systematically independent of internal mind state. This is also very important
as we can train our minds on how to respond or perform some tasks regardless of our thoughts,
traits or background genetically.

I think that it is important that we learn and understand the process though which we acquire
knowledge because we acquire new information almost on a daily basis and almost all the time.
There is thus the need to clearly eliminate or synthesize the newly acquired information in
order to keep it. Training the mind to do this can be very important and thus it would be very
important to understand the process of acquiring the information. I have also come to notice
that we all learn similarly and that is the method of learning that is different; for instance, some
people may prefer to learn programming via using tutorials while other may prefer to use
textbooks through reading. As leaners, having a more critical understanding is very important
as we can employ it when making some democratic-related processes; this will ensure our
success as the repeated action will become a habit.
References
Rosser-Majors, M. L. (2017). Theories of learning: An exploration. Bridgepoint Education.