Cognitive Model

A cognitive model, stemming from American psychologists
Albert Ellis and Donald Meichenbaum, American psychiatrist
Aaron Beck, and others, finds the roots of abnormal behavior in the way
people think about and perceive the world. People who distort or misinterpret
their experiences, the intentions of those around them, and the kind of
world where they live are bound to act abnormally.

The cognitive model views human beings as thinking organisms that decide
how to behave, so abnormal behavior is based on false assumptions or
unrealistic situations. For example, Sally Smith might react to getting fired
from work by actively searching for a new job. Sue Smith, in contrast, might
react to getting fired from work by believing that this tragedy is the worst
possible thing that could have happened, something that is really awful. Sue
is more likely than Sally to become anxious, not because of the event that
happened but because of what she believes about this event. In the cognitive
model of abnormality, Sue’s irrational thinking about the event (getting
fired), not the event itself, caused her abnormal behavior.

Beck proposed that depressed people have negative schemas about
themselves and life events. Their reasoning errors cause cognitive distortions.
One cognitive distortion is drawing conclusions out of context, while
ignoring other relevant information. Another cognitive distortion is overgeneralizing, drawing a general rule from one or just a few isolated incidents
and applying the conclusion broadly to unrelated situations. A third
cognitive distortion is dwelling on negative details, while ignoring positive
aspects. A fourth cognitive distortion is thinking in an all-or-nothing way.

People who think this way categorize experiences as either completely good
or completely bad, rather than somewhere in between the two extremes. A
fifth cognitive distortion is having automatic thoughts, negative ideas that
emerge quickly and spontaneously, and seemingly without voluntary control.
The cognitive and behavioral models are sometimes linked and have
stimulated a wealth of empirical knowledge. The cognitive model has been
criticized for focusing too much on cognitive processes and not enough on
root causes. Some also see it as too mechanistic.


The cognitive model proposes that maladaptive thinking causes psychological
disorders. In contrast, the psychoanalytic model proposes that unconscious
conflicts cause psychological disorders; the humanistic model
proposes that blocking of full development causes psychological disorders;
and the behavioral model proposes that inappropriate conditioning causes
psychological disorders. These psychological models of abnormality stress
the psychological variables that play a role in abnormal behavior.