research topics about cognitive psychology

101 Cognitive Psychology Research Topics

Introduction.

Cognitive psychology stands as a remarkable discipline, a branch of psychology where the inner workings of the mind are intricately studied and understood. If you are embarking on an academic path or a professional journey in this field, you are likely aware of the challenge and significance of selecting a research topic that is not only innovative but also fascinating and feasible.

At gradehacker, we recognize the hurdles that accompany this journey and are committed to guiding you through the maze of cognitive psychology research questions.

The Quest for the Perfect Research Topic

Cognitive psychology examines the vast complexities of mental processes — from memory, perception, and language, to problem-solving, and decision-making. Such a research topic should not only spark curiosity but also contribute to the existing body of knowledge. How do we embark on the quest for the perfect topic?

Originality and Appeal

The starting point is originality. The suitability of a topic is often dependent on its uniqueness and how insufficiently explored it is within the realm of cognitive psychology. Our experts meticulously generate research topics from the ground up, focusing on areas ripe for further exploration.

Achieving Feasibility

However innovative a topic may be, its feasibility is critical. This involves a realistic assessment of resources, time, and methodology. It must be a subject that can undergo thorough investigation within the scope of your academic or research constraints. We rigorously test cognitive psychology topics for their practicality before making any recommendations.

The Excitement of Cognitive Psychology Research

With the ebb and flow of research interests and the ever-expanding domain of cognitive psychology, a myriad of research questions are waiting to be asked. Let’s consider several captivating cognitive psychology research questions that could form the foundation for a compelling research project:

How do attention spans differ across various activities, and what factors influence these variations? This question could delve into the influences on attentional shifts, such as technology usage or multitasking habits.
What cognitive processes are involved in false memory formation? Here, one might explore the intricate mechanisms by which the brain constructs memories and how they can

sometimes be distorted or fabricated. This exploration could tap into realms such as eyewitness testimony, the misinformation effect, or the implications for cognitive therapy.

The Role of Emotion in Decision-Making

Understanding how emotions interplay with rational thought processes to influence decisions could provide valuable insights into consumer behavior, risk assessment, and more.

Neural Correlates of Language Acquisition

Investigating the brain mechanisms involved in learning new languages could shed light on neuroplasticity and critical periods in cognitive development.

Each of these research topics not only offers a window into the intricacies of the human mind but also holds the promise of practical applications that could extend beyond the realm of cognitive psychology.

Feeding Curiosity and Advancing Knowledge

In crafting your research, it’s essential to choose a topic that not only feeds your curiosity but also has the potential to make a significant contribution to cognitive psychology. An ideal research question should pave the way for empirical investigation and potentially inform interventions, educational strategies, or psychological treatments.

Cognitive psychology is a vast field with numerous potential research topics. Here are 30 topics that represent key areas of interest within cognitive psychology:

Short-term vs. long-term memory retention
The role of sleep in memory consolidation
The effects of aging on memory
Multitasking and attentional control
Selective attention in high-stress environments
The impact of technology on attention spans
Language acquisition in children
Bilingualism and cognitive flexibility
The cognitive processes involved in reading
Visual perception and optical illusions
The influence of culture on perception
Auditory processing in noisy environments
Heuristics and biases in decision making
Decision-making processes in risk situations
The psychology of judgment and choice
Cognitive strategies in problem-solving
The role of creativity in problem-solving
Team versus individual problem-solving
The role of executive function in self-regulation
The development of executive functions in children
The impact of brain injuries on executive functions
The relationship between brain structures and cognitive functions
Cognitive neuroscience of memory disorders
The effects of neuroplasticity on learning
Piaget’s stages of cognitive development
The role of play in cognitive development
Cognitive milestones in infancy and early childhood
The efficacy of different learning styles
The application of cognitive theories in education
The role of metacognition in learning
Assessment tools for cognitive function
Cognitive rehabilitation techniques for brain injury patients
Neurofeedback and cognitive enhancement
The interaction between emotion and rational thinking
The influence of mood on cognitive processing
Emotional intelligence and its cognitive basis
Comparisons between human cognitive processing and AI
The impact of artificial intelligence on cognitive jobs
AI as a model for understanding human cognition
The effect of cognitive biases in eyewitness testimony
Overconfidence and its impact on decision-making
The Dunning-Kruger effect in self-assessment of competence
The cognitive processes behind stereotypes and prejudice
Theory of mind and its development in children
The impact of social media on social cognition
Cognitive-behavioral therapy and its effectiveness
The role of cognition in mindfulness and meditation practices
Techniques for cognitive restructuring in therapy
Cognitive processes involved in ethical dilemmas
The development of moral reasoning
The influence of culture on moral judgments
Cognitive differences in individuals with ADHD
The effectiveness of interventions targeting executive functions in ADHD
Neurocognitive profiles of adults with ADHD
Early detection and cognitive markers of dementia
Cognitive interventions to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease
The relationship between lifestyle factors and cognitive decline
The cognitive implications of user interface design
Augmented reality and cognitive enhancement
The impact of virtual environments on cognitive functioning
Navigation strategies and cognitive mapping
Gender differences in spatial abilities
The cognitive aspects of geographical learning
The cognitive changes associated with becoming an expert
The role of deliberate practice in skill development
The plateau effect in skill acquisition and ways to overcome it
Cognitive processes underlying creative thought
The role of incubation periods in creativity
Sociocultural factors influencing innovation
Cognitive processing in second language acquisition
The relationship between language and thought
Dyslexia and its cognitive underpinnings
The impact of cognitive load on learning and performance
Strategies for reducing cognitive load in instructional design
Measuring cognitive load during complex tasks
Awareness and control of one’s cognitive processes
Metacognition in academic learning and its impact on performance
The development of metacognitive skills
Age-related changes in cognitive abilities
Interventions for maintaining cognition in later life
The distinction between normal cognitive aging and pathological decline
The role of cognition in workplace design and safety
Cognitive factors in human error and accident prevention
The impact of ergonomic interventions on cognitive performance
The relationship between cognitive style and personality
Cognitive style differences in information processing
The impact of cognitive styles on learning and teaching methodologies
Cognitive adaptations for survival and reproduction
Evolutionary perspectives on decision making and risk aversion
The evolutionary roots of language and communication

With the support of a proficient team like the one at gradehacker, you can navigate this path with confidence and intellectual rigor. The journey through the complex labyrinth of the mind awaits—may your research topic be the key that unlocks new doors in understanding cognitive function.

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32 Cognitive Psychology Dissertation Topics

Published by Owen Ingram at January 3rd, 2023 , Revised On August 11, 2023

The study of cognitive psychology focuses on how the brain processes and stores information. The underlying mechanisms are investigated using experimental methods, computer modelling, and neuropsychology.

The goal of brain theories is to understand how information is encoded at the macro and micro levels. Since this is a vast subject, there are numerous possible research areas you can choose from. You may further explore our selection if you wish to focus on cognitive psychology for your dissertation.

Related Academic Links: Neuro Psychology Dissertation Topics , Clinical Psychology Topics , Counselling Psychology Dissertation Topics , Forensic Psychology Dissertation Topics

Below Are Some Selected Cognitive Psychology Dissertation Topics

Describe the consequences of autism.
Using fMRI measures, can misleading information be accurately identified and separated from guilty knowledge?
How does colour psychology work in research on cognitive development?
How is attention span measured, and what does it mean?
How do memories impact how people behave?
According to the Network Neuroscience Theory, is general human intelligence a result of individual variances in brain network architecture and structure?
What elements can help kids’ problem-solving skills develop?
How does the development of cognition impact speech disorders?
Effective cognition involves choosing the proper information at the proper time and in the proper order.
Does subliminal perception exist, or does it only apply to certain circumstances?
Information flow and parallel distributed processing hierarchy explained.
The applicability of cognitive psychology research findings to actual behaviour and cognition, as well as their reliability, validity, and utility.
Factors that may cause a child’s mental development to be delayed.
What is the single parenting style best for a child’s mental development? The impact of romantic movies on children?
The gradual activation of forwarding brain regions is necessary for attention.
View-dependent theories of vision outperform view-independent theories in explaining natural perception.
Computer simulations of vision can cause people to misunderstand how the mechanisms of perception truly work.
How visual illusions to aid in the understanding of perception.
Evidence for the hippocampus’s function in memory encoding and consolidation: applicability to dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases.
Working memory and attention bias: working memory and attention in the visual domain.
Describe the extent to which plasticity plays a role in the development of visual cognitive abilities.
Examine automated priming effects’ consequences on complex behaviour in real life
Discuss the importance of facial stimuli in assessing how the ventral pathway of the human body develops from childhood to adulthood.
Analyze the growth of out-group and in-group associations in implicit intergroup cognition.
What Are the Hierarchical Explanations of Information Flow and Parallel Processing Distribution?
Are the abilities of children with dyscalculia not impacted by the disorder, or are they comparatively independent?
Does the evidence support the idea that neural network theories can explain some lower-order brain operations but cannot explain the representations in higher areas?
Investigating Human Cognitive Development as A Stand-In for Understanding Human Brain Evolution.
Describe how the executive functions of the frontal brain distinguish humans.
An analysis of Fodor’s modular theory of the brain in the context of contemporary neuroscientific evidence.
Do You Know What a Cheater Detection Module Is, And Is It Real Or Just a Phrase?
Evaluating the accuracy of Gibson’s direct perception theory in light of constructivist explanations and other modern cognitive theories.

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It is essential for your cognitive psychology dissertation that you take advantage of the opportunity to make your presence felt in psychology. To help you with your study, also look for intriguing dissertation topics that contain a wealth of information. Consult your supervisor about improving your dissertation. Research is always more powerful when based on a good and comprehensive topic.

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To find cognitive psychology dissertation topics:

Study recent research trends.
Explore cognitive disorders or therapies.
Investigate memory, perception, learning.
Analyze brain-imaging techniques.
Consider AI’s impact on cognition.
Select a topic resonating with your passion and research goals.

What Is Cognitive Psychology?

The Science of How We Think

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

research topics about cognitive psychology

Steven Gans, MD is board-certified in psychiatry and is an active supervisor, teacher, and mentor at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Topics in Cognitive Psychology

Current Research
Cognitive Approach in Practice

Careers in Cognitive Psychology

How cognitive psychology differs from other branches of psychology, frequently asked questions.

Cognitive psychology involves the study of internal mental processes—all of the workings inside your brain, including perception, thinking, memory, attention, language, problem-solving, and learning.

Cognitive psychology--the study of how people think and process information--helps researchers understand the human brain. It also allows psychologists to help people deal with psychological difficulties.

This article discusses what cognitive psychology is, the history of this field, and current directions for research. It also covers some of the practical applications for cognitive psychology research and related career options you might consider.

Findings from cognitive psychology help us understand how people think, including how they acquire and store memories. By knowing more about how these processes work, psychologists can develop new ways of helping people with cognitive problems.

Cognitive psychologists explore a wide variety of topics related to thinking processes. Some of these include:

Attention --our ability to process information in the environment while tuning out irrelevant details
Choice-based behavior --actions driven by a choice among other possibilities
Decision-making
Information processing
Language acquisition --how we learn to read, write, and express ourselves
Problem-solving
Speech perception -how we process what others are saying
Visual perception --how we see the physical world around us

History of Cognitive Psychology

Although it is a relatively young branch of psychology , it has quickly grown to become one of the most popular subfields. Cognitive psychology grew into prominence between the 1950s and 1970s.

Prior to this time, behaviorism was the dominant perspective in psychology. This theory holds that we learn all our behaviors from interacting with our environment. It focuses strictly on observable behavior, not thought and emotion. Then, researchers became more interested in the internal processes that affect behavior instead of just the behavior itself.

This shift is often referred to as the cognitive revolution in psychology. During this time, a great deal of research on topics including memory, attention, and language acquisition began to emerge.

In 1967, the psychologist Ulric Neisser introduced the term cognitive psychology, which he defined as the study of the processes behind the perception, transformation, storage, and recovery of information.

Cognitive psychology became more prominent after the 1950s as a result of the cognitive revolution.

Current Research in Cognitive Psychology

The field of cognitive psychology is both broad and diverse. It touches on many aspects of daily life. There are numerous practical applications for this research, such as providing help coping with memory disorders, making better decisions , recovering from brain injury, treating learning disorders, and structuring educational curricula to enhance learning.

Current research on cognitive psychology helps play a role in how professionals approach the treatment of mental illness, traumatic brain injury, and degenerative brain diseases.

Thanks to the work of cognitive psychologists, we can better pinpoint ways to measure human intellectual abilities, develop new strategies to combat memory problems, and decode the workings of the human brain—all of which ultimately have a powerful impact on how we treat cognitive disorders.

The field of cognitive psychology is a rapidly growing area that continues to add to our understanding of the many influences that mental processes have on our health and daily lives.

From understanding how cognitive processes change as a child develops to looking at how the brain transforms sensory inputs into perceptions, cognitive psychology has helped us gain a deeper and richer understanding of the many mental events that contribute to our daily existence and overall well-being.

The Cognitive Approach in Practice

In addition to adding to our understanding of how the human mind works, the field of cognitive psychology has also had an impact on approaches to mental health. Before the 1970s, many mental health treatments were focused more on psychoanalytic , behavioral , and humanistic approaches.

The so-called "cognitive revolution" put a greater emphasis on understanding the way people process information and how thinking patterns might contribute to psychological distress. Thanks to research in this area, new approaches to treatment were developed to help treat depression, anxiety, phobias, and other psychological disorders .

Cognitive behavioral therapy and rational emotive behavior therapy are two methods in which clients and therapists focus on the underlying cognitions, or thoughts, that contribute to psychological distress.

What Is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy?

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is an approach that helps clients identify irrational beliefs and other cognitive distortions that are in conflict with reality and then aid them in replacing such thoughts with more realistic, healthy beliefs.

If you are experiencing symptoms of a psychological disorder that would benefit from the use of cognitive approaches, you might see a psychologist who has specific training in these cognitive treatment methods.

These professionals frequently go by titles other than cognitive psychologists, such as psychiatrists, clinical psychologists , or counseling psychologists , but many of the strategies they use are rooted in the cognitive tradition.

Many cognitive psychologists specialize in research with universities or government agencies. Others take a clinical focus and work directly with people who are experiencing challenges related to mental processes. They work in hospitals, mental health clinics, and private practices.

Research psychologists in this area often concentrate on a particular topic, such as memory. Others work directly on health concerns related to cognition, such as degenerative brain disorders and brain injuries.

Treatments rooted in cognitive research focus on helping people replace negative thought patterns with more positive, realistic ones. With the help of cognitive psychologists, people are often able to find ways to cope and even overcome such difficulties.

Reasons to Consult a Cognitive Psychologist

Alzheimer's disease, dementia, or memory loss
Brain trauma treatment
Cognitive therapy for a mental health condition
Interventions for learning disabilities
Perceptual or sensory issues
Therapy for a speech or language disorder

Whereas behavioral and some other realms of psychology focus on actions--which are external and observable--cognitive psychology is instead concerned with the thought processes behind the behavior. Cognitive psychologists see the mind as if it were a computer, taking in and processing information, and seek to understand the various factors involved.

A Word From Verywell

Cognitive psychology plays an important role in understanding the processes of memory, attention, and learning. It can also provide insights into cognitive conditions that may affect how people function.

Being diagnosed with a brain or cognitive health problem can be daunting, but it is important to remember that you are not alone. Together with a healthcare provider, you can come up with an effective treatment plan to help address brain health and cognitive problems.

Your treatment may involve consulting with a cognitive psychologist who has a background in the specific area of concern that you are facing, or you may be referred to another mental health professional that has training and experience with your particular condition.

Ulric Neisser is considered the founder of cognitive psychology. He was the first to introduce the term and to define the field of cognitive psychology. His primary interests were in the areas of perception and memory, but he suggested that all aspects of human thought and behavior were relevant to the study of cognition.

A cognitive map refers to a mental representation of an environment. Such maps can be formed through observation as well as through trial and error. These cognitive maps allow people to orient themselves in their environment.

While they share some similarities, there are some important differences between cognitive neuroscience and cognitive psychology. While cognitive psychology focuses on thinking processes, cognitive neuroscience is focused on finding connections between thinking and specific brain activity. Cognitive neuroscience also looks at the underlying biology that influences how information is processed.

Cognitive psychology is a form of experimental psychology. Cognitive psychologists use experimental methods to study the internal mental processes that play a role in behavior.

Sternberg RJ, Sternberg K. Cognitive Psychology . Wadsworth/Cengage Learning.

Krapfl JE. Behaviorism and society . Behav Anal. 2016;39(1):123-9. doi:10.1007/s40614-016-0063-8

Cutting JE. Ulric Neisser (1928-2012) . Am Psychol . 2012;67(6):492. doi:10.1037/a0029351

Ruggiero GM, Spada MM, Caselli G, Sassaroli S. A historical and theoretical review of cognitive behavioral therapies: from structural self-knowledge to functional processes . J Ration Emot Cogn Behav Ther . 2018;36(4):378-403. doi:10.1007/s10942-018-0292-8

Parvin P. Ulric Neisser, cognitive psychology pioneer, dies . Emory News Center.

APA Dictionary of Psychology. Cognitive map . American Psychological Association.

Forstmann BU, Wagenmakers EJ, Eichele T, Brown S, Serences JT. Reciprocal relations between cognitive neuroscience and formal cognitive models: opposites attract? . Trends Cogn Sci . 2011;15(6):272-279. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2011.04.002

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

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Open access
Published: 08 June 2021

Metacognition: ideas and insights from neuro- and educational sciences

Damien S. Fleur ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4836-5255 1 , 2 ,
Bert Bredeweg ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5281-2786 1 , 3 &
Wouter van den Bos 2 , 4

npj Science of Learning volume 6 , Article number: 13 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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Human behaviour
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Metacognition comprises both the ability to be aware of one’s cognitive processes (metacognitive knowledge) and to regulate them (metacognitive control). Research in educational sciences has amassed a large body of evidence on the importance of metacognition in learning and academic achievement. More recently, metacognition has been studied from experimental and cognitive neuroscience perspectives. This research has started to identify brain regions that encode metacognitive processes. However, the educational and neuroscience disciplines have largely developed separately with little exchange and communication. In this article, we review the literature on metacognition in educational and cognitive neuroscience and identify entry points for synthesis. We argue that to improve our understanding of metacognition, future research needs to (i) investigate the degree to which different protocols relate to the similar or different metacognitive constructs and processes, (ii) implement experiments to identify neural substrates necessary for metacognition based on protocols used in educational sciences, (iii) study the effects of training metacognitive knowledge in the brain, and (iv) perform developmental research in the metacognitive brain and compare it with the existing developmental literature from educational sciences regarding the domain-generality of metacognition.

A methodological perspective on learning in the developing brain

Anna C. K. van Duijvenvoorde, Lucy B. Whitmore, … Kathryn L. Mills

An fMRI study of error monitoring in Montessori and traditionally-schooled children

Solange Denervaud, Eleonora Fornari, … David Sander

Neural alignment predicts learning outcomes in students taking an introduction to computer science course

Meir Meshulam, Liat Hasenfratz, … Uri Hasson

Introduction

Metacognition is defined as “thinking about thinking” or the ability to monitor and control one’s cognitive processes 1 and plays an important role in learning and education 2 , 3 , 4 . For instance, high performers tend to present better metacognitive abilities (especially control) than low performers in diverse educational activities 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 . Recently, there has been a lot of progress in studying the neural mechanisms of metacognition 10 , 11 , yet it is unclear at this point how these results may inform educational sciences or interventions. Given the potential benefits of metacognition, it is important to get a better understanding of how metacognition works and of how training can be useful.

The interest in bridging cognitive neuroscience and educational practices has increased in the past two decades, spanning a large number of studies grouped under the umbrella term of educational neuroscience 12 , 13 , 14 . With it, researchers have brought forward issues that are viewed as critical for the discipline to improve education. Recurring issues that may impede the relevance of neural insights for educational practices concern external validity 15 , 16 , theoretical discrepancies 17 and differences in terms of the domains of (meta)cognition operationalised (specific or general) 15 . This is important because, in recent years, brain research is starting to orient itself towards training metacognitive abilities that would translate into real-life benefits. However, direct links between metacognition in the brain and metacognition in domains such as education have still to be made. As for educational sciences, a large body of literature on metacognitive training is available, yet we still need clear insights about what works and why. While studies suggest that training metacognitive abilities results in higher academic achievement 18 , other interventions show mixed results 19 , 20 . Moreover, little is known about the long-term effects of, or transfer effects, of these interventions. A better understanding of the cognitive processes involved in metacognition and how they are expressed in the brain may provide insights in these regards.

Within cognitive neuroscience, there has been a long tradition of studying executive functions (EF), which are closely related to metacognitive processes 21 . Similar to metacognition, EF shows a positive relationship with learning at school. For instance, performance in laboratory tasks involving error monitoring, inhibition and working memory (i.e. processes that monitor and regulate cognition) are associated with academic achievement in pre-school children 22 . More recently, researchers have studied metacognition in terms of introspective judgements about performance in a task 10 . Although the neural correlates of such behaviour are being revealed 10 , 11 , little is known about how behaviour during such tasks relates to academic achievement.

Educational and cognitive neuroscientists study metacognition in different contexts using different methods. Indeed, while the latter investigate metacognition via behavioural task, the former mainly rely on introspective questionnaires. The extent to which these different operationalisations of metacognition match and reflect the same processes is unclear. As a result, the external validity of methodologies used in cognitive neuroscience is also unclear 16 . We argue that neurocognitive research on metacognition has a lot of potential to provide insights in mechanisms relevant in educational contexts, and that theoretical and methodological exchange between the two disciplines can benefit neuroscientific research in terms of ecological validity.

For these reasons, we investigate the literature through the lenses of external validity, theoretical discrepancies, domain generality and metacognitive training. Research on metacognition in cognitive neuroscience and educational sciences are reviewed separately. First, we investigate how metacognition is operationalised with respect to the common framework introduced by Nelson and Narens 23 (see Fig. 1 ). We then discuss the existing body of evidence regarding metacognitive training. Finally, we compare findings in both fields, highlight gaps and shortcomings, and propose avenues for research relying on crossovers of the two disciplines.

Meta-knowledge is characterised as the upward flow from object-level to meta-level. Meta-control is characterised as the downward flow from meta-level to object-level. Metacognition is therefore conceptualised as the bottom-up monitoring and top-down control of object-level processes. Adapted from Nelson and Narens’ cognitive psychology model of metacognition 23 .

In cognitive neuroscience, metacognition is divided into two main components 5 , 24 , which originate from the seminal works of Flavell on metamemory 25 , 26 . First, metacognitive knowledge (henceforth, meta-knowledge) is defined as the knowledge individuals have of their own cognitive processes and their ability to monitor and reflect on them. Second, metacognitive control (henceforth, meta-control) consists of someone’s self-regulatory mechanisms, such as planning and adapting behaviour based on outcomes 5 , 27 . Following Nelson and Narens’ definition 23 , meta-knowledge is characterised as the flow and processing of information from the object level to the meta-level, and meta-control as the flow from the meta-level to the object level 28 , 29 , 30 (Fig. 1 ). The object-level encompasses cognitive functions such as recognition and discrimination of objects, decision-making, semantic encoding, and spatial representation. On the meta-level, information originating from the object level is processed and top-down regulation on object-level functions is imposed 28 , 29 , 30 .

Educational researchers have mainly investigated metacognition through the lens of Self-Regulated Learning theory (SRL) 3 , 4 , which shares common conceptual roots with the theoretical framework used in cognitive neuroscience but varies from it in several ways 31 . First, SRL is constrained to learning activities, usually within educational settings. Second, metacognition is merely one of three components, with “motivation to learn” and “behavioural processes”, that enable individuals to learn in a self-directed manner 3 . In SRL, metacognition is defined as setting goals, planning, organising, self-monitoring and self-evaluating “at various points during the acquisition” 3 . The distinction between meta-knowledge and meta-control is not formally laid down although reference is often made to a “self-oriented feedback loop” describing the relationship between reflecting and regulating processes that resembles Nelson and Narens’ model (Fig. 1 ) 3 , 23 . In order to facilitate the comparison of operational definitions, we will refer to meta-knowledge in educational sciences when protocols operationalise self-awareness and knowledge of strategies, and to meta-control when they operationalise the selection and use of learning strategies and planning. For an in-depth discussion on metacognition and SRL, we refer to Dinsmore et al. 31 .

Metacognition in cognitive neuroscience

Operational definitions.

In cognitive neuroscience, research in metacognition is split into two tracks 32 . One track mainly studies meta-knowledge by investigating the neural basis of introspective judgements about one’s own cognition (i.e., metacognitive judgements), and meta-control with experiments involving cognitive offloading. In these experiments, subjects can perform actions such as set reminders, making notes and delegating tasks 33 , 34 , or report their desire for them 35 . Some research has investigated how metacognitive judgements can influence subsequent cognitive behaviour (i.e., a downward stream from the meta-level to the object level), but only one study so far has explored how this relationship is mapped in the brain 35 . In the other track, researchers investigate EF, also referred to as cognitive control 30 , 36 , which is closely related to metacognition. Note however that EF are often not framed in metacognitive terms in the literature 37 (but see ref. 30 ). For the sake of concision, we limit our review to operational definitions that have been used in neuroscientific studies.

Metacognitive judgements

Cognitive neuroscientists have been using paradigms in which subjects make judgements on how confident they are with regards to their learning of some given material 10 . These judgements are commonly referred to as metacognitive judgements , which can be viewed as a form of meta-knowledge (for reviews see Schwartz 38 and Nelson 39 ). Historically, researchers mostly resorted to paradigms known as Feelings of Knowing (FOK) 40 and Judgements of Learning (JOL) 41 . FOK reflect the belief of a subject to knowing the answer to a question or a problem and being able to recognise it from a list of alternatives, despite being unable to explicitly recall it 40 . Here, metacognitive judgement is thus made after retrieval attempt. In contrast, JOL are prospective judgements during learning of one’s ability to successfully recall an item on subsequent testing 41 .

More recently, cognitive neuroscientists have used paradigms in which subjects make retrospective metacognitive judgements on their performance in a two-alternative Forced Choice task (2-AFC) 42 . In 2-AFCs, subjects are asked to choose which of two presented options has the highest criterion value. Different domains can be involved, such as perception (e.g., visual or auditory) and memory. For example, subjects may be instructed to visually discriminate which one of two boxes contains more dots 43 , identify higher contrast Gabor patches 44 , or recognise novel words from words that were previously learned 45 (Fig. 2 ). The subjects engage in metacognitive judgements by rating how confident they are relative to their decision in the task. Based on their responses, one can evaluate a subject’s metacognitive sensitivity (the ability to discriminate one’s own correct and incorrect judgements), metacognitive bias (the overall level of confidence during a task), and metacognitive efficiency (the level of metacognitive sensitivity when controlling for task performance 46 ; Fig. 3 ). Note that sensitivity and bias are independent aspects of metacognition, meaning that two subjects may display the same levels of metacognitive sensitivity, but one may be biased towards high confidence while the other is biased towards low confidence. Because metacognitive sensitivity is affected by the difficulty of the task (one subject tends to display greater metacognitive sensitivity in easy tasks than difficult ones and different subjects may find a task more or less easy), metacognitive efficiency is an important measure as it allows researchers to compare metacognitive abilities between subjects and between domains. The most commonly used methods to assess metacognitive sensitivity during retrospective judgements are the receiver operating curve (ROC) and meta- d ′. 46 Both derive from signal detection theory (SDT) 47 which allows Type 1 sensitivity, or d’ ′ (how a subject can discriminate between stimulus alternatives, i.e. object-level processes) to be differentiated from metacognitive sensitivity (a judgement on the correctness of this decision) 48 . Importantly, only comparing meta- d ′ to d ′ seems to give reliable assessments metacognitive efficiency 49 . A ratio of 1 between meta- d’ ′ and d’ ′, indicates that a subject was perfectly able to discriminate between their correct and incorrect judgements. A ratio of 0.8 suggests that 80% of the task-related sensory evidence was available for the metacognitive judgements. Table 1 provides an overview of the different types of tasks and protocols with regards to the type of metacognitive process they operationalise. These operationalisations of meta-knowledge are used in combination with brain imaging methods (functional and structural magnetic resonance imaging; fMRI; MRI) to identify brain regions associated with metacognitive activity and metacognitive abilities 10 , 50 . Alternatively, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) can be used to temporarily deactivate chosen brain regions and test whether this affects metacognitive abilities in given tasks 51 , 52 .

a Visual perception task: subjects choose the box containing the most (randomly generated) dots. Subjects then rate their confidence in their decision. b Memory task: subjects learn a list of words. In the next screen, they have to identify which of two words shown was present on the list. The subjects then rate their confidence in their decision.

The red and blue curves represent the distribution of confidence ratings for incorrect and correct trials, respectively. A larger distance between the two curves denotes higher sensitivity. Displacement to the left and right denote biases towards low confidence (low metacognitive bias) and high confidence (high metacognitive bias), respectively (retrieved from Fig. 1 in Fleming and Lau 46 ). We repeat the disclaimer of the original authors that this figure is not a statistically accurate description of correct and incorrect responses, which are typically not normally distributed 46 , 47 .

A recent meta-analysis analysed 47 neuroimaging studies on metacognition and identified a domain-general network associated with high vs. low confidence ratings in both decision-making tasks (perception 2-AFC) and memory tasks (JOL, FOK) 11 . This network includes the medial and lateral prefrontal cortex (mPFC and lPFC, respectively), precuneus and insula. In contrast, the right anterior dorsolateral PFC (dlPFC) was specifically involved in decision-making tasks, and the bilateral parahippocampal cortex was specific to memory tasks. In addition, prospective judgements were associated with the posterior mPFC, left dlPFC and right insula, whereas retrospective judgements were associated with bilateral parahippocampal cortex and left inferior frontal gyrus. Finally, emerging evidence suggests a role of the right rostrolateral PFC (rlPFC) 53 , 54 , anterior PFC (aPFC) 44 , 45 , 55 , 56 , dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) 54 , 55 and precuneus 45 , 55 in metacognitive sensitivity (meta- d ′, ROC). In addition, several studies suggest that the aPFC relates to metacognition specifically in perception-related 2-AFC tasks, whereas the precuneus is engaged specifically in memory-related 2-AFC tasks 45 , 55 , 56 . This may suggest that metacognitive processes engage some regions in a domain-specific manner, while other regions are domain-general. For educational scientists, this could mean that some domains of metacognition may be more relevant for learning and, granted sufficient plasticity of the associated brain regions, that targeting them during interventions may show more substantial benefits. Note that rating one’s confidence and metacognitive sensitivity likely involve additional, peripheral cognitive processes instead of purely metacognitive ones. These regions are therefore associated with metacognition but not uniquely per se. Notably, a recent meta-analysis 50 suggests that domain-specific and domain-general signals may rather share common circuitry, but that their neural signature varies depending on the type of task or activity, showing that domain-generality in metacognition is complex and still needs to be better understood.

In terms of the role of metacognitive judgements on future behaviour, one study found that brain patterns associated with the desire for cognitive offloading (i.e., meta-control) partially overlap with those associated with meta-knowledge (metacognitive judgements of confidence), suggesting that meta-control is driven by either non-metacognitive, in addition to metacognitive, processes or by a combination of different domain-specific meta-knowledge processes 35 .

Executive function

In EF, processes such as error detection/monitoring and effort monitoring can be related to meta-knowledge while error correction, inhibitory control, and resource allocation can be related to meta-control 36 . To activate these processes, participants are asked to perform tasks in laboratory settings such as Flanker tasks, Stroop tasks, Demand Selection tasks and Motion Discrimination tasks (Fig. 4 ). Neural correlates of EF are investigated by having subjects perform such tasks while their brain activity is recorded with fMRI or electroencephalography (EEG). Additionally, patients with brain lesions can be tested against healthy participants to evaluate the functional role of the impaired regions 57 .

a Flanker task: subjects indicate the direction to which the arrow in the middle points. b Stroop task: subjects are presented with the name of colour printed in a colour that either matches or mismatches the name. Subjects are asked to give the name of the written colour or the printed colour. c Motion Discrimination task: subjects have to determine in which direction the dots are going with variating levels of noise. d Example of a Demand Selection task: in both options subjects have to switch between two tasks. Task one, subjects determine whether the number shown is higher or lower than 5. Task two, subjects determine whether the number is odd or even. The two options (low and high demand) differ in their degree of task switching, meaning the effort required. Subjects are allowed to switch between the two options. Note, the type of task is solely indicated by the colour of the number and that the subjects are not explicitly told about the difference in effort between the two options (retrieved from Fig. 1c in Froböse et al. 58 ).

In a review article on the neural basis of EF (in which they are defined as meta-control), Shimamura argues that a network of regions composed of the aPFC, ACC, ventrolateral PFC (vlPFC) and dlPFC is involved in the regulations of cognition 30 . These regions are not only interconnected but are also intricately connected to cortical and subcortical regions outside of the PFC. The vlPFC was shown to play an important role in “selecting and maintaining information in working memory”, whereas the dlPFC is involved in “manipulating and updating information in working memory” 30 . The ACC has been proposed to monitor cognitive conflict (e.g. in a Stroop task or a Flanker task), and the dlPFC to regulate it 58 , 59 . In particular, activity in the ACC in conflict monitoring (meta-knowledge) seems to contribute to control of cognition (meta-control) in the dlPFC 60 , 61 and to “bias behavioural decision-making toward cognitively efficient tasks and strategies” (p. 356) 62 . In a recent fMRI study, subjects performed a motion discrimination task (Fig. 4c ) 63 . After deciding on the direction of the motion, they were presented additional motion (i.e. post-decisional evidence) and then were asked to rate their confidence in their initial choice. The post-decisional evidence was encoded in the activity of the posterior medial frontal cortex (pMFC; meta-knowledge), while lateral aPFC (meta-control) modulated the impact of this evidence on subsequent confidence rating 63 . Finally, results from a meta-analysis study on cognitive control identified functional connectivity between the pMFC, associated with monitoring and informing other regions about the need for regulation, and the lPFC that would effectively regulate cognition 64 .

Online vs. offline metacognition

While the processes engaged during tasks such as those used in EF research can be considered as metacognitive in the sense that they are higher-order functions that monitor and control lower cognitive processes, scientists have argued that they are not functionally equivalent to metacognitive judgements 10 , 11 , 65 , 66 . Indeed, engaging in metacognitive judgements requires subjects to reflect on past or future activities. As such, metacognitive judgements can be considered as offline metacognitive processes. In contrast, high-order processes involved in decision-making tasks such as used in EF research are arguably largely made on the fly, or online , at a rapid pace and subjects do not need to reflect on their actions to perform them. Hence, we propose to explicitly distinguish online and offline processes. Other researchers have shared a similar view and some have proposed models for metacognition that make similar distinctions 65 , 66 , 67 , 68 . The functional difference between online and offline metacognition is supported by some evidence. For instance, event-related brain potential (ERP) studies suggest that error negativities are associated with error detection in general, whereas an increased error positivity specifically encodes error that subjects could report upon 69 , 70 . Furthermore, brain-imaging studies suggest that the MFC and ACC are involved in online meta-knowledge, while the aPFC and lPFC seem to be activated when subjects engage in more offline meta-knowledge and meta-control, respectively 63 , 71 , 72 . An overview of the different tasks can be found in Table 1 and a list of different studies on metacognition can be found in Supplementary Table 1 (organised in terms of the type of processes investigated, the protocols and brain measures used, along with the brain regions identified). Figure 5 illustrates the different brain regions associated with meta-knowledge and meta-control, distinguishing between what we consider to be online and offline processes. This distinction is often not made explicitly but it will be specifically helpful when building bridges between cognitive neuroscience and educational sciences.

The regions are divided into online meta-knowledge and meta-control, and offline meta-knowledge and meta-control following the distinctions introduced earlier. Some regions have been reported to be related to both offline and online processes and are therefore given a striped pattern.

Training metacognition

There are extensive accounts in the literature of efforts to improve EF components such as inhibitory control, attention shifting and working memory 22 . While working memory does not directly reflect metacognitive abilities, its training is often hypothesised to improve general cognitive abilities and academic achievement. However, most meta-analyses found that training methods lead only to weak, non-lasting effects on cognitive control 73 , 74 , 75 . One meta-analysis did find evidence of near-transfer following EF training in children (in particular working memory, inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility), but found no evidence of far-transfer 20 . According to this study, training on one component leads to improved abilities in that same component but not in other EF components. Regarding adults, however, one meta-analysis suggests that EF training in general and working memory training specifically may both lead to significant near- and far-transfer effects 76 . On a neural level, a meta-analysis showed that cognitive training resulted in decreased brain activity in brain regions associated with EF 77 . According to the authors, this indicates that “training interventions reduce demands on externally focused attention” (p. 193) 77 .

With regards to meta-knowledge, several studies have reported increased task-related metacognitive abilities after training. For example, researchers found that subjects who received feedback on their metacognitive judgements regarding a perceptual decision-making task displayed better metacognitive accuracy, not only in the trained task but also in an untrained memory task 78 . Related, Baird and colleagues 79 found that a two-week mindfulness meditation training lead to enhanced meta-knowledge in the memory domain, but not the perceptual domain. The authors link these results to evidence of increased grey matter density in the aPFC in meditation practitioners.

Research on metacognition in cognitive science has mainly been studied through the lens of metacognitive judgements and EF (specifically performance monitoring and cognitive control). Meta-knowledge is commonly activated in subjects by asking them to rate their confidence in having successfully performed a task. A distinction is made between metacognitive sensitivity, metacognitive bias and metacognitive efficacy. Monitoring and regulating processes in EF are mainly operationalised with behavioural tasks such as Flanker tasks, Stroop tasks, Motion Discrimination tasks and Demand Selection tasks. In addition, metacognitive judgements can be viewed as offline processes in that they require the subject to reflect on her cognition and develop meta-representations. In contrast, EF can be considered as mostly online metacognitive processes because monitoring and regulation mostly happen rapidly without the need for reflective thinking.

Although there is some evidence for domain specificity, other studies have suggested that there is a single network of regions involved in all meta-cognitive tasks, but differentially activated in different task contexts. Comparing research on meta-knowledge and meta-control also suggest that some regions play a crucial role in both knowledge and regulation (Fig. 5 ). We have also identified a specific set of regions that are involved in either offline or online meta-knowledge. The evidence in favour of metacognitive training, while mixed, is interesting. In particular, research on offline meta-knowledge training involving self-reflection and metacognitive accuracy has shown some promising results. The regions that show structural changes after training, were those that we earlier identified as being part of the metacognition network. EF training does seem to show far-transfer effects at least in adults, but the relevance for everyday life activity is still unclear.

One major limitation of current research in metacognition is ecological validity. It is unclear to what extent the operationalisations reviewed above reflect real-life metacognition. For instance, are people who can accurately judge their performance on a behavioural task also able to accurately assess how they performed during an exam? Are people with high levels of error regulation and inhibitory control able to learn more efficiently? Note that criticism on the ecological validity of neurocognitive operationalisations extends beyond metacognition research 16 . A solution for improving validity may be to compare operationalisations of metacognition in cognitive neuroscience with the ones in educational sciences, which have shown clear links with learning in formal education. This also applies to metacognitive training.

Metacognition in educational sciences

The most popular protocols used to measure metacognition in educational sciences are self-report questionnaires or interviews, learning journals and thinking-aloud protocols 31 , 80 . During interviews, subjects are asked to answer questions regarding hypothetical situations 81 . In learning journals, students write about their learning experience and their thoughts on learning 82 , 83 . In thinking-aloud protocols, subjects are asked to verbalise their thoughts while performing a problem-solving task 80 . Each of these instruments can be used to study meta-knowledge and meta-control. For instance, one of the most widely used questionnaires, the Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI) 42 , operationalises “Flavellian” metacognition and has dedicated scales for meta-knowledge and meta-control (also popular are the MSLQ 84 and LASSI 85 which operate under SRL). The meta-knowledge scale of the MAI operationalises knowledge of strategies (e.g., “ I am aware of what strategies I use when I study ”) and self-awareness (e.g., “ I am a good judge of how well I understand something ”); the meta-control scale operationalises planning (e.g., “ I set a goal before I begin a task ”) and use of learning strategies (e.g., “ I summarize what I’ve learned after I finish ”). Learning journals, self-report questionnaires and interviews involve offline metacognition. Thinking aloud, though not engaging the same degree self-reflection, also involves offline metacognition in the sense that online processes are verbalised, which necessitate offline processing (see Table 1 for an overview and Supplementary Table 2 for more details).

More recently, methodologies borrowed from cognitive neuroscience have been introduced to study EF in educational settings 22 , 86 . In particular, researchers used classic cognitive control tasks such as the Stroop task (for a meta-analysis 86 ). Most of the studied components are related to meta-control and not meta-knowledge. For instance, the BRIEF 87 is a questionnaire completed by parents and teachers which assesses different subdomains of EF: (1) inhibition, shifting, and emotional control which can be viewed as online metacognitive control, and (2) planning, organisation of materials, and monitoring, which can be viewed as offline meta-control 87 .

Assessment of metacognition is usually compared against metrics of academic performance such as grades or scores on designated tasks. A recent meta-analysis reported a weak correlation of self-report questionnaires and interviews with academic performance whereas think-aloud protocols correlated highly 88 . Offline meta-knowledge processes operationalised by learning journals were found to be positively associated with academic achievement when related to reflection on learning activities but negatively associated when related to reflection on learning materials, indicating that the type of reflection is important 89 . EF have been associated with abilities in mathematics (mainly) and reading comprehension 86 . However, the literature points towards contrary directions as to what specific EF component is involved in academic achievement. This may be due to the different groups that were studied, to different operationalisations or to different theoretical underpinnings for EF 86 . For instance, online and offline metacognitive processes, which are not systematically distinguished in the literature, may play different roles in academic achievement. Moreover, the bulk of research focussed on young children with few studies on adolescents 86 and EF may play a role at varying extents at different stages of life.

A critical question in educational sciences is that of the nature of the relationship between metacognition and academic achievement to understand whether learning at school can be enhanced by training metacognitive abilities. Does higher metacognition lead to higher academic achievement? Do these features evolve in parallel? Developmental research provides valuable insights into the formation of metacognitive abilities that can inform training designs in terms of what aspect of metacognition should be supported and the age at which interventions may yield the best results. First, meta-knowledge seems to emerge around the age of 5, meta-control around 8, and both develop over the years 90 , with evidence for the development of meta-knowledge into adolescence 91 . Furthermore, current theories propose that meta-knowledge abilities are initially highly domain-dependent and gradually become more domain-independent as knowledge and experience are acquired and linked between domains 32 . Meta-control is believed to evolve in a similar fashion 90 , 92 .

Common methods used to train offline metacognition are direct instruction of metacognition, metacognitive prompts and learning journals. In addition, research has been done on the use of (self-directed) feedback as a means to induce self-reflection in students, mainly in computer-supported settings 93 . Interestingly, learning journals appear to be used for both assessing and fostering metacognition. Metacognitive instruction consists of teaching learners’ strategies to “activate” their metacognition. Metacognitive prompts most often consist of text pieces that are sent at specific times and that trigger reflection (offline meta-knowledge) on learning behaviour in the form of a question, hint or reminder.

Meta-analyses have investigated the effects of direct metacognitive instruction on students’ use of learning strategies and academic outcomes 18 , 94 , 95 . Their findings show that metacognitive instruction can have a positive effect on learning abilities and achievement within a population ranging from primary schoolers to university students. In particular, interventions lead to the highest effect sizes when they both (i) instructed a combination of metacognitive strategies with an emphasis on planning strategies (offline meta-control) and (ii) “provided students with knowledge about strategies” (offline meta-knowledge) and “illustrated the benefits of applying the trained strategies, or even stimulated metacognitive reasoning” (p.114) 18 . The longer the duration of the intervention, the more effective they were. The strongest effects on academic performance were observed in the context of mathematics, followed by reading and writing.

While metacognitive prompts and learning journals make up the larger part of the literature on metacognitive training 96 , meta-analyses that specifically investigate their effectiveness have yet to be performed. Nonetheless, evidence suggests that such interventions can be successful. Researchers found that metacognitive prompts fostered the use of metacognitive strategies (offline meta-control) and that the combination of cognitive and metacognitive prompts improved learning outcomes 97 . Another experiment showed that students who received metacognitive prompts performed more metacognitive activities inside the learning environment and displayed better transfer performance immediately after the intervention 98 . A similar study using self-directed prompts showed enhanced transfer performance that was still observable 3 weeks after the intervention 99 .

Several studies suggest that learning journals can positively enhance metacognition. Subjects who kept a learning journal displayed stronger high meta-control and meta-knowledge on learning tasks and tended to reach higher academic outcomes 100 , 101 , 102 . However, how the learning journal is used seems to be critical; good instructions are crucial 97 , 103 , and subjects who simply summarise their learning activity benefit less from the intervention than subjects who reflect about their knowledge, learning and learning goals 104 . An overview of studies using learning journals and metacognitive prompts to train metacognition can be found in Supplementary Table 3 .

In recent years, educational neuroscience researchers have tried to determine whether training and improvements in EF can lead to learning facilitation and higher academic achievement. Training may consist of having students continually perform behavioural tasks either in the lab, at home, or at school. Current evidence in favour of training EF is mixed, with only anecdotal evidence for positive effects 105 . A meta-analysis did not show evidence for a causal relationship between EF and academic achievement 19 , but suggested that the relationship is bidirectional, meaning that the two are “mutually supportive” 106 .

A recent review article has identified several gaps and shortcoming in the literature on metacognitive training 96 . Overall, research in metacognitive training has been mainly invested in developing learners’ meta-control rather than meta-knowledge. Furthermore, most of the interventions were done in the context of science learning. Critically, there appears to be a lack of studies that employed randomised control designs, such that the effects of metacognitive training intervention are often difficult to evaluate. In addition, research overwhelmingly investigated metacognitive prompts and learning journals in adults 96 , while interventions on EF mainly focused on young children 22 . Lastly, meta-analyses evaluating the effectiveness of metacognitive training have so far focused on metacognitive instruction on children. There is thus a clear disbalance between the meta-analyses performed and the scope of the literature available.

An important caveat of educational sciences research is that metacognition is not typically framed in terms of online and offline metacognition. Therefore, it can be unclear whether protocols operationalise online or offline processes and whether interventions tend to benefit more online or offline metacognition. There is also confusion in terms of what processes qualify as EF and definitions of it vary substantially 86 . For instance, Clements and colleagues mention work on SRL to illustrate research in EF in relation to academic achievement but the two spawn from different lines of research, one rooted in metacognition and socio-cognitive theory 31 and the other in the cognitive (neuro)science of decision-making. In addition, the MSLQ, as discussed above, assesses offline metacognition along with other components relevant to SRL, whereas EF can be mainly understood as online metacognition (see Table 1 ), which on the neural level may rely on different circuitry.

Investigating offline metacognition tends to be carried out in school settings whereas evaluating EF (e.g., Stroop task, and BRIEF) is performed in the lab. Common to all protocols for offline metacognition is that they consist of a form of self-report from the learner, either during the learning activity (thinking-aloud protocols) or after the learning activity (questionnaires, interviews and learning journals). Questionnaires are popular protocols due to how easy they are to administer but have been criticised to provide biased evaluations of metacognitive abilities. In contrast, learning journals evaluate the degree to which learners engage in reflective thinking and may therefore be less prone to bias. Lastly, it is unclear to what extent thinking-aloud protocols are sensitive to online metacognitive processes, such as on-the-fly error correction and effort regulation. The strength of the relationship between metacognitive abilities and academic achievement varies depending on how metacognition is operationalised. Self-report questionnaires and interviews are weakly related to achievement whereas thinking-aloud protocols and EF are strongly related to it.

Based on the well-documented relationship between metacognition and academic achievement, educational scientists hypothesised that fostering metacognition may improve learning and academic achievement, and thus performed metacognitive training interventions. The most prevalent training protocols are direct metacognitive instruction, learning journals, and metacognitive prompts, which aim to induce and foster offline metacognitive processes such as self-reflection, planning and selecting learning strategies. In addition, researchers have investigated whether training EF, either through tasks or embedded in the curriculum, results in higher academic proficiency and achievement. While a large body of evidence suggests that metacognitive instruction, learning journals and metacognitive prompts can successfully improve academic achievement, interventions designed around EF training show mixed results. Future research investigating EF training in different age categories may clarify this situation. These various degrees of success of interventions may indicate that offline metacognition is more easily trainable than online metacognition and plays a more important role in educational settings. Investigating the effects of different methods, offline and online, on the neural level, may provide researchers with insights into the trainability of different metacognitive processes.

In this article, we reviewed the literature on metacognition in educational sciences and cognitive neuroscience with the aim to investigate gaps in current research and propose ways to address them through the exchange of insights between the two disciplines and interdisciplinary approaches. The main aspects analysed were operational definitions of metacognition and metacognitive training, through the lens of metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive control. Our review also highlighted an additional construct in the form of the distinction between online metacognition (on the fly and largely automatic) and offline metacognition (slower, reflective and requiring meta-representations). In cognitive neuroscience, research has focused on metacognitive judgements (mainly offline) and EF (mainly online). Metacognition is operationalised with tasks carried out in the lab and are mapped onto brain functions. In contrast, research in educational sciences typically measures metacognition in the context of learning activities, mostly in schools and universities. More recently, EF has been studied in educational settings to investigate its role in academic achievement and whether training it may benefit learning. Evidence on the latter is however mixed. Regarding metacognitive training in general, evidence from both disciplines suggests that interventions fostering learners’ self-reflection and knowledge of their learning behaviour (i.e., offline meta-knowledge) may best benefit them and increase academic achievement.

We focused on four aspects of research that could benefit from an interdisciplinary approach between the two areas: (i) validity and reliability of research protocols, (ii) under-researched dimensions of metacognition, (iii) metacognitive training, and (iv) domain-specificity vs. domain generality of metacognitive abilities. To tackle these issue, we propose four avenues for integrated research: (i) investigate the degree to which different protocols relate to similar or different metacognitive constructs, (ii) implement designs and perform experiments to identify neural substrates necessary for offline meta-control by for example borrowing protocols used in educational sciences, (iii) study the effects of (offline) meta-knowledge training on the brain, and (iv) perform developmental research in the metacognitive brain and compare it with the existing developmental literature in educational sciences regarding the domain-generality of metacognitive processes and metacognitive abilities.

First, neurocognitive research on metacognitive judgements has developed robust operationalisations of offline meta-knowledge. However, these operationalisations often consist of specific tasks (e.g., 2-AFC) carried out in the lab. These tasks are often very narrow and do not resemble the challenges and complexities of behaviours associated with learning in schools and universities. Thus, one may question to what extent they reflect real-life metacognition, and to what extent protocols developed in educational sciences and cognitive neuroscience actually operationalise the same components of metacognition. We propose that comparing different protocols from both disciplines that are, a priori, operationalising the same types of metacognitive processes can help evaluate the ecological validity of protocols used in cognitive neuroscience, and allow for more holistic assessments of metacognition, provided that it is clear which protocol assesses which construct. Degrees of correlation between different protocols, within and between disciplines, may allow researchers to assess to what extent they reflect the same metacognitive constructs and also identify what protocols are most appropriate to study a specific construct. For example, a relation between meta- d ′ metacognitive sensitivity in a 2-AFC task and the meta-knowledge subscale of the MAI, would provide external validity to the former. Moreover, educational scientists would be provided with bias-free tools to assess metacognition. These tools may enable researchers to further investigate to what extent metacognitive bias, sensitivity and efficiency each play a role in education settings. In contrast, a low correlation may highlight a difference in domain between the two measures of metacognition. For instance, metacognitive judgements in brain research are made in isolated behaviour, and meta-d’ can thus be viewed to reflect “local” metacognitive sensitivity. It is also unclear to what extent processes involved in these decision-making tasks cover those taking place in a learning environment. When answering self-reported questionnaires, however, subjects make metacognitive judgements on a large set of (learning) activities, and the measures may thus resemble more “global” or domain-general metacognitive sensitivity. In addition, learners in educational settings tend to receive feedback — immediate or delayed — on their learning activities and performance, which is generally not the case for cognitive neuroscience protocols. Therefore, investigating metacognitive judgements in the presence of performance or social feedback may allow researchers to better understand the metacognitive processes at play in educational settings. Devising a global measure of metacognition in the lab by aggregating subjects’ metacognitive abilities in different domains or investigating to what extent local metacognition may affect global metacognition could improve ecological validity significantly. By investigating the neural correlates of educational measures of metacognition, researchers may be able to better understand to what extent the constructs studied in the two disciplines are related. It is indeed possible that, though weakly correlated, the meta-knowledge scale of the MAI and meta-d’ share a common neural basis.

Second, our review highlights gaps in the literature of both disciplines regarding the research of certain types of metacognitive processes. There is a lack of research in offline meta-control (or strategic regulation of cognition) in neuroscience, whereas this construct is widely studied in educational sciences. More specifically, while there exists research on EF related to planning (e.g. 107 ), common experimental designs make it hard to disentangle online from offline metacognitive processes. A few studies have implemented subject reports (e.g., awareness of error or desire for reminders) to pin-point the neural substrates specifically involved in offline meta-control and the current evidence points at a role of the lPFC. More research implementing similar designs may clarify this construct. Alternatively, researchers may exploit educational sciences protocols, such as self-report questionnaires, learning journals, metacognitive prompts and feedback to investigate offline meta-control processes in the brain and their relation to academic proficiency and achievement.

Third, there is only one study known to us on the training of meta-knowledge in the lab 78 . In contrast, meta-knowledge training in educational sciences have been widely studied, in particular with metacognitive prompts and learning journals, although a systematic review would be needed to identify the benefits for learning. Relative to cognitive neuroscience, studies suggest that offline meta-knowledge trained in and outside the lab (i.e., metacognitive judgements and meditation, respectively) transfer to meta-knowledge in other lab tasks. The case of meditation is particularly interesting since meditation has been demonstrated to beneficiate varied aspects of everyday life 108 . Given its importance for efficient regulation of cognition, training (offline) meta-knowledge may present the largest benefits to academic achievement. Hence, it is important to investigate development in the brain relative to meta-knowledge training. Evidence on metacognitive training in educational sciences tends to suggest that offline metacognition is more “plastic” and may therefore benefit learning more than online metacognition. Furthermore, it is important to have a good understanding of the developmental trajectory of metacognitive abilities — not only on a behavioural level but also on a neural level — to identify critical periods for successful training. Doing so would also allow researchers to investigate the potential differences in terms of plasticity that we mention above. Currently, the developmental trajectory of metacognition is under-studied in cognitive neuroscience with only one study that found an overlap between the neural correlates of metacognition in adults and children 109 . On a side note, future research could explore the potential role of genetic factors in metacognitive abilities to better understand to what extent and under what constraints they can be trained.

Fourth, domain-specific and domain-general aspects of metacognitive processes should be further investigated. Educational scientists have studied the development of metacognition in learners and have concluded that metacognitive abilities are domain-specific at the beginning (meaning that their quality depends on the type of learning activity, like mathematics vs. writing) and progressively evolve towards domain-general abilities as knowledge and expertise increase. Similarly, neurocognitive evidence points towards a common network for (offline) metacognitive knowledge which engages the different regions at varying degrees depending on the domain of the activity (i.e., perception, memory, etc.). Investigating this network from a developmental perspective and comparing findings with the existing behavioural literature may improve our understanding of the metacognitive brain and link the two bodies of evidence. It may also enable researchers to identify stages of life more suitable for certain types of metacognitive intervention.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the University of Amsterdam for supporting this research through the Interdisciplinary Doctorate Agreement grant. W.v.d.B. is further supported by the Jacobs Foundation, European Research Council (grant no. ERC-2018-StG-803338), the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant no. DiGYMATEX-870578), and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (grant no. NWO-VIDI 016.Vidi.185.068).

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Fleur, D.S., Bredeweg, B. & van den Bos, W. Metacognition: ideas and insights from neuro- and educational sciences. npj Sci. Learn. 6 , 13 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-021-00089-5

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61 intriguing psychology research topics to explore

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11 January 2024

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Brittany Ferri, PhD, OTR/L

Psychology is an incredibly diverse, critical, and ever-changing area of study in the medical and health industries. Because of this, it’s a common area of study for students and healthcare professionals.

We’re walking you through picking the perfect topic for your upcoming paper or study. Keep reading for plenty of example topics to pique your interest and curiosity.

How to choose a psychology research topic

Exploring a psychology-based topic for your research project? You need to pick a specific area of interest to collect compelling data.

Use these tips to help you narrow down which psychology topics to research:

Focus on a particular area of psychology

The most effective psychological research focuses on a smaller, niche concept or disorder within the scope of a study.

Psychology is a broad and fascinating area of science, including everything from diagnosed mental health disorders to sports performance mindset assessments.

This gives you plenty of different avenues to explore. Having a hard time choosing? Check out our list of 61 ideas further down in this article to get started.

Read the latest clinical studies

Once you’ve picked a more niche topic to explore, you need to do your due diligence and explore other research projects on the same topic.

This practice will help you learn more about your chosen topic, ask more specific questions, and avoid covering existing projects.

For the best results, we recommend creating a research folder of associated published papers to reference throughout your project. This makes it much easier to cite direct references and find inspiration down the line.

Find a topic you enjoy and ask questions

Once you’ve spent time researching and collecting references for your study, you finally get to explore.

Whether this research project is for work, school, or just for fun, having a passion for your research will make the project much more enjoyable. (Trust us, there will be times when that is the only thing that keeps you going.)

Now you’ve decided on the topic, ask more nuanced questions you might want to explore.

If you can, pick the direction that interests you the most to make the research process much more enjoyable.

61 psychology topics to research in 2024

Need some extra help starting your psychology research project on the right foot? Explore our list of 61 cutting-edge, in-demand psychology research topics to use as a starting point for your research journey.

Psychology research topics for university students

As a university student, it can be hard to pick a research topic that fits the scope of your classes and is still compelling and unique.

Here are a few exciting topics we recommend exploring for your next assigned research project:

Mental health in post-secondary students

Seeking post-secondary education is a stressful and overwhelming experience for most students, making this topic a great choice to explore for your in-class research paper.

Examples of post-secondary mental health research topics include:

Student mental health status during exam season

Mental health disorder prevalence based on study major

The impact of chronic school stress on overall quality of life

The impacts of cyberbullying

Cyberbullying can occur at all ages, starting as early as elementary school and carrying through into professional workplaces.

Examples of cyberbullying-based research topics you can study include:

The impact of cyberbullying on self-esteem

Common reasons people engage in cyberbullying

Cyberbullying themes and commonly used terms

Cyberbullying habits in children vs. adults

The long-term effects of cyberbullying

Clinical psychology research topics

If you’re looking to take a more clinical approach to your next project, here are a few topics that involve direct patient assessment for you to consider:

Chronic pain and mental health

Living with chronic pain dramatically impacts every aspect of a person’s life, including their mental and emotional health.

Here are a few examples of in-demand pain-related psychology research topics:

The connection between diabetic neuropathy and depression

Neurological pain and its connection to mental health disorders

Efficacy of meditation and mindfulness for pain management

The long-term effects of insomnia

Insomnia is where you have difficulty falling or staying asleep. It’s a common health concern that impacts millions of people worldwide.

This is an excellent topic because insomnia can have a variety of causes, offering many research possibilities.

Here are a few compelling psychology research topics about insomnia you could investigate:

The prevalence of insomnia based on age, gender, and ethnicity

Insomnia and its impact on workplace productivity

The connection between insomnia and mental health disorders

Efficacy and use of melatonin supplements for insomnia

The risks and benefits of prescription insomnia medications

Lifestyle options for managing insomnia symptoms

The efficacy of mental health treatment options

Management and treatment of mental health conditions is an ever-changing area of study. If you can witness or participate in mental health therapies, this can make a great research project.

Examples of mental health treatment-related psychology research topics include:

The efficacy of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for patients with severe anxiety

The benefits and drawbacks of group vs. individual therapy sessions

Music therapy for mental health disorders

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) for patients with depression

Controversial psychology research paper topics

If you are looking to explore a more cutting-edge or modern psychology topic, you can delve into a variety of controversial and topical options:

The impact of social media and digital platforms

Ever since access to internet forums and video games became more commonplace, there’s been growing concern about the impact these digital platforms have on mental health.

Examples of social media and video game-related psychology research topics include:

The effect of edited images on self-confidence

How social media platforms impact social behavior

Video games and their impact on teenage anger and violence

Digital communication and the rapid spread of misinformation

The development of digital friendships

Psychotropic medications for mental health

In recent years, the interest in using psychoactive medications to treat and manage health conditions has increased despite their inherently controversial nature.

Examples of psychotropic medication-related research topics include:

The risks and benefits of using psilocybin mushrooms for managing anxiety

The impact of marijuana on early-onset psychosis

Childhood marijuana use and related prevalence of mental health conditions

Ketamine and its use for complex PTSD (C-PTSD) symptom management

The effect of long-term psychedelic use and mental health conditions

Mental health disorder research topics

As one of the most popular subsections of psychology, studying mental health disorders and how they impact quality of life is an essential and impactful area of research.

While studies in these areas are common, there’s always room for additional exploration, including the following hot-button topics:

Anxiety and depression disorders

Anxiety and depression are well-known and heavily researched mental health disorders.

Despite this, we still don’t know many things about these conditions, making them great candidates for psychology research projects:

Social anxiety and its connection to chronic loneliness

C-PTSD symptoms and causes

The development of phobias

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) behaviors and symptoms

Depression triggers and causes

Self-care tools and resources for depression

The prevalence of anxiety and depression in particular age groups or geographic areas

Bipolar disorder

Bipolar disorder is a complex and multi-faceted area of psychology research.

Use your research skills to learn more about this condition and its impact by choosing any of the following topics:

Early signs of bipolar disorder

The incidence of bipolar disorder in young adults

The efficacy of existing bipolar treatment options

Bipolar medication side effects

Cognitive behavioral therapy for people with bipolar

Schizoaffective disorder

Schizoaffective disorder is often stigmatized, and less common mental health disorders are a hotbed for new and exciting research.

Here are a few examples of interesting research topics related to this mental health disorder:

The prevalence of schizoaffective disorder by certain age groups or geographic locations

Risk factors for developing schizoaffective disorder

The prevalence and content of auditory and visual hallucinations

Alternative therapies for schizoaffective disorder

Societal and systematic psychology research topics

Modern society’s impact is deeply enmeshed in our mental and emotional health on a personal and community level.

Here are a few examples of societal and systemic psychology research topics to explore in more detail:

Access to mental health services

While mental health awareness has risen over the past few decades, access to quality mental health treatment and resources is still not equitable.

This can significantly impact the severity of a person’s mental health symptoms, which can result in worse health outcomes if left untreated.

Explore this crucial issue and provide information about the need for improved mental health resource access by studying any of the following topics:

Rural vs. urban access to mental health resources

Access to crisis lines by location

Wait times for emergency mental health services

Inequities in mental health access based on income and location

Insurance coverage for mental health services

Systemic racism and mental health

Societal systems and the prevalence of systemic racism heavily impact every aspect of a person’s overall health.

Researching these topics draws attention to existing problems and contributes valuable insights into ways to improve access to care moving forward.

Examples of systemic racism-related psychology research topics include:

Access to mental health resources based on race

The prevalence of BIPOC mental health therapists in a chosen area

The impact of systemic racism on mental health and self-worth

Racism training for mental health workers

The prevalence of mental health disorders in discriminated groups

LGBTQIA+ mental health concerns

Research about LGBTQIA+ people and their mental health needs is a unique area of study to explore for your next research project. It’s a commonly overlooked and underserved community.

Examples of LGBTQIA+ psychology research topics to consider include:

Mental health supports for queer teens and children

The impact of queer safe spaces on mental health

The prevalence of mental health disorders in the LGBTQIA+ community

The benefits of queer mentorship and found family

Substance misuse in LQBTQIA+ youth and adults

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129 Cognitive Psychology Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best cognitive psychology topic ideas & essay examples, ⭐ most interesting cognitive psychology topics to write about, 📌 simple & easy cognitive psychology essay titles, 👍 good essay topics on cognitive psychology, ❓ cognitive psychology research questions.

Language in Cognitive Psychology Adult people can preserve 50,000 words of their first language and thousands of words of the second language in the form of lexicons.
Attention Regarding Cognitive Psychology That a person only pays attention to the stimulus they are interested in and ignore the rest of the stimuli. The study of attention in cognitive psychology is not a new phenomenon. We will write a custom essay specifically for you by our professional experts 808 writers online Learn More
Cognitive Processes – Psychology As a result, memory is seen to be the storage of, and process of recalling what individuals have learned or experienced in the environment.
Modern Cognitive Psychology Renaissance philosophers of the seventeenth century attempted to use graphical representations to demonstrate the structure and operations of the human brain.
Noam Chomsky’s Contribution to Cognitive Psychology Skinner’s initial assumption was that the language is solely a learned behavior, and thus is a set of functional responses to different phenomena. Besides, some progress in evolutionary psychology was possible thanks to the results […]
Cognitive Psychology – A Concept of Attention To illustrate this, when an individual is at the railway station to meet one’s relative, he or she is seeing the faces of many passengers from the train in which the person is going to […]
Definition of Cognitive Psychology The cognitive theory has been found to be a blend of the human and behavioral theories. Past research shows that the origin of cognitive psychology is in the behavior of a human being.
Structuralism, Functionalism and Cognitive Theory in Psychology This was done by Ferdinand de Saussure, the French psychologists firmly believed that the theory of Structuralism was not restricted to linguistics alone and later this theory was also applied to various other subjects. Structuralism […]
Jean Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development – Psychology From birth to about the age of two years, a child goes through the sensorimotor phase of development. In addition, it is possible for some children to demonstrate the overlapping characteristics of the bordering stages […]
Decision-Making in Cognitive Psychology Any decision-making situation requires a definition of the problem, identification of criteria, assignment of accurate weight to criteria according to preferences, knowledge of the alternatives, assessment of each alternative based on the criteria, and finally, […]
Cognitive Psychology Definition and Concept These methods have been used by psychologists to determine the functionality of the human brain and account for some of the mental processes behind human behavior. It is through studying behavior that psychologists have been […]
Theories of Psychology: Behavioral, Cognitive, Developmental Different theories of psychology have been unveiled from the 20th century. These include behavioral, cognitive, developmental, as well as social psychology theories.
Retrieval Learning in Cognitive Psychology Despite alternative learning strategies and existing limitations to retrieval learning, cognitive psychologists insist on the superiority of retrieval learning over passive restudying in facilitating long-term learning among students.
Cognitive Psychology: The Effects of Memory Conformity The experiment’s control conditions did not allow the witnesses to discuss the event seen in the videos, while in the other condition, the witnesses were encouraged to discuss the event.
Application of Cognitive Psychology In conclusion, cognitive learning theories that stem from psychologists’ understanding of human development allow society to significantly improve its education systems and boost the process of knowledge accumulation.
Cognitive Psychology and Its Implications It is in this stage that a child can develop reasons for the causes and effects of everything in the universe.
Cognitive Psychology and Attention Deficit Disorder On top of the difficulties in regulating alertness and attention, many individuals with ADD complain of inabilities to sustain effort for duties.
Cognitive Science: Psychology and Philosophy Many topics that are discussed by the philosophers in psychology are the ones that arise because of the recognition that the philosophers have in cognitive sciences.
Goals of Cognitive Neuropsychology In particular, it is the study of cognitive effects of neurological illness or brain injury with an aim of inferring normal functioning models of the brain.
Branch of Psychology Which Called Cognitive Psychology Although psychologists have been studying human behavior and thought processes for a long time the area of cognitive psychology is fairly recent to the field and the most significant year for the development of cognitive […]
Cognitive Psychology: Endel Tulving’s Study The experiment reported in this paper has been carried out in order to find out how the implicit learning works and how it manifests itself in the performance of the experiment participants over the number […]
Cognitive Psychology: Term Definition The theory of Gestalt psychology combines the mind and brain and follows the principle that the whole differs form the sum of its parts.
Cognitive Psychology: The Science of How We Think Learning of cognitive psychology in schools can have a wide impact on the students since it’s through cognitive psychology that we are in a position to know the nature of our emotions, feelings, thoughts, and […]
Cognitive Psychology: Phineas Gage’s Brain Injury The study of the sensory systems that is the vision led to the discovery that a lot of the processing was carried out by the system itself.
Cognitive Psychology: Creativity: A Social Approach It is the same creative power that caused the Western Union to lose a golden chance to be the patent holder of Bell’s invention.
Cognitive Psychology: Culture and Cognition Information in such a changing environment is on the increase as people try to fit in and be accommodated by the changes.
Cognitive Psychology: Intelligence and Wisdom Intelligence is the system of evaluating units of knowledge; it is consistently reshuffling knowledge, it is the power of the mind-controlled by the brain, it uses the senses to control actions and reactions, it is […]
Cognitive Psychology: Brain Processes Information The study of the ways in which the brain processes information is called cognitive psychology. Behavioral observation is an important tool in the arsenal of cognitive psychology research.
Developmental Psychology: Cognitive Theories For Piaget the human psyche was the only evolutionary product that performed the function of balancing the human being with the world, and was and instrument of adaptation to the environment.
Cognitive Psychology and Learning The questions on the problem of getting the children to work and unify the class is definitely related to the matter of individual approach to every child, and of course concerning the matters of remembering […]
Cognitive Psychology: Linguistic Structure in Language Processing Language cognition is always pedagogic and there are basically two reasons for not pressing for the pedagogic turn in the study of language and cognition.
Applied Cognitive Psychology in the Classroom Since the 20th century, there has been a growing interest in the issue of cognitive psychology and the functioning of the human brain.
Cognitive Psychology: Memory and Interferences For instance, I remember how to organize words in the right way to form a sentence and I know the capitals of countries.
Cognitive Psychology: Clarkston Industries Company’ Case This is one of the arguments that she can put forward to justify her decision about Jack’s status in the company.
Psychology: Intuition as a Cognitive Bias Such enthusiasm was erroneous, and since I caught that bias, I have tried not to rely on the regularity of cases.
Educational Psychology: Cognitive Development in Children Throughout the process of learning, I have paid close attention to the peculiarities of Piaget’s theory and realized the cornerstones of human development.
Cognitive Psychology: Scientists Contributions Wundt’s published the groundbreaking book “Principles of Physiological Psychology” in 1879 and he was the first person to refer to psychology as a unique field of study.
Cognitive Perception Processes – Psychology In the context of the reading process, the specified element can be defined as the acquisition of sensory information and the relation of the information acquired to the phenomena and concepts that they denote.
Cognitive Psychology Development Important Milestones This model is based on the assumption that the functioning of the brain can be compared to the work of a computer.
Cognitive Functions of the Brain – Psychology The case of Phineas Gage attracts the attention of many scientists because it illustrates the effects of the severe injury on the cognitive processes of an individual. One can also refer to the evidence indicating […]
Cognitive Psychology Evolution Aspects This essay is also going to study the interdisciplinary perspective of cognition and the history cognitive psychology. The evolutionary approach explicates the forces of selection that was dominant in our ancestors and the forces have […]
Cognitive Psychology Definition Concepts The struggle to adopt new and substantive theories to explain cognitive psychology continued even up to the end of the 19th century.
Theory of Cognitive Development – Psychology The sensorimotor stage is the first phase of cognitive development. The cognitive development theory by Piaget is a clear indication of how children swiftly transform themselves from one stage to another.
Evolution of Cognitive Psychology The study of the mind contributed to the publication of the first textbook in cognitive psychology by Ulric Neisser, and the emergence of a group of scientists interested in investigating human perception, thinking, attention, language, […]
Cognitive Psychology – Decision Making Sijun et al.points to the argument that in a perfectly static world the necessity of making a decision would not be necessary due to the unchanging nature of both people and the environment, however, since […]
Concept of Cognitive Development in Psychology Various studies show that the human memory develops and changes with the age of an individual. The physical growth of the brain affects the behavioral changes throughout the growth process.
Cognitive Psychology and Application to Learning Instruction The theory suggests that the sum of the parts interferes with the visual recognition of figures in individuals since the whole would always take precedence, as compared to the simple contours and arcs.
Social Psychology: Cognitive Dissonance As a result of such a viewpoint, people from minorities are often cast with a significant level of suspicion which limits their capacity to be employed in some areas due to the manner in which […]
Cognitive Psychology on Driving and Phone Usage For this reason, it is quite difficult to multitask when the activities involved are driving and talking on the phone. Holding a phone when driving may cause the driver to use only one hand for […]
Humanist Psychology, Cognitive Psychology and Positive Psychology Proponents of the humanist psychology perceived cognitive psychology as a fragmented part of the human psychology and therefore they developed the concept of humanist psychology to be more holistic and analytical of the human psychology […]
Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience There is an eminent application of scientific metaphors in describing the functioning of the human brain. There are outstanding metaphors and analogies, which are being used to explain the functioning of the human brain.
How Do the Research Findings of Cognitive, Developmental and Social Psychology Apply to Real World Issues? Research in development psychology has also aided in predicting interpersonal relationships and moral reasoning with regard to the stage of development that a person is in.
Cognitive Psychology as a Neurological Framework
History Of Educational Psychology – Emergence Of Cognitive Psychology
The Cognitive Psychology Behind the Movie 21 Jump Street
Cognitive Psychology and the Transference of Knowledge During Problem Solving
Science of Cognitive Psychology and Analytical Psychology
Historical Milestones in Cognitive Psychology
Cognitive Psychology And Its Effects On The Brain
Physical and Cognitive Changes during Different Stages of Development in Cognitive Psychology
Behaviorism vs. Cognitive Psychology
Cognitive Psychology of Science: Recent Research and Its Implications
Cognitive Psychology and Language Development
The Evolution Of Cognitive Psychology
Summary Of Cognitive Psychology, Perception, Attention, Pattern Recognition, Consciousness And Memory
Jean Piaget and Cognitive Psychology
An Evaluation of the Contributions of Cognitive Psychology
Historical Development Of The Field Of Cognitive Psychology
Theories and Experiments About Cognitive Psychology
Some Implications Of Cognitive Psychology For Risk Regulation
Intelligence, Cognitive, And Cognitive Psychology
Cognitive Psychology’s Perspective on Physical and Mental Changes During the Period of Development
Cognitive Psychology Language and Perceptual Devlopment
Cognitive Psychology and the View of Distinctness
Cognitive Psychology: Prototype and Causal Based Theories of Category Formation
An Analysis of Development Learning and Cognitive Psychology
Chomsky ‘s Influence On Cognitive Psychology
Category Formation, Causal Theories, and Cognitive Psychology
How Cognitive Psychology Can Be Used To Understand The Body And Mind Processes
Contribution of Cognitive psychology to the Study of Behavior
Interdisciplinary Perspectives in Cognitive Psychology
Influences In The Discipline Of Cognitive Psychology
To What Extent Did the Legacy of Behaviourism Shape the Development of Cognitive Psychology
Cognitive Psychology and Views of Nature and Madness
The Effect Of Color On Visual Perception Of Cognitive Psychology
Academic and Career Objectives in Neuro-Cognitive Psychology
Elizabeth Loftus: An Expert In Cognitive Psychology
The Theories, Concepts and Models in Cognitive Psychology Is Visible in Our Everyday Lives
Creativity and Cognitive Psychology
Problem Solving, Knowledge Transference, and Cognitive Psychology
The Development of Cognitive Psychology
Cognitive Psychology And Our Understanding Of Human Mind
Comparing Behaviorism And Cognitive Psychology
The Current State of Cognitive Psychology
Aspects of Cognitive Psychology
Fundamentals of Cognitive Psychology
Memory and Learning and Cognitive Psychology
Language and Cognitive Psychology
Connections Between Nature, Madness, and Cognitive Psychology
What Is Cognitive Psychology?
How Does Cognitive Psychology Affect Your Life?
What Was the State of Cognitive Psychology in 1967?
How Can Cognitive Psychology Be Used to Understand the Body and Mind Processes?
Can video games help children with special needs?
How Does Cognitive Psychology With Cognitive Restructuring Impact Rape Victims?
How Did Behaviorism Affect Research on the Mind?
Can Playing Video Games Improve Cognition?
How Has Children’s Attention Spans Changed For the Past Fifty Years?
Are Positive Emotions Direct Consequence of or Contributors to Happiness?
How Does Loss of Hearing and Dependency on Hearing Aids Impact Men and Women in the UK?
Does Talking To Oneself and Self-Counseling Affect Memory Retrieval?
How Does Culture and Social Support Impact People With Depression in the UK?
What Are the Effects of Attention Deficit or Hyperactivity Disorder on the Development of a Child?
How Is Color Psychology Effective in Cognitive Development Studies?
What Is the Attention Span, and How to Measure It?
How Do Memories Affect the Behavior of Individuals?
What Is Critical Thinking, and How to Measure Its Ability in Cognitive Psychology?
Is Single Parenting Suitable for a Child’s Mental Development?
How Can Theories Relating to Cognitive Psychology Be Used in Marketing?
What Are Ethical Problems Related to Carrying Out Research Into Cognitive Psychology?
Can Cognitive Psychology Experiments Be Used to Measure the Critical Thinking Ability?
How Does Cognitive Psychology Explain Human Behavior?
Is Cognitive Perspective Nature or Nurture?
How Does Cognitive Psychology Affect Decision-Making?
What Are the Key Issues in Cognitive Psychology?
How Does Cognitive Development Affect Learning?
Is the Cognitive Approach Free Will or Determinism?
How Did Cognitive Psychology Develop?
What Are the Most Common Cognitive Biases?
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Research Topics & Ideas: Psychology

100+ Psychology Topic Ideas To Fast-Track Your Research

If you’re starting out on the dissertation or thesis journey for your psychology degree, the very first challenge you’ll face is finding a solid research topic . In this post, we’ll help get the topic ideation process started by providing a meaty list of research ideas, spanning a range of psychology sub-disciplines. We’ll also look at some examples from actual theses and dissertations to give you an idea of what these look like in the real world.

NB – This is just the start…

The topic ideation and evaluation process has multiple steps (which we’ll explain a little later). Therefore, it’s important to recognise that this post is only the first step in finding a high-quality psychology-centred research topic. To develop a research topic, you’ll need to identify a clear and convincing research gap , and a viable plan of action to fill that gap.

If this all sounds a bit intimidating, be sure to check out our free dissertation mini-course , which covers the process of writing a dissertation or thesis from A-Z. You can also sign up for our free webinar that explores how to find a high-quality research topic. Alternatively, if you’d like hands-on help, have a look at our 1-on-1 coaching service .

Overview: Psychology-Related Topics

How to find a research topic (video)
Behavioural psychology
Clinical psychology
Cognitive psychology
Developmental psychology
Educational psychology
Forensic psychology
Social psychology
Sports psychology
Examples of actual dissertation topics
Free Webinar : Topic Ideation 101
Where to get extra help

How To Find A Research Topic

In the video below, we explain how to find suitable research ideas (in psychology or any field), and how to then refine those into well-articulated potential topics for your dissertation or thesis. We also discuss a few important evaluation criteria to help you make the right choice for your project.

Below you’ll find a list of research ideas to get your thinking started. Please note that these research topic ideas are intentionally broad and generic, so you will need to refine them a fair deal using the techniques we discussed in the video above.

We’ve grouped the topic ideas based on a few popular areas of psychology to make it a little easier for you to find something in your particular field of interest. That said, there is naturally some overlap between topics, so keep this in mind.

Research Ideas: Behavioural Psychology

Cultural variation in behaviour and mental health of adolescents during a disaster: a case study
The impact of parental drug use and risky behaviour on early child development
The effects of video game violence on aggressive behaviour among teenage boys in school
The relationship between adverse childhood experiences and adult risk-seeking behaviour
The impact of physical exercise on anxiety and health-harming behaviour
The relationship between personality traits and addiction behaviour
The effects of reinforcement schedules on decision-making and associative learning
The effects of daily mindfulness practice on stress and anxiety in middle-aged women
The use of behavioural interventions in the treatment of eating disorders in poorer communities
Understanding implicit cognitive processes involved in the over-consumption of fast food
The use of cognitive behavioural therapy for alcohol addiction treatment
The impact of extensive technology use in children on long-term attention and focus
The impact of social media on self-destructive behaviour and poor mental health outcomes
Exploring the role of sleep and sleep deprivation on healthy behaviours

Research Ideas: Clinical Psychology

The use of mindfulness-based approaches in the treatment of anxiety disorders among college students
The use of technology in the delivery of psychological services in war-torn countries
The effectiveness of dialectical behaviour therapy for borderline personality disorder
The use of virtual reality technology in the treatment of phobias and PTSD among war veterans
The role of childhood adversity on adult mental health in immigrant populations in the USA
The role of genetics and epigenetics in the development of bipolar disorder in Pakistani women: an integrative review
The effectiveness of pharmacotherapy in the treatment of social anxiety among hikikomori in Japan
The perception of healthcare workers and patients on the use of teletherapy for the delivery of psychological services
The impact of social support on mental health outcomes among single parents.
The effectiveness of integrative therapeutic approaches in the treatment of schizophrenia
The effectiveness of trauma-focused therapies on post-traumatic growth in domestic abuse survivors
The role and use of cognitive-behavioural therapy for depression among first-generation students
The effectiveness of family therapy in addressing childhood trauma and depression
The impact of cultural mistrust on the diagnosis and treatment of mental health issues in culturally-diverse populations
The effectiveness of group therapy on post-traumatic stress symptoms among survivors of sexual assault

Research Topic Kickstarter - Need Help Finding A Research Topic?

Research Ideas: Cognitive Psychology

The impact of lifelong aerobic exercise on cognitive function in old age
The effects of evening screen use on cognitive development in preschool children
The impact of sleep deprivation on decision-making among graduate students
The use of neuroimaging to understand the neural basis of memory retrieval
The effect of conservative religious homes on social functioning in LGBT+ adolescents
The role of positive emotions in working memory among high school learners
The neural basis of decision-making and problem-solving during undergraduate statistic assessments
The neural basis of language processing among adults learning English as a second language
The role of technological tools in improving working memory in older adults
The role of attention in emotional face processing among adult males
The impact of depression on cognitive function during ageing The impact of daily meditation and mindfulness practice on cognitive function
The relationship between increased protein intake and improved cognitive function
The effects of stress on cognitive function among final-year learners

Research Ideas: Developmental Psychology

The impact of maternal affection on cognitive, social, and emotional development
The effects of parenting styles on children’s executive function
The impact of late-night screen use on child development
The role of digital play on child development outcomes
Exploring the impact of poverty on early child development in Brazil
The trauma-informed care as moderating the impact of trauma on child development
Evaluating the relationship between peer relationship quality and child social development
The impact of child-targeted media and advertising on child behavioural development
The role of parental attachment in child resilience
The moderating impact of culture on bullying and child social development
The impact of single-parenting on child development in India
The impact of early educational interventions on child socio-emotional development
The impact of digital technology use on adolescent development and mental health
The impact of socioeconomic status on child executive function
The role of genetics and epigenetics on child neurodevelopmental outcomes linked to depression

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Research Ideas: Educational Psychology

The relationship between self-regulated learning and academic performance in asynchronous versus synchronous learning environments
Exploring effective parental involvement strategies and their impact on student achievement
The role of intrinsic motivation in formative assessment in the classroom
The impact of classroom management and practice on student learning and behaviour
University students’ preference regarding online learning environments
The effects of gentrification on student achievement in traditionally poor neighbourhoods
The impact of teacher expectations and academic self-concept on K12 student mathematics performance
The use and effectiveness of game-based learning in a high school biology classroom
The impact of prejudice on the relationship between student motivation and academic performance among Black university students
The impact of culture on second language English student learning preferences
The effects of student self-efficacy and engagement on academic performance in secondary school mathematics
The role of metacognition in learning musicality in hip hop
The role of small group instruction on teacher efficacy and stress in early childhood education
The perception and use of multimedia among high school biology teachers in France
The use of augmented reality applications and its impact on student learning, motivation and attitude

Research Ideas: Forensic Psychology

The impact of trauma on the psychological functioning of police officers and first responders
Understanding cultural considerations during forensic psychological assessment and treatment of trauma
Ethical considerations of the use of AI in forensic psychology in the legal system
The psychological factors related to recidivism among white collar female offenders in the USA
The psychological factors related to false confessions among juveniles
Understanding the use of psychological assessment in the evaluation of eyewitness testimony in criminal courts in England
The impact of trauma on the reflective functioning of adult female sexual assault victims
The use and effectiveness of psychological interventions in reducing recidivism among non-violent criminals
The impact of domestic violence on the mental health and forensic evaluation of men
Exploring the ethical considerations and use of behavioural analysis in the study of criminal behaviour
The use and limitations of neuropsychological assessment in forensic evaluations
The use of social media forensics in evaluating criminal behaviour in violent crimes
The racialised use of psychological assessment in the evaluation of competency to stand trial in Canada
Exploring the use and availability of virtual reality technologies in forensic psychology in Spain
The impact of motivational interviewing-based interventions among criminalized drug users

Research Ideas: Social Psychology

The impact of prejudice and discrimination on social behaviour among African immigrants in South Africa
The impact of social networks on behaviour and well-being among young adult females
The effects of social identity on non-conformity in University students
The effects of group dynamics on risk-seeking behaviour in adult men
The impact of social media on the quality of interpersonal relationships among high school learners
The impact of parental emotional intelligence on pro-social behaviour in children and adolescents
The effects of conformity and deviance on social attitudes and behaviour during a global recession
The effects of Tik Tok on social comparison and self-esteem among teenage girls
Understanding gendered differences in social influence and algorithms on impulsive decision-making
The effects of social support on mental health among healthcare workers in the UK
The effects of gender roles on social behaviour among trans teens
The impact of perceived power and social status on the behaviour of social media influencers
The impact of social norms on prosocial behaviour among women
The effects of community participation on aggression and violence in middle-aged men
The impact of culture and gender on social behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic

Research Ideas: Sports Psychology

The moderating role of cultural factors on the relationship between mental health and sports performance in team sports
The role of mindfulness practice in addressing stress and anxiety in young national athletes
The relationship between team cohesion and performance in cricket teams
The effect of transformational leadership on female sports teams in Canada
The effect of positive self-talk on athletic performance and motivation among Olympic athletes
The use and perception of hypnosis in New Zealand team sports Understanding stress and burnout in University team athletes
The efficacy of personalised nutrition and diet on athletic performance among sprinters
Exploring mental preparation techniques and their effect on athletic motivation and resilience among team-sport athletes
Exploring the perception and understanding of goal-setting characteristics on athletic performance among team coaches
The effects of motivational feedback on the performance of female gymnasts
The perception and use of visualization and imagery among coaches as a means to enhance sport performance
The impact of sports injuries on mental health and recovery in high school athletes
The moderating role of sleep on mental toughness and sports performance in Olympic athletes
The use and perception of technology in sports training and performance in little league softball

Free Webinar: How To Find A Dissertation Research Topic

Psychology-Related Dissertations & Theses

While the ideas we’ve presented above are a decent starting point for finding a research topic in psychology, they are fairly generic and non-specific. So, it helps to look at actual dissertations and theses to see how this all comes together in practice.

Below, we’ve included a selection of research projects from various psychology degree programs to help refine your thinking. These are actual dissertations and theses, written as part of Master’s and PhD-level programs, so they can provide some useful insight as to what a research topic looks like in practice.

Effects of a Patient Question Prompt List on Outpatient Palliative Care Appointments (McDarby, 2022)
The role of affect and exercise goals in physical activity engagement in younger and older adults (Stojanovic, 2022)
Lay Theories about Whether Emotion Helps or Hinders Reasoning and Well-being (Karnaze, 2022)
The effects of blast-induced traumatic brain injury on two transgenic models of Alzheimer’s Disease (Gann, 2020)
Understanding the parental mind: Examining the stability of parental reflective functioning across the birth of a child and associations with maternal mind-mindedness (Pitzen, 2021)
An investigation of ineffective ally behaviours (Collier, 2019)
Response Inhibition-Related Beta Power: Distinguishing Cognitively Intact Elders by Risk for Alzheimer’s Disease (Evans, 2021)
Recognition Memory of Extremely High-Frequency Words (Miller, 2019)
The Relationship between Dementia Caregiver Burden and Caregiver Communications in a Memory Clinic Setting (Martin, 2021)
Examination of Maternal Versus Paternal Ratings of Child Pre-Injury Functioning in Predicting Child Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms (Sayer, 2021)
Electromyography As A Means of Predicting The Rubber Hand Illusion (Teaford, 2021)
Linking Diversity Climate and Feedback Seeking Through Interpersonal Processes and Race Effects (Flores, 2021)

Looking at these titles, you can probably pick up that the research topics here are far more specific and narrowly-focused , compared to the generic ones presented earlier. This is an important thing to keep in mind as you develop your own research topic. That is to say, to create a top-notch research topic, you must be precise and target a specific context with specific variables of interest . In other words, you need to identify a clear, well-justified research gap.

Fast-Track Your Topic Ideation

Still unsure about how to find the right topic for your research project? Check out our private coaching services , where we work with psychology students on a 1:1 basis to help them find the perfect topic.

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Topic Kickstarter: Research topics in education

10 Comments

Great insight

A very interesting site that offers a variety of options regarding research topics.

You’re most welcome

A good platform to get information

Amazing and interesting options 👌

Very useful but had not any field of research in health psychology

I feel honored going through this lovely stuff put together. Thank you so much

I need counseling psychology research topics

very empowering and insightful presentations. Can I be assisted in crafting a school psychology-related research topic about African context

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Articles on Cognitive psychology

Displaying 1 - 20 of 26 articles.

Daniel Kahneman changed how we think about human nature – the psychologist remembered by a former student

Daniel Read , Warwick Business School, University of Warwick

Dobble: what is the psychology behind the game?

Nick Perham , Cardiff Metropolitan University and Helen Hodgetts , Cardiff Metropolitan University

Just Stop Oil: do radical protests turn the public away from a cause? Here’s the evidence

Colin Davis , University of Bristol

Cognitive biases and brain biology help explain why facts don’t change minds

Keith M. Bellizzi , University of Connecticut

Eye movements could be the missing link in our understanding of memory

Roger Johansson , Lund University and Mikael Johansson , Lund University

Why does experiencing ‘flow’ feel so good? A communication scientist explains

Richard Huskey , University of California, Davis

Are you a more holistic or analytic thinker? Take this quiz to find out

Andrei Lux , Edith Cowan University

As trust between Israeli Jews and Arabs reaches new lows, Netanyahu rises again

Eli Gottlieb , George Washington University

How the brain builds a sense of self from the people around us – new research

Sam Ereira , UCL

Seeing is believing: how media mythbusting can actually make false beliefs stronger

Eryn Newman , Australian National University ; Amy Dawel , Australian National University ; Madeline Jalbert , University of Southern California , and Norbert Schwarz , USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Humanizing the coronavirus as an invisible enemy is human nature

Michaela Porubanova , Farmingdale State College and Stewart Guthrie , Fordham University

No wonder isolation’s so tiring. All those extra, tiny decisions are taxing our brains

Ben Newell , UNSW Sydney

The partisan brain: cognitive study suggests people on the left and right are more similar than they think

Leor Zmigrod , University of Cambridge

Are brain games mostly BS?

Walter Boot , Florida State University

What if consciousness is just a product of our non-conscious brain?

Peter W Halligan , Cardiff University and David A Oakley , UCL

Why are people religious? A cognitive perspective

Nick Perham , Cardiff Metropolitan University

Why your brain never runs out of problems to find

David Levari , Harvard University

Good science doesn’t guarantee public acceptance – diverse evidence may help

Arthur Kary , UNSW Sydney ; Ben Newell , UNSW Sydney , and Brett Hayes , UNSW Sydney

Brexit: how cognitive psychology helps us make sense of the vote

Why you stink at fact-checking

Lisa Fazio , Vanderbilt University

Top contributors

Professor of Cognitive Psychology and Director of the UNSW Institute for Climate Risk and Response, UNSW Sydney

Research Fellow in the Psychology of Ideologies, University of Cambridge

Reader in Applied Cognitive Psychology, Cardiff Metropolitan University

Professor of Information Technology, Monash University

Professor of Cognitive Psychology, Grinnell College

Associate Professor in Values in Care, Staffordshire University

Researcher in Virtual Reality, Auckland University of Technology

Assistant Professor of Psychology, Vanderbilt University

Professor of Human Development and Family Sciences, University of Connecticut

Assistant professor, Texas A&M University-Commerce

Assistant Professor of Cognitive Psychology, University of Mannheim

Chair in Cognitive Psychology, University of Bristol

Ph.D. Candidate in Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego

Emeritus Professor of Psychology, UCL

Provost Professor of Psychology and Marketing and co-director of the Dornsife Mind & Society Center, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

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Cognitive psychologists develop a systematic understanding of cognitive processes. These include perception, human learning, attention, categorization, problem solving, decision–making, information processing and retrieval, short and long-term memory and forgetting, sensory encoding, motor control, psycholinguistics, and reading.

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Exploring 200+ Psychology Topics to Research: Unlocking the Depths of the Mind

The world of psychology is as vast as the human mind itself. Delving into the intricate workings of the human psyche can be both fascinating. For students, academics, or anyone with a curious mind, choosing the right psychology topics to research is paramount. In this blog, we’ll navigate through the labyrinth of psychology topics, helping you find your way to a captivating and meaningful research endeavor.

How To Select Psychology Topics To Research?

Table of Contents

Follow Your Interests: Start with what you love. What aspects of human behavior or the mind fascinate you the most? It’s much easier to research something you’re passionate about.
Consider Relevance: Think about how your chosen topic fits into your academic or career goals. Does it relate to what you’re studying or the job you want? If it does, great!
Balance the Scope: Don’t pick a topic that’s too broad or too narrow. Find that sweet spot in the middle. You want a topic that’s focused enough to research effectively but not so narrow that there’s no existing information.
Explore Different Areas: Research the various branches of psychology, like cognitive, social, clinical, developmental, or biological psychology. See which one resonates with you the most.
Seek Advice: Talk to your professors, mentors, or peers. They can provide guidance and suggestions based on your interests and goals.

200+ Popular Psychology Topics To Research: Category Wise

40+ cognitive psychology topics.

The role of working memory in problem-solving.
Cognitive effects of sleep deprivation.
Neural basis of attention and focus.
Influence of language on cognitive development.
Decision-making biases in economic behavior.
The psychology of learning and memory.
The impact of stress on cognitive performance.
Cognitive decline in aging populations.
Emotion and memory recall.
False memories and eyewitness testimony.
Cognitive processes in creativity.
Cognitive aspects of decision-making in healthcare.
The psychology of expertise and skill acquisition.
Cognitive factors in reading comprehension.
The role of schemas in information processing.
Cognitive development in infants.
Cognitive rehabilitation after brain injury.
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and executive functions.
Neural mechanisms of perception and visual attention.
The psychology of problem-solving in artificial intelligence.
Cognitive aspects of mathematical reasoning.
Neural plasticity and cognitive recovery.
Cognitive load and its impact on learning.
Memory consolidation during sleep.
Attentional disorders and their impact on cognitive functioning.
The influence of music on cognitive processes.
Cognitive development in bilingual individuals.
Cognitive aspects of decision-making in criminal behavior.
Neural correlates of cognitive control.
The psychology of cognitive biases in politics.
Cognitive effects of mindfulness meditation.
The part working memory plays in academic success.
Cognitive processes in language acquisition.
Cognitive factors in problem gambling behavior.
The psychology of cognitive development in children with autism.
Cognitive aspects of spatial navigation.
Memory distortions and the courtroom.
Neural basis of cognitive dissonance.
Cognitive aspects of social perception.
Cognitive rehabilitation in Alzheimer’s disease.

40+ Social Psychology Research Topics

The impact of social media on self-esteem.
Groupthink and decision-making.
Stereotype threat in academic settings.
Bystander effect in emergencies.
Cross-cultural perspectives on conformity.
Online dating and self-presentation.
The psychology of social influence.
The role of empathy in prosocial behavior.
Social identity and intergroup relations.
Aggression and video game exposure.
Prejudice and discrimination in modern society.
The influence of social norms on behavior.
Attitudes and attitude change.
Social support and mental health.
Obedience to authority figures.
Social comparison and self-concept.
The psychology of attraction and relationships.
The bystander intervention model.
Body image and social media.
Political polarization and social psychology.
The psychology of fake news and misinformation.
Emotional contagion and social interactions.
Stereotyping in the workplace.
Consequences of cyberbullying.
The impact of group dynamics on creativity.
Gender roles and socialization.
The role of humor in social interactions.
Social factors in decision-making and risk-taking.
Altruism and volunteerism.
The psychology of leadership and authority.
Social exclusion and its effects on individuals.
The relationship between religion and prosocial behavior.
Social influence in marketing and advertising.
Online activism and social change.
The psychology of online communities and forums.
Attachment styles and adult relationships.
Social perceptions of beauty and attractiveness.
Social isolation’s negative consequences on mental health.
The psychology of public speaking anxiety.
The role of forgiveness in interpersonal relationships.

40+ Clinical Psychology Research Topics

Effects of childhood trauma on mental health in adults.
Efficacy of virtual therapy for treating anxiety disorders.
Exploring the genetics of schizophrenia.
Effects of mindfulness meditation on depression.
Cultural factors in the diagnosis of eating disorders.
Examining the link between sleep disorders and mood disorders.
Assessing the effectiveness of group therapy for substance abuse.
The role of attachment in borderline personality disorder.
Investigating the stigma surrounding mental illness.
Treating PTSD in veterans through exposure therapy.
Neurobiological basis of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
Parent-child relationships and their impact on conduct disorder.
Gender differences in the prevalence of depression.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy for social anxiety disorder.
Psychopharmacology and treatment-resistant depression.
The psychology of self-harm and self-injury.
Internet addiction and its connection to mental health.
Assessing the efficacy of art therapy for PTSD.
Personality disorders and their impact on interpersonal relationships.
Evaluating the effectiveness of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) in treating borderline personality disorder.
Factors contributing to the rise in adolescent depression.
Exploring the link between childhood abuse and dissociative identity disorder.
Cross-cultural perspectives on the diagnosis of ADHD.
The role of serotonin in mood disorders.
Mindfulness-based stress reduction in chronic pain management.
Impact of family dynamics on eating disorders in adolescents.
Examining the long-term effects of child neglect on adult mental health.
Psychosocial factors in the development of schizophrenia.
Gender dysphoria and psychological well-being.
The psychology of resilience in cancer patients.
Attachment styles and their influence on adult relationships.
Virtual reality exposure therapy for phobias.
Exploring the effectiveness of equine therapy for trauma survivors.
Autism spectrum disorders and early intervention.
Body image dissatisfaction and its link to eating disorders.
The psychological impact of chronic illness.
Cognitive rehabilitation in traumatic brain injury.
Sleep disorders in children and their impact on academic performance.
The role of social support in recovery from substance abuse.
Neuropsychological assessment in Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis.

40+ Developmental Psychology Research Topics

The impact of parental divorce on child development.
Adolescents’ self-identity and social media.
Long-term effects of early childhood attachment on adult relationships.
Gender identity development in children.
The influence of birth order on personality development.
The role of genetics in language development.
Autism spectrum disorder interventions for toddlers.
Adolescent peer pressure and substance abuse.
The impact of bullying on psychological development.
Sibling rivalry and its long-term effects.
Parenting styles and their influence on children’s behavior.
The development of moral reasoning in children.
Influence of cultural factors on child development.
Attachment theory and foster care outcomes.
The impact of technology on cognitive development in children.
Children’s understanding of death and grief.
Cognitive development in bilingual children.
The role of play in early childhood development.
Attachment disorders and interventions in adopted children.
The development of emotional intelligence in adolescents.
The impact of poverty on child development.
The relationship between nutrition and cognitive development.
Bullying prevention and intervention programs in schools.
The role of grandparents in child development.
Developmental aspects of sibling relationships.
Child prodigies and their psychological development.
Gender stereotypes and their influence on children’s aspirations.
The effects of early education on academic success.
Cognitive development in children with learning disabilities.
The impact of divorce on young adults’ romantic relationships.
Parent-child communication about sex education.
Adolescents’ body image and its influence on self-esteem.
Influence of peer relationships on early social development.
The role of extracurricular activities in adolescent development.
Long-term outcomes for children in same-sex parent families.
Cognitive development in children with ADHD.
The effects of early exposure to screens on cognitive development.
The role of attachment in adolescent mental health.
Identity development in multicultural children.

40+ Biological Psychology Research Topics

The neural basis of addiction and substance abuse.
The role of genetics in personality traits.
Effects of sleep deprivation on cognitive function.
Exploring the gut-brain connection and its impact on mental health.
Neural mechanisms of stress and its long-term effects.
The relationship between brain structure and intelligence.
The impact of exercise on brain health and cognition.
Neurobiological factors in eating disorders.
Neural pathways involved in fear and anxiety.
The influence of hormones on behavior and mood.
Neuroplasticity and its implications for recovery after brain injuries.
The biology of memory and amnesia.
Understanding the neurological basis of schizophrenia.
The role of neurotransmitters in depression.
The impact of aging on brain structure and function.
Neural mechanisms underlying aggression and violence.
Brain imaging techniques and their applications in research.
The effects of prenatal exposure to toxins on brain development.
Neurological aspects of autism spectrum disorders.
Brain changes associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
The genetics of Alzheimer’s disease.
Neurobiology of consciousness and altered states of consciousness.
The role of the amygdala in emotional processing.
Neural mechanisms of sexual attraction and orientation.
The impact of nutrition on brain development and function.
Brain regions involved in decision-making and impulsivity.
Neurological factors in Tourette’s syndrome.
The biology of reward and motivation.
Neural correlates of empathy and social cognition.
Genetic predisposition to addiction.
The influence of hormones on maternal behavior.
The neurological basis of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Adolescent brain development and the effects on behavior.
The prefrontal cortex’s function in executive tasks.
Linguistic disorders and language neuroscience.
Neuroinflammation’s effects on mental health.
Mechanisms in the brain that affect sensory perception.
Neurological and genetic influences on bipolar disorder.
The impact of persistent pain on brain development and function.
The endocannabinoid system’s function in controlling mood.

Research Methodology for Psychology Topics

Understanding various research methodologies is key to conducting a successful study. Whether you opt for experimental designs, surveys, case studies, or sophisticated data analysis, each method offers unique insights. Choose the methodology that aligns with your research questions and objectives, ensuring a robust and reliable study.

Resources for Psychology Research

In the digital age, a wealth of resources for psychology topics to research is at your fingertips. Utilize academic journals, databases, books, and online courses to enhance your understanding.

Engage with professional organizations and attend conferences to stay updated with the latest research trends and network with fellow enthusiasts.

Tips for Successful Psychology Topics for Research

Choose a Fascinating Topic: Select a research topic that genuinely interests you. Your passion and curiosity will drive your motivation and engagement throughout the research process.
Narrow Your Focus: Refine your research question to ensure it’s specific and manageable. A focused question will lead to more meaningful and in-depth findings.
Conduct a Thorough Literature Review: Familiarize yourself with existing research in your chosen area. This helps you build on prior knowledge and identify gaps in the literature.
Hypothesize and Predict: Develop clear hypotheses and predictions for your study. This sets the direction for your research and provides a framework for data collection and analysis.
Choose the Right Research Method: Select the research method that best suits your research question, whether it’s experiments, surveys, interviews, or case studies.
Ethical Considerations: Prioritize ethical guidelines in your research, including obtaining informed consent, ensuring confidentiality, and avoiding harm to participants.
Sample Selection: Carefully choose your sample to make sure it’s representative of the population you’re studying. Consider factors like age, gender, and cultural diversity.
Data Collection: Collect data systematically and ensure its accuracy and reliability. Use well-established measurement tools when applicable.
Data Analysis: Employ appropriate statistical techniques to analyze your data. Make use of software like SPSS or R for thorough analysis.
Interpret Results Objectively: Avoid confirmation bias and interpret your results objectively, even if they don’t align with your initial hypotheses.
Discuss Limitations: Acknowledge the limitations of your study in your research paper. This demonstrates your awareness of potential weaknesses and strengthens your research’s credibility.
Contribute to the Field: Highlight the significance of your research and how it contributes to the broader field of psychology. What does it add to existing knowledge?
Write Clearly and Concisely: Communicate your findings in a clear, concise, and well-structured manner. Use APA or other relevant style guides for formatting.
Peer Review: Seek feedback from colleagues, mentors, or professors. Peer review can help identify blind spots and improve the quality of your work.
Stay Organized: Maintain detailed records of your research process, including notes, data, and references. Organization is key to successful research.
Time Management: Plan your research timeline carefully, allocating sufficient time for each stage, from literature review to data collection and analysis.
Persevere: Research often involves setbacks and challenges. Stay persistent, adapt when necessary, and remain dedicated to your research goals.
Publish and Share: Consider presenting your research at conferences and seek opportunities for publication in academic journals . Sharing your findings contributes to the advancement of the field.
Stay Informed: Keep up with the latest research trends and developments in psychology. Attend conferences and join professional organizations to stay connected with the academic community.
Collaborate: Don’t hesitate to collaborate with other researchers, as teamwork can lead to valuable insights and more significant research outcomes.

Choosing the psychology topics to research is akin to embarking on an adventure into the depths of the human mind. Each topic holds the potential to unravel mysteries, challenge assumptions, and make a meaningful impact on individuals and society.

As you venture into this realm, remember that your curiosity and dedication are your greatest assets. Embrace the journey, learn from every step, and let your research contribute to the ever-expanding tapestry of psychological knowledge. Happy researching!

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Cognitive Approach in Psychology

Saul Mcleod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul Mcleod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

Learn about our Editorial Process

Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc

Associate Editor for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education

Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.

Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of the mind as an information processor. It concerns how we take in information from the outside world, and how we make sense of that information.

Cognitive psychology focuses on studying mental processes, including how people perceive, think, remember, learn, solve problems, and make decisions.

Cognitive psychologists try to build up cognitive models of the information processing that goes on inside people’s minds, including perception, attention, language, memory, thinking, and consciousness.

Cognitive psychology became of great importance in the mid-1950s. Several factors were important in this:

Dissatisfaction with the behaviorist approach in its simple emphasis on external behavior rather than internal processes.
The development of better experimental methods.
Comparison between human and computer processing of information . Using computers allowed psychologists to try to understand the complexities of human cognition by comparing it with computers and artificial intelligence.

The emphasis of psychology shifted away from the study of conditioned behavior and psychoanalytical notions about the study of the mind, towards the understanding of human information processing using strict and rigorous laboratory investigation.

Summary Table

Theoretical assumptions.

Mediational processes occur between stimulus and response:

The behaviorists approach only studies external observable (stimulus and response) behavior that can be objectively measured.

They believe that internal behavior cannot be studied because we cannot see what happens in a person’s mind (and therefore cannot objectively measure it).

However, cognitive psychologists regard it as essential to look at the mental processes of an organism and how these influence behavior.

Cognitive psychology assumes a mediational process occurs between stimulus/input and response/output.

These are mediational processes because they mediate (i.e., go-between) between the stimulus and the response. They come after the stimulus and before the response.

Instead of the simple stimulus-response links proposed by behaviorism, the mediational processes of the organism are essential to understand. Without this understanding, psychologists cannot have a complete understanding of behavior.

The mediational (i.e., mental) event could be memory , perception , attention or problem-solving, etc.

For example, the cognitive approach suggests that problem gambling is a result of maladaptive thinking and faulty cognitions. These both result in illogical errors being drawn, for example gamblers misjudge the amount of skill involved with ‘chance’ games so are likely to participate with the mindset that the odds are in their favour so they may have a good chance of winning.

Therefore, cognitive psychologists say that if you want to understand behavior, you must understand these mediational processes.

Psychology should be seen as a science:

The cognitive approach believes that internal mental behavior can be scientifically studied using controlled experiments . They use the results of their investigations as the basis for making inferences about mental processes.

Cognitive psychology uses laboratory experiments that are highly controlled so they avoid the influence of extraneous variables. This allows the researcher to establish a causal relationship between the independent and dependent variables.

Cognitive psychologists measure behavior that provides information about cognitive processes (e.g., verbal protocols of thinking aloud). They also measure physiological indicators of brain activity, such as neuroimages (PET and fMRI).

For example, brain imaging fMRI and PET scans map areas of the brain to cognitive function, allowing the processing of information by centers in the brain to be seen directly. Such processing causes the area of the brain involved to increase metabolism and “light up” on the scan.

These controlled experiments are replicable, and the data obtained is objective (not influenced by an individual’s judgment or opinion) and measurable. This gives psychology more credibility.

Replicability is a crucial concept of science as it ensures that people can validate research by repeating the experiment to ensure that an accurate conclusion has been reached.

Without replicability, a scientific finding may be invalid as it cannot be falsified. Additionally, scientific research relies on the peer review of research to ensure that the research is justifiable.

Without replicability, it would be impossible to justify the accuracy of the research.

Humans are information processors:

Cognitive psychology has been influenced by developments in computer science and analogies are often made between how a computer works and how we process information.

Information processing in humans resembles that in computers, and is based on transforming information, storing and processing information, and retrieving information from memory.

Information processing models of cognitive processes such as memory and attention assume that mental processes follow a linear sequence.

For example:

Input processes are concerned with the analysis of the stimuli.
Storage processes cover everything that happens to stimuli internally in the brain and can include coding and manipulation of the stimuli.
Output processes are responsible for preparing an appropriate response to a stimulus.

This has led to models which show information flowing through the cognitive system, such as the multi-store model of memory.

Information Processing Paradigm

The cognitive approach began to revolutionize psychology in the late 1950s and early 1960s to become the dominant approach (i.e., perspective) in psychology by the late 1970s. Interest in mental processes was gradually restored through the work of Jean Piaget and Edward Tolman .

Tolman was a ‘soft behaviorist’. His book Purposive Behavior in Animals and Man in 1932 described research that behaviorism found difficult to explain. The behaviorists’ view was that learning occurred due to associations between stimuli and responses.

However, Tolman suggested that learning was based on the relationships formed amongst stimuli. He referred to these relationships as cognitive maps.

But the arrival of the computer gave cognitive psychology the terminology and metaphor it needed to investigate the human mind.

The start of the use of computers allowed psychologists to try to understand the complexities of human cognition by comparing it with something simpler and better understood, i.e., an artificial system such as a computer.

The use of the computer as a tool for thinking about how the human mind handles information is known as the computer analogy. Essentially, a computer codes (i.e., changes) information, stores information, uses information and produces an output (retrieves info).

The idea of information processing was adopted by cognitive psychologists as a model of how human thought works.

The information processing approach is based on several assumptions, including:

Information made available from the environment is processed by a series of processing systems (e.g., attention, perception, short-term memory);
These processing systems transform, or alter the information in systematic ways;
The aim of research is to specify the processes and structures that underlie cognitive performance;
Information processing in humans resembles that in computers.

The Role of Schemas

Schemas can often affect cognitive processing (a mental framework of beliefs and expectations developed from experience). As you get older, these become more detailed and sophisticated.

A schema is a “packet of information” or cognitive framework that helps us organize and interpret information. They are based on our previous experience.

Schemas help us to interpret incoming information quickly and effectively; this prevents us from being overwhelmed by the vast amount of information we perceive in our environment.

However, it can also lead to distortion of this information as we select and interpret environmental stimuli using schemas that might not be relevant.

This could be the cause of inaccuracies in areas such as eyewitness testimony. It can also explain some errors we make when perceiving optical illusions.

History of Cognitive Psychology

Kohler (1925) published a book called, The Mentality of Apes . In it, he reported observations which suggested that animals could show insightful behavior. He rejected behaviorism in favour of an approach which became known as Gestalt psychology .
Norbert Wiener (1948) published Cybernetics: or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, introducing terms such as input and output.
Tolman (1948) work on cognitive maps – training rats in mazes, showed that animals had an internal representation of behavior.
Birth of Cognitive Psychology often dated back to George Miller’s (1956) “ The Magical Number 7 Plus or Minus 2 : Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information.” Milner argued that short-term memory could only hold about seven pieces of information, called chunks.
Newell and Simon’s (1972) development of the General Problem Solver.
In 1960, Miller founded the Center for Cognitive Studies at Harvard with the famous cognitivist developmentalist, Jerome Bruner.
Ulric Neisser (1967) publishes “ Cognitive Psychology” , which marks the official beginning of the cognitive approach.
Process models of memory Atkinson & Shiffrin’s (1968) Multi-Store Model .
The cognitive approach is highly influential in all areas of psychology (e.g., biological, social, neuroscience, developmental, etc.).

Issues and Debates

Free will vs. determinism.

The position of the cognitive approach is unclear as it argues, on the one hand, the way we process information is determined by our experience (schemas).

On the other hand in, the therapy derived from the approach (CBT) argues that we can change the way we think.

Nature vs. Nurture

The cognitive approach takes an interactionist view of the debate as it argues that our behavior is influenced by learning and experience (nurture), but also by some of our brains’ innate capacities as information processors e.g., language acquisition (nature).

Holism vs. Reductionism

The cognitive approach tends to be reductionist as when studying a variable, it isolates processes such as memory from other cognitive processes.

However, in our normal life, we would use many cognitive processes simultaneously, so it lacks validity.

Idiographic vs. Nomothetic

It is a nomothetic approach as it focuses on establishing theories on information processing that apply to all people.

Critical Evaluation

B.F. Skinner criticizes the cognitive approach as he believes that only external stimulus-response behavior should be studied as this can be scientifically measured.

Therefore, mediation processes (between stimulus and response) do not exist as they cannot be seen and measured. Due to its subjective and unscientific nature, Skinner continues to find problems with cognitive research methods, namely introspection (as used by Wilhelm Wundt).

Humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers believes that the use of laboratory experiments by cognitive psychology has low ecological validity and creates an artificial environment due to the control over variables . Rogers emphasizes a more holistic approach to understanding behavior.

The cognitive approach uses a very scientific method which are controlled and replicable, so the results are reliable. However, experiments lack ecological validity because of the artificiality of the tasks and environment, so it might not reflect the way people process information in their everyday life.

For example, Baddeley (1966) used lists of words to find out the encoding used by LTM, however, these words had no meaning to the participants, so the way they used their memory in this task was probably very different than they would have done if the words had meaning for them. This is a weakness as the theories might not explain how memory works outside the laboratory.

These are used to study rare conditions which provide an insight on the working of some mental processes i.e. Clive Wearing, HM. Although case studies deal with very small sample so the results cannot be generalized to the wider population as they are influenced by individual characteristics, they allow us to study cases which could not be produced experimentally because of ethical and practical reasons.

The information processing paradigm of cognitive psychology views the minds in terms of a computer when processing information. However, although there are similarities between the human mind and the operations of a computer (inputs and outputs, storage systems, the use of a central processor), the computer analogy has been criticized by many.

The approach is reductionist as it does not consider emotions and motivation, which influence the processing of information and memory. For example, according to the Yerkes-Dodson law anxiety can influence our memory.

Such machine reductionism (simplicity) ignores the influence of human emotion and motivation on the cognitive system and how this may affect our ability to process information.

Behaviorism assumes that people are born a blank slate (tabula rasa) and are not born with cognitive functions like schemas , memory or perception .

The cognitive approach does not always recognize physical ( biological psychology ) and environmental (behaviorist approach) factors in determining behavior.

Cognitive psychology has influenced and integrated with many other approaches and areas of study to produce, for example, social learning theory , cognitive neuropsychology, and artificial intelligence (AI).

Another strength is that the research conducted in this area of psychology very often has applications in the real world.

For example, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has been very effective in treating depression (Hollon & Beck, 1994), and moderately effective for anxiety problems (Beck, 1993). CBT’s basis is to change how the person processes their thoughts to make them more rational or positive.

By highlighting the importance of cognitive processing, the cognitive approach can explain mental disorders such as depression, where Beck argues that it is the negative schemas we hold about the self, the world, and the future which lead to depression rather than external events.

Atkinson, R. C., & Shiffrin, R. M. (1968). Chapter: Human memory: A proposed system and its control processes. In Spence, K. W., & Spence, J. T. The psychology of learning and motivation (Volume 2). New York: Academic Press. pp. 89–195.

Beck, A. T, & Steer, R. A. (1993). Beck Anxiety Inventory Manual. San Antonio: Harcourt Brace and Company.

Hollon, S. D., & Beck, A. T. (1994). Cognitive and cognitive-behavioral therapies. In A. E. Bergin & S.L. Garfield (Eds.), Handbook of psychotherapy and behavior change (pp. 428—466) . New York: Wiley.

Köhler, W. (1925). An aspect of Gestalt psychology. The Pedagogical Seminary and Journal of Genetic Psychology, 32(4) , 691-723.

Miller, G. A. (1956). The magical number seven, plus or minus two: some limits on our capacity for processing information. Psychological Review , 63 (2): 81–97.

Neisser, U (1967). Cognitive psychology . Appleton-Century-Crofts: New York

Newell, A., & Simon, H. (1972). Human problem solving . Prentice-Hall.

Tolman, E. C., Hall, C. S., & Bretnall, E. P. (1932). A disproof of the law of effect and a substitution of the laws of emphasis, motivation and disruption. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 15(6) , 601.

Tolman E. C. (1948). Cognitive maps in rats and men . Psychological Review. 55, 189–208

Wiener, N. (1948). Cybernetics or control and communication in the animal and the machine . Paris, (Hermann & Cie) & Camb. Mass. (MIT Press).

101 Best Cognitive Psychology Research Topics

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Best Cognitive Psychology Research Topics

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Cognitive ecology: Information processing and decision making systems
How does age determine information processing and decision-making?
Group decision making: Process of accountability on information processing in decision making
Information processing as a pattern for decision making
Modes of decision making and their impacts on information processing
How do information processing and decision-making affect the cognitive aspects of your country’s economic behavior?
Information processing as a pattern for decision making in committing a crime
How do racial stereotypes affect information processing as a pattern for a decision-making jury trial
How can information processing as a pattern for decision-making be used to solve crimes?
Effects of emotions in informational processing
The implications of cognitive psychology on Artificial Intelligence-bases learning tools
The cognitive psychology of entrepreneurship
Cognitive psychology in mass communication
The cognitive psychology of online gaming
Social cognitive psychology: History, current status, and future
What are the fundamentals of cognitive psychology?
Approaches to understanding bilingual memory
The role of similarity in natural categorization
Explain the differences between social cognitive theory and self-efficacy theory
Correlation between behaviorism and cognitive psychology
Comparative psychology: Mentalism and behaviorism
History, current status, and future of cognitive psychology
Cognitive psychology in sports: Progress and future of cognitive psychology
Cognitive psychology: Understanding sports behavior
Cognitive psychology strategies in sport and exercise

Excellent Cognitive Psychology Research Topics

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Behavior analysis in sports and exercise psychology
Behavioral psychology in sports performance enhancement
Implications of sport-athlete relationship for training
Correlation between music and cognitive psychology
Music cognition and cognitive psychology in filming
Cognitive advances in the neuroscience of music
How different music genres impact cognitive performance
The cognitive and academic benefits of music in the mental development of children
Impacts of listening to music on human auditory cognition
Cognition aspects of traditional African music
Beneficial aspects of music
How music influences memory and emotions
Challenges in music cognition research
Music memory and therapy in Alzheimer’s disease
Cognition in early childhood
Dual language learners: Effective learning methods in early childhood education
The cognitive psychology of driving
A cognitive psychology of driving impairs: phone use while driving
A cognitive psychology of driving impairs: Talking while driving
Cognitive psychology and neuropsychological perspective on multitasking
Impacts of laptop multitasking in classroom learning
Theory of cognitive dissonance: Historical and current perspective
Applying cognitive psychology in providing learning instructions
A cognitive approach in the visualization of learning and instructions provision
Cognitive load in computer program learning

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Cognitive processes in strategic decision making
Structuralism, functionalism and cognitive theory in psychology
Comparative psychology: Reasoning between children and adults
Cognitive psychology perspective on attention-deficit and hyperactivity disorder in children
Cognition impact of sleep hygiene and sleep habits in children with attention-deficit or hyperactivity disorder
How does cognition change over time? From childhood to adulthood?
Cognition impact of video games on children with personality disorders
Are reading and spelling difficulties associated with mental health problems? What are the prevention methods of reading difficulties?
Cognitive psychology perspective of mathematical skills of children with reading and spelling difficulties
Gender ratios for reading difficulties in your country
Process of normal cognitive aging
The cognitive neuroscience of aging
Implications of cognitive aging
Neuroimaging of healthy cognitive aging
Cognition and motivation in emotions
A cognitive perspective on emotion and motivation: Do motivation and emotions control cognition?
Motivation: History, current status, and future
Delivering emotions in teaching: Classroom motivation
Human perception of emotions, motivations, and attitudes
Cognitive psychology perspective on feelings, selective attention, and habits
Psychotherapy and memories of childhood trauma: A cognitive perspective
Memory recovery and verification of childhood sexual abuse
Effects of developing a sensory loss on depression on young adults
Why are behavioral laws important?
Cognitive perspective self-esteem for sight loss on adults

Interesting Cognitive Psychology Research Topics

There are many cognitive psychology research topics on the internet. But it would help if you always go for the best.

Relationship between sensory abilities and cognitive function in old age
Psychological adjustment to hearing loss
Health literacy and cancer communication with adults
Mindful-based cognitive therapy and cancer management
Montreal cognitive assessment for telemedicine assessment during COVID-19 pandemic
How does early childhood development affect adulthood cognition?
Technical and social skills for adults suffering head trauma
Explain the barriers to mental health support in your country
Describe the demographic factors that influence cognition
Does culture influence cognition?
Effects of the internet on children’s cognition
How does poverty affect cognition?
Juvenile victimization and abuse: Impacts on cognition
What is the future of cognitive psychology?
Cognitive foundations of religious beliefs
Understanding early childhood development: Does parenting behavior influence cognition?
Use of technology and games to improve literacy in schools
Cognitive perspective of the home environment: How does war affect cognition in children?
Genetic influence on a child’s cognition
How does childhood creativity affect adulthood?
Trends in cognitive psychology research
Impact of poor diet on cognitive development
Cognitive implications of graphic violence on children
How do sports impact cognitive development on autistic adults
How does bullying affect cognitive development?
Cognitive implications of divorce on children

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Social Cognition Research Topics

For thousands of years there has been philosophical debate about what it is that makes humans different from other species of animals on Earth. Whether one believes that humans are just another step in the evolutionary process or descended from aliens, there is no denying that humans are different from other animals. Although many aspects of psychology, such as perception, learning, and memory, can be generalized across species, the field of social cognition deals exclusively with thoughts and behaviors that are (arguably) uniquely human. This is because social cognition is concerned with the mental processes that subserve people’s understanding of both self and other individuals. By default, it takes a social agent to know one. For this reason, a great deal of social cognition research has focused on determining whether or not the thoughts people have about other people are driven by the same basic mental operations that regulate humans’ understanding of tables, automobiles, and seafood gumbo.

Social Cognition Research Topics:

Accessibility
Accountability
Actor-Observer Asymmetries
Alcohol Myopia
Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic
Assimilation Processes
Associative Networks
Attributional Ambiguity
Attribution
Automatic Processes
Availability Heuristic
Bad Is Stronger Than Good
Barnum Effect
Base Rate Fallacy
Basking in Reflected Glory
Belief Perseverance
Blaming the Victim
Confirmation Bias
Consciousness
Contrast Effects
Correspondence Bias
Counterfactual Thinking
Defensive Attribution
Depressive Realism
Diagnosticity
Dilution Effect
Discounting in Attribution
Distinctiveness in Attribution
Downward Social Comparison
Expectancy Effect
Expectations
Eyewitness Testimony Accuracy
False Consciousness
False Consensus Effect
False Uniqueness Bias
Fundamental Attribution Error
Gain-Loss Framing
Gambler’s Fallacy
Halo Effect
Heuristic Processing
Hostile Attribution Bias
Hostile Media Bias
Justice Motive
Just-World Hypothesis
Kelley’s Covariation Model
Lay Epistemics
Meaning Maintenance Model
Metacognition
Mind-Wandering
Moral Reasoning
Motivated Cognition
Nonconscious Processes
Person Perception
Personality Judgments Accuracy
Person-Positivity Heuristic
Positive-Negative Asymmetry
Primacy Effect in Attribution
Primacy Effect in Memory
Responsibility Attribution
Risk Appraisal
Shifting Standards
Social Categorization
Social Cognitive Neuroscience
Social Projection
Spontaneous Trait Inferences
Subliminal Perception
Thin Slices of Behavior
Three-Dimensional Model of Attribution
Value Pluralism Model

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OPINION article

Psychological construction as a theoretical principle for guiding cognitive-behavioral treatments.

$\r\nAlexandru I. Tiba$

Department of Psychology, University of Oradea, Oradea, Romania

Cognitive behavior therapies (CBT) are considered the benchmark for evidence-based psychological treatments for psychological disorders ( David et al., 2018 ). CBT treatments work and are well-known because they constantly update with new scientific research encompassing the theory, models, and their real-life applications ( Ingram et al., 2019 ). The integration of psychopathology research into the development of CBT models and practices is the current standard for enhancing their scientific plausibility ( Hayes and Hofmann, 2018 ). Although CBT is characterized by a strong integration of science, it considers emotion and cognition as essential entities that exist as natural kinds and that we can identify, assess, and change in order to improve people's lives. In other words, it is based on an essentialist assumption regarding conscious psychological states. Recent research suggests a different perspective, claiming that psychological categories are not “essential” phenomena, but observer-dependent constructed entities ( Barrett, 2009 ; Gündem et al., 2022 ).

In this article, I argue that (1) psychological essentialism is one core assumption in CBT theories and models; (2) psychological essentialism has been recently challenged by a “psychological construction approach” of psychological states ( Barrett, 2009 ); and (3) a “psychological construction approach” brings significant changes to the practice of CBT.

Psychological essentialism and the “essence” of psychological states in CBT

Essentialism suggests that categories we encounter, such as dogs, trees, or birds, have an underlying essence or existence that causally determines what they are ( Brick et al., 2022 ; Neufeld, 2022 ). Psychological essentialism is the hypothesis that psychological categories (emotions, cognitions, and behaviors) are natural kinds rather than social constructions ( Barrett, 2009 ; Brick et al., 2022 ). They have an essence that determines their characteristics and what they are ( Brick et al., 2022 ; Neufeld, 2022 ). They are distinct (emotion is separate from cognition) and homogenous (types of emotion share more attributes between them than with types of cognition) categories with sharp boundaries ( Neufeld, 2022 ). For instance, feeling sad is a conscious psychological state that is caused by having an emotion. Emotions such as sadness exist as natural kinds. When we feel sad, we experience the reality of the emotion of sadness. Feeling sad is an attribute of sadness. Low arousal, body feelings, avoidant action tendencies, and sad thoughts are accompanying features of sadness, determined by its essence, which is emotion. It is distinct from cognition and behavior. It has distinct brain bases and causal relationships. Thus, we try to recognize, discover, and study emotions.

There are two major arguments that suggest CBT is founded on a psychological essentialist assumption. The first major argument for the psychological essentialism of CBT is the fact that CBT considers perception, cognition, emotion, and behavior as distinct entities that are discovered based on assessments of their manifestations. Based on the assessment of their attributes, the therapists identify and discover which cognitions, behaviors, and emotions are involved in patients' problems ( Westbrook et al., 2007 ). Both therapists and patients should not confuse emotion, behavior, and cognition. Emotion, behavior, and cognition have distinct attributes that reflect their essence ( Neufeld, 2022 ). When patients “mistakenly” say, “I feel like a failure,” the therapists have to correct patients to recognize it is a thought, not an emotion, and to help them realize they are confounding feelings with cognitions. Thus, CBT bears heavily on “faculty” psychology and the essentialist assumption that emotion, cognition, and behavior are distinct, homogenous entities with clear boundaries that exists as natural kinds and can be discovered ( Neufeld, 2022 ). The second major argument for the psychological essentialism of CBT is the ABC model of cognitive causation in CBT. The ABC model asserts that emotions (C) are not caused by A (negative events), but by beliefs or cognition (B) ( Westbrook et al., 2007 ). One entity, cognition, causes another entity, emotion, or behavior. Thus, the ABC model relies on the essentialist assumption that these entities are natural kinds that interact based on mechanistic causation ( Barrett, 2009 ). A natural kind (“cognition”) causes another natural kind (“emotion”) ( Barrett, 2009 ). All these descriptions of the CBT principles suggest a strong essentialist foundation for CBT.

The psychological construction approach

Recently, increasing research from affective neuroscience supports the idea that psychological states we know (emotion, cognition, and behavior) are not natural kinds, but conceptual constructions reflecting how we explain what the internal and external sensations stand for given prior experience (see Gündem et al., 2022 for reviews of the evidence). Perception is the mental states humans have when they understand what the external sensations stand for based on prior experience ( Barrett, 2009 ). Cognition refers to the mental state during the process of replaying past experiences in the brain ( Barrett, 2009 ). Emotion refers to mental states when individuals comprehend the meaning of internal bodily experiences ( Barrett, 2009 ). In short, mental states are ad-hoc conceptualizations of internal and/or external sensations based on simulations of what those sensations stand for given prior experience ( Barrett, 2009 ). Although there are many differences brought in by the psychological construction approach regarding mental states ( Barrett, 2009 ), here I describe two of them in relation to psychological treatments: the constructed and “recipe-like” nature of mental states and the probabilistic causation. First, psychological essentialism considers conscious mental states as natural kinds (entities with distinct brain bases, features, and mechanisms that control them) ( Barrett, 2009 ). The psychological construction approach negates this view and considers psychological states to be composite “recipe-like” constructions made up of basic ingredients such as concepts, core affect, behavioral repertoire, prior experience, and internal and external sensations ( Barrett, 2009 ). Therefore, the conceptualization and the type of ingredients recruited for its composition determine how a psychological state will change. When we change depressed feelings, distorted emotional concepts and unhelpful ingredients will be of interest. Second, psychological essentialism advances mechanistic psychological causation ( Barrett, 2009 ). A causes B. If we activate or develop an entity A, then we will change another entity B. Instead, the psychological construction approach advanced a probabilistic, not mechanistic causality relationship ( Barrett, 2009 ). The occurrence of cognition does not directly cause emotion. Rather, the presence of a specific cognition increases the likelihood of a constructed state of cognition transitioning into a specific constructed state of emotion ( Barrett, 2009 ). Believing that failing at an exam is awful (B) does not directly cause a feeling of anxiety but increases the probability that the psychological state we have will transform into a state of anxiety (C) rather than just fear.

Previous proposals focused on the clinical implications of a psychological construction approach based on brain-based mechanisms such as dysfunctions of energy regulation in mental disorders ( Shaffer et al., 2022 ). Here, I outlined several consequences of applying the psychological construction approach as a principle for changing mental states through the talking methods of CBT.

Implications for CBT formulation

Formulation is the process by which we describe the psychological mechanisms that underlie psychological issues and the ways through which we modify them ( David et al., 2018 ). From the psychological construction approach, understanding the patients' emotional problems will require understanding why the patients construct the psychological state they have into dysfunctional feelings of depression and not into functional feelings of sadness. During this process, the therapists will try to find which are the emotional concepts of the individual and which are the ingredients, or “psychological primitives,” of their depressed feelings (i.e., conceptual granularity, prior experience, core affect, behavioral repertories). Then, they will try to find the prior states that increased the probability of having depressed feelings (i.e., beliefs) and the mechanisms that control the frequent construction of their state as depressed feelings (i.e., context, attention). As the therapists explain the relationship between B and C, they will follow a probabilistic causation approach. For instance, instead of teaching the client that his beliefs that the exam is awful cause his feelings of anxiety, based on a psychological construction approach, the therapist will say, “You understand that as long as you believe that failing the exam is awful, you will probably feel anxiety and not concern.”

Implications for CBT practice

Although traditional CBT treats cognition, behavior, and emotion as distinct entities, at a closer look at the practice of CBT, we may find several precursors of the psychological construction approach. For instance, in the mainstream practice, therapists who follow a behavioral tradition often conceptualize cognition as a behavior and instead of cognitive interventions, to change cognition, they use behavioral interventions. Consequently, rather than employing cognitive restructuring, the therapists alter cognition by changing the environmental cues that initiate cognition (e.g., refraining from remaining in bed if that is the place where negative thinking occurs more frequently), and substituting it with an alternative cognition (e.g., rather than believing “I am useless,” the patients may be asked to recall instances of successful performance, what to change and that one failure does not define us) that has comparable consequences (e.g., motivating and giving importance to the problems).

Treating cognition as a behavior resembles the psychological construction approach.

However, the mainstream approach views cognition as behavior or belief, influenced by different theories on how cognition is understood (cognitivist vs. behaviorism), rather than being the same psychological state differently constructed by the individual as cognition or behavior. The psychological construction approach suggests that the same psychological state may be cognition, behavior, or emotion, depending on how it is constructed by the individual and on its “ingredients.” Thus, changing a cognition as a behavior is not something that follows the theoretical orientation of the therapist, but something that follows how the individual constructs that psychological state. From the psychological construction approach, when patients say I keep thinking “I am useless,” they are referring to a behavior. Probably, this psychological state is predominantly under the control of what is known as behavioral mechanisms (e.g., reinforcement). The client's statement, “I believe I am useless,” might indicate a different construction that the patients have engaged in, that of belief. Then, the intervention will focus on the analysis of confirmatory and dis-confirmatory information to change beliefs. Nonetheless, the individuals may construct the psychological state as something they feel—“I feel I am useless.” In this case, changing the psychological state as a feeling by validating, expressing, and processing the feeling may be more appropriate. As individuals may construct their mental state as different psychological states, depending on the type of construction (emotion, cognition, behavior), we may find some control mechanisms to be more often involved than others. Although early applications of multiple change strategies for the same mental state indicates possible benefits, scientific research may clarify which strategy or combination of strategies and in which condition would be more efficient for a particular individual. Furthermore, the intervention should consider the principles related to the ingredients or “recipe-like” composition of psychological states. When we target changing a psychological state (distorted appraisals) that may transform into dysfunctional feelings, the affective ingredients become the focus of treatment ( Tiba, 2010 ; Tiba and Manea, 2018 ). For instance, the cognitive satiation procedure is one good illustration of changing the affective ingredients of negative thoughts and reducing their emotional impact. For this purpose, the therapist may introduce a semantic satiation method: “One way to reduce the affective load of the thought “I am useless” is to use semantic satiation. In this exercise, we must repeat the expression “I am useless” more than 40 times until we load the thought with a phonetic rather than affective composition.”

Summary and outlook

A psychological construction approach brings important changes to how we deliver evidence-based psychological treatments: (1) understanding emotion, cognitive states, and behavior as different constructions of conscious psychological states; (2) changing psychological states is done by changing the general and specific control mechanisms involved in the specific unfolding of those states; (3) changing the ingredients involved in psychological states is a way of changing the relation between “thoughts” and “feelings.” As these principles may be viewed as super-ordinate principles guiding the models of psychological treatments, they can be integrated into the metacognitive principles of the CBT models. Given the enrichment of CBT interventions, the psychological construction approach has the potential to bring significant advancements to CBT treatment.

Author contributions

AT: Writing—original draft, Writing—review & editing.

The author(s) declare that financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. The funding for publication of the article was provided by the University of Oradea. This work was supported by a grant of the Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitization, CNCS - UEFISCDI, project number PN-III-P1-1.1-TE-2021-1090, within PNCDI III.

Conflict of interest

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Barrett, L. F. (2009). The future of psychology: connecting mind to brain. Persp. Psychol. Sci. 4:531. doi: 10.1111/j.1745-6924.2009.01134.x

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Brick, C., Hood, B., Ekroll, V., and de-Wit, L. (2022). Illusory essences: a bias holding back theorizing in psychological science. Persp. Psychol. Sci . 17, 491–506. doi: 10.1177/1745691621991838

David, D., Cristea, I., and Hofmann, S. G. (2018). Why cognitive behavioral therapy is the current gold standard of psychotherapy. Front. Psychiatr. 9:4. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00004

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Gündem, D., Potočnik, J., Winter, D., El Kaddouri, F. L., Stam, A., Peeters, D., et al. (2022). The neurobiological basis of affect is consistent with psychological construction theory and shares a common neural basis across emotional categories. Commun. Biol. 5:1354. doi: 10.1038/s42003-022-04324-6

Hayes, S. C., and Hofmann, S. G. (2018). Process-Based CBT: The Science and Core Clinical Competencies of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy . London: New Harbinger Publications, Inc.

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Ingram, R. E., Balderas, J., and Siegle, G. J. (2019). “Cognitive science foundations of cognitive-behavioral therapy,” in Handbook of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapies , K. S. Dobson and D. J. A. Dozois (London: The Guilford Press), 64–82.

Neufeld, E. (2022). Psychological essentialism and the structure of concepts. Philos. Compass 17:e12823. doi: 10.1111/phc3.12823

Shaffer, C., Westlin, C., Quigley, K. S., Whitfield-Gabrieli, S., and Barrett, L. F. (2022). Allostasis, action, and affect in depression: insights from the theory of constructed emotion. Ann. Rev. Clin. Psychol. 18, 553–580. doi: 10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-081219-115627

Tiba, A. (2010). Grounded cognition perspective on irrational beliefs in rational emotive behaviour therapy. J. Cognit. Behav. Psychother. 10, 87–99

Tiba, A. I., and Manea, L. (2018). An embodied simulation account of cognition in rational emotive behavior therapy. New Ideas Psychol. 48, 12–20. doi: 10.1016/j.newideapsych.2017.08.003

Westbrook, D., Kennerley, H., and Kirk, J. (2007). An Introduction to Cognitive Behaviour Therapy: Skills and Applications. London: Sage

Keywords: psychological construction, cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), essentialism, emotional disorders, constructed mind

Citation: Tiba AI (2024) Psychological construction as a theoretical principle for guiding cognitive-behavioral treatments. Front. Psychol. 15:1363819. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1363819

Received: 31 December 2023; Accepted: 07 March 2024; Published: 19 March 2024.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2024 Tiba. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Alexandru I. Tiba, alexandrutiba@gmail.com

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Creativity and the Brain

Creativity involves many parts of the brain..

Posted March 30, 2024 | Reviewed by Ray Parker

The book The Creative Art argues that creativity is a skill we can all use daily.
Creativity is complex and involves multiple brain regions.
School experience can influence creativity.

I recently finished reading an interesting book by Rick Rubin, The Creative Art: A Way of Being . (I was not paid and never met the author.) One of the clear messages of this book is that creativity belongs to everyone, not only to artists, and that we can be creative many times in our everyday lives. I agree. For example, right now, I am “creating” a new post.

This book inspired me to find out what is going on in the human brain that results in creativity. As I started reading research papers, it turned out to be a very complex and complicated subject. That is mainly because it is difficult to define creativity clearly. It is a rather subjective and multidimensional field. Also, many research papers study different kinds of creative processes, such as visual art, music, creative thinking , etc.

It is impossible to cover such a complex subject in one post. Coming from the field of cognitive processes, I decided to concentrate on research related to brain activity involved in creative thought processes. Most of the time, cognitive creativity involves testing the person’s divergent thinking (generating possible solutions to the problem) or convergent thinking (finding a single, correct solution to the problem). Brain activity is usually measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which looks at the function of the brain.

In a Canadian study (Sunavsky, A. and Poppenk, J. 2022), 69 participants ages 22-35 were administered visual and verbal tests of divergent thinking, creative achievement, and behavior inventories. The participants also had a whole-body MRI scan and FMRI. The results indicated that the cerebellum (this is an interesting finding because the cerebellum mainly coordinates body movements) and parahippocampal gyrus (involved in memory encoding and retrieval) are involved in creative processes. Also, the executive control network (in simple terms, it involves planning, organizing, problem-solving, and decision-making ) and the default mode network (areas of the brain that are activated when we are letting our minds wander at rest) interactions facilitate creative processes.

In a French study (Ovando-Tellez, M. et al. 2022), the researchers investigated the neural and cognitive basis of creative behavior in real life. The 94 participants, ages 22-37, completed fMRI while performing semantic relatedness judgment tasks. They judged the relatedness between all possible pairs of 35 words (595 ratings). The subjects also completed an inventory of creative activities and achievements.

One of the findings of this elaborate study indicated that efficient and denser functional connectivity between the default, control, salience (this network is involved in the awareness of the feelings associated with rewards), and visual network predicted a more integrated semantic memory structure and more creative behaviors. Generally speaking, creative thinking and creative abilities are related to the organization of associations in semantic memory. Simply, it includes memories of general knowledge, i.e., how to use a phone, facts, names, and concepts. Creative people easily link distant concepts.

A study (Beaty, R.E. et al. 2018) was completed at the University of North Carolina (UNCG). The 163 participants (mean age 22.5) were engaged in a creativity task (divergent thinking task, imagining a new and unusual use of the common object) and control task while the fMRI was completed. The results indicated that high creativity is related to functional brain connectivity within the default, silence, and executive brain systems.

The above research data brings us to the question of whether the creative thinking process can be taught. A study from Switzerland (Duval, Ph. E. et al. 2023) tried to answer that question. The researchers assessed creative thinking in 75 children (4-18 years old) enrolled either in Montessori (it promotes independence and holistic development) or traditional schools. The children performed a creativity task (convergent thinking task, integrating objects to make a drawing) and a six-minute resting state MRI scan. The research indicates that school experience does play a role in creativity development. Montessori-schooled children consistently scored higher on a creativity task. The study also unveiled the important role of the salience network (SN) in the creative thinking processes across development.

In summary, creative thinking (convergent and divergent thinking) requires the coordination of multiple brain regions, mainly the executive control network (it involves planning, organizing, problem-solving, and decision-making), default mode network (areas of the brain that are activated when we are letting our minds wander at rest) and salience network (involved in the awareness of the feelings associated with rewards) but obviously other parts of the brain are also involved and this depends on the specific goal or outcome that we want to achieve.

How to be more creative? Well, this is a subject for another post.

Rick Rubin “The Creative Act: A Way of Being”. Penguin Press, NY 2023.

Sunavsky, A & Poppenk,J. “Neuroimaging predictors of creativity in healthy adults” Neuroimage, Vol. 206, Feb. 2022

Ovando-Tellez, M.et al. “Brain connectivity-based predictors of real life creativity is mediated by semantic memory structure.” Science Advances, Vol 8. Issue 5, 2022.

Beaty, R.E. at al. “Robust prediction of individual creative ability from brain functional connectivity.” PNAS, January, 2018.

Duval, Ph. E. et al. “Creative thinking and brain network development in schoolchildren” Developmental Science, March 2023.

Barbara Koltuska-Haskin, Ph.D., is a neuropsychologist in Albuquerque, New Mexico and the author of How My Brain Works.

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Research Roundup: How the Pandemic Changed Management

Mark C. Bolino,
Jacob M. Whitney,
Sarah E. Henry

Lessons from 69 articles published in top management and applied psychology journals.

Researchers recently reviewed 69 articles focused on the management implications of the Covid-19 pandemic that were published between March 2020 and July 2023 in top journals in management and applied psychology. The review highlights the numerous ways in which employees, teams, leaders, organizations, and societies were impacted and offers lessons for managing through future pandemics or other events of mass disruption.

The recent pandemic disrupted life as we know it, including for employees and organizations around the world. To understand such changes, we recently reviewed 69 articles focused on the management implications of the Covid-19 pandemic. These papers were published between March 2020 and July 2023 in top journals in management and applied psychology.

Mark C. Bolino is the David L. Boren Professor and the Michael F. Price Chair in International Business at the University of Oklahoma’s Price College of Business. His research focuses on understanding how an organization can inspire its employees to go the extra mile without compromising their personal well-being.
JW Jacob M. Whitney is a doctoral candidate in management at the University of Oklahoma’s Price College of Business and an incoming assistant professor at Kennesaw State University. His research interests include leadership, teams, and organizational citizenship behavior.
SH Sarah E. Henry is a doctoral candidate in management at the University of Oklahoma’s Price College of Business and an incoming assistant professor at the University of South Florida. Her research interests include organizational citizenship behaviors, workplace interpersonal dynamics, and international management.

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Operational definitions. In cognitive neuroscience, research in metacognition is split into two tracks 32.One track mainly studies meta-knowledge by investigating the neural basis of introspective ...
Frontiers in Psychology
Learn more about Research Topics. Part of the largest journal in its field, this section explores standard cognitive topics, such as sensation, perception, attention, memory, judgement and decision making, problem solving, reasonin...
61 Interesting Psychology Research Topics (2024)
Examples of systemic racism-related psychology research topics include: Access to mental health resources based on race. The prevalence of BIPOC mental health therapists in a chosen area. The impact of systemic racism on mental health and self-worth. Racism training for mental health workers.
129 Cognitive Psychology Essay Topic Ideas & Examples
Definition of Cognitive Psychology. The cognitive theory has been found to be a blend of the human and behavioral theories. Past research shows that the origin of cognitive psychology is in the behavior of a human being. Structuralism, Functionalism and Cognitive Theory in Psychology.
Research Topics In Psychology (+ Free Webinar)
Research Ideas: Developmental Psychology. The impact of maternal affection on cognitive, social, and emotional development. The effects of parenting styles on children's executive function. The impact of late-night screen use on child development. The role of digital play on child development outcomes.
Cognitive psychology
A communication scientist explains. Richard Huskey, University of California, Davis. Research shows that people with more flow in their lives had a higher sense of well-being during the COVID-19 ...
Cognitive Psychology: Research Areas: Research: Psychological and Brain
Research in Cognitive Psychology Cognitive psychologists develop a systematic understanding of cognitive processes. These include perception, human learning, attention, categorization, problem solving, decision-making, information processing and retrieval, short and long-term memory and forgetting, sensory encoding, motor control ...
200+ Psychology Topics to Research Right Away
40+ Cognitive Psychology Topics. The role of working memory in problem-solving. Cognitive effects of sleep deprivation. Neural basis of attention and focus. Influence of language on cognitive development. Decision-making biases in economic behavior. The psychology of learning and memory.
Frontiers in Cognition
The Effects of Naturalistic Stimuli on Neural Network Activity. Eric Schumacher. Sadia Shakil. 456 views. A multidisciplinary journal for empirical studies and theoretical works on major cognitive functions, focusing on developments in cognitive neuropsychology and cognition from theory and data, to be...
Cognitive Approach In Psychology
The cognitive approach began to revolutionize psychology in the late 1950s and early 1960s to become the dominant approach (i.e., perspective) in psychology by the late 1970s. Interest in mental processes was gradually restored through the work of Jean Piaget and Edward Tolman. Tolman was a 'soft behaviorist'.
101 Best Cognitive Psychology Research Topics
Getting excellent cognitive psychology research topics can be mind-boggling. However, our writers have gone the extra mile to produce the most exciting ideas. Behavior analysis in sports and exercise psychology. Behavioral psychology in sports performance enhancement. Implications of sport-athlete relationship for training.
60+ Psychology Research Topics 2024+
When choosing a good psychology research topic, it is important to consider the practicalities of conducting your research. For example, you need to make sure that you will be able to access the necessary data or participants for your study. 6. Make sure your chosen topic is ethical. It is important to choose a topic that is ethical and ...
Social Cognition Research Topics
Social Cognition Research Topics: Social cognition draws heavily on material within cognitive psychology and social psychology to examine the relationship between basic cognitive operations and fundamental social problems. In this respect, work in this domain has attempted to show that, during his or her lifetime, an individual's thoughts and ...
Research Topics
Research topics include memory and memory development, symbol processing and language development, mechanisms of attention, visual perception, visual cognition, psycholinguistics, psychology of law, and computational modeling. We participate in several interdisciplinary programs, including the newly established Center for Neuroscience, and the graduate programs in Human Development ...
Anxiety
Anxiety. Anxiety is an emotion characterized by feelings of tension, worried thoughts, and physical changes like increased blood pressure. Anxiety is not the same as fear, but they are often used interchangeably. Anxiety is considered a future-oriented, long-acting response broadly focused on a diffuse threat, whereas fear is an appropriate ...
APA aims to represent the interests of all of psychology
APA serves as the "big tent" for the field, aiming to represent the interests of all of psychology. Making this a reality requires significant effort, discipline, and intentionality. It means recognizing and promoting the breadth of our field and the range of members' world views, with the understanding that our differences do not ...
Mental health
Mental health. Mental health is a state of mind characterized by emotional well-being, good behavioral adjustment, relative freedom from anxiety and disabling symptoms, and a capacity to establish constructive relationships and cope with the ordinary demands and stresses of life. Adapted from APA Dictionary of Psychology.
Frontiers
Cognitive behavior therapies (CBT) are considered the benchmark for evidence-based psychological treatments for psychological disorders (David et al., 2018).CBT treatments work and are well-known because they constantly update with new scientific research encompassing the theory, models, and their real-life applications (Ingram et al., 2019).The integration of psychopathology research into the ...
Creativity and the Brain
The above research data brings us to the question of whether the creative thinking process can be taught. A study from Switzerland (Duval, Ph. E. et al. 2023) tried to answer that question.
Research: How Different Fields Are Using GenAI to Redefine Roles
The interactive, conversational, analytical, and generative features of GenAI offer support for creativity, problem-solving, and processing and digestion of large bodies of information. Therefore ...
Research Roundup: How the Pandemic Changed Management
Summary. Researchers recently reviewed 69 articles focused on the management implications of the Covid-19 pandemic that were published between March 2020 and July 2023 in top journals in ...

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Metacognition: ideas and insights from neuro- and educational sciences

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