The Cognitive School

Murtaza Ali KhanMuhammad Nadeem AkhtarMasood Zafar AnwelAmna KhanMuhammad Ahsan

Cogito, ergo sum. (Descartes)

I think, therefore I am.

Cognition

It is the process of knowing and more precisely, the process of being aware, thinking, learning and judging.

Cognitive PsychologyIt is the study of cognition and the underlying mental processes. Processes such as reasoning, problem solving, language, concept, creativity, motivation, instincts, beliefs and memory

Two wings of this schoolObjective

He is six feet tall

Or

Our profit is 20 million

vs.Subjective

I like tall menOrWe did well last year.

Cognition as Confusion

What we see is what we believe.

What about what we don’t see?

What about our biases?

We see what we want to see and believe what we want to believe.

Cognition as Information Processing

In the cognitive process, we abstract certain forms and patterns from the overall unified field of knowledge and retain them in memory

Cognition as Mapping

Mapping is a method we use to structure and store spatial knowledge, allowing the "mind's eye" to visualize images.a metaphor applied to what is really an internal representation that may be composed of any one of a number of things

Just as an individual's familiarity with an area increases, the use of the internal cognitive map replaces the reliance on external sources of information; similarly the CEO who with an in-depth knowledge of the company can use the power of cognition to make strategy and does not need the help of consultants and data as in Positioning, Planning schools

Cognition as Concept AttainmentConcept attainment is the process of defining or identifying concepts by finding those attributes that are absolutely essential to the meaning of the concept and disregarding those that are not.

• Two important factors in all discussion of concept attainment are 1) the structure of concept and 2) the number of attributes involved.

• Some of the individual abilities under consideration while discussing concept attainment are: general reasoning, verbal comprehension, induction, deduction, perception and memory.

• Concept attainment is distinct from information processing.• Tacit Knowledge: tacit knowledge is knowledge that people carry in their minds and is, therefore,

difficult to access. Often, people are not aware of the knowledge they possess or how it can be valuable to others. Good example is experience.

• Explicit knowledge: is knowledge that has been or can be articulated, codified, and stored in certain media. It can be readily transmitted to others. The most common forms of explicit knowledge are manuals, documents and procedures

• Intuition: • Sixth Sense:

Cognition as Construction or Interpretation

Cognition as interpretation means that the human mind takes in all the information provided by the outside environment and then interprets it according to frames that already exist in the mind.

Frames are ‘meta communicative’ meaning we interpret information depending on how it is inside the frame. For example, we have a frame that describes “happiness” and another for “sadness”. This is why somebody crying with happiness is different from somebody crying with sadness.

Frames vs. Schema:

Organizational EnvironmentsEnvironment within the organization as well as outside it, is how the strategy maker creates and interprets it.

Objective Environment : Positioning Schoolenvironment as it actually exists. For example, distance from home to office is 10 KM.

Perceived Environment: Cognitive School (objective wing)environment as perceived by the strategy maker. For example, the distance from home to office may be perceived to be more or less than 10 KM depending on whether the person is in car, bus, on foot, tired, fresh or any other individual condition or thought. Perceived environment may also be the result of insufficient information about environmental events and activities, and the inability to predict external changes.

Enacted Environment: Cognitive School (subjective wing)The enacted environment depicts what the human agents of the organization believe and perceive about the objective environment. Thus, the objective environment is perceived differently by different organizations .

Group Thinking:

Premises of Cognitive School

• Strategy formation is a cognitive process that takes place in the mind of the strategist

• Strategies emerge as perspectives in the form of concepts, maps, schemas and frames

• The inputs from environment flow through distorting filters before they are decoded by the cognitive maps

• Strategies are difficult to obtain, less than optimal when actually attained and difficult to change when no longer viable

Cognition According to Kant

‘A priori theory’ is based on the concept of deduction. It says that decisions are made on the basis of assumptions that may or may not be true.

Deduction: Reduction. Using reasoning and stated premises to reach a conclusion. In deduction general principles are applied to specific instances.

Induction: induction makes generalizations based on a number of specific instances. The process of deriving general principles from particular facts or instances

DeductionInduction

Cognition according to Freud

Dr. Sigmund Freud believed that humans act based upon “sexual urges and aggressive instincts”. He coined the terms id, ego, and superego, to refer to different parts of the psyche.

Humans basically want to maximize pleasure and minimize pain, according to Freudian principles, and they act solely based on these selfish goals.

He also pioneered the concept of “defense mechanisms”

which humans use to blur or become blind to the truth and avoid feeling the pain that may come along with truths people don’t want to face

Iqbal’s view on Human CognitionExtracted from: ‘Reconstuction of Religious Thought in Islam’

The ego reveals itself as a unity of what we call mental states. Mental states do not exist in mutual isolation. They mean and involve one another

…(it is not) possible to say that my appreciation of the beauty of the Taj Mahal varies with my distance from Agra

The ego, therefore, is not space-bound in the sense in which the body is space-bound (ie. Mind’s interpreation is subjective , not objective)

The ‘I think’, which accompanies every thought is, according to Kant, a purely formal condition of thought, and the transition from a purely formal condition of thought to ontological substance is logically illegitimate. Even apart from Kant’s way of looking at the subject of experience, the indivisibility of a substance does not prove its indestructibility; for the indivisible substance, as Kant himself remarks, may gradually disappear into nothingness like an intensive quality or cease to exist all of a sudden.

Quran & Human Mind and ChoiceWe have offered the responsibility (freedom of choice) to the heavens and the earth, and the mountains, but they refused to bear it, and were afraid of it. But the human being accepted it; he was transgressing, ignorant. (Surah Al - Ahzab, Verse 72)

Critiques of Cognitive School

• Potential vs. contribution

• Strategy formation is a mental process and depends on the cognitive capabilities of the individual