Does cognitive psychology ignore reinforcement and motivation in its stipulations and descriptions of how one thinks, learns, and remembers? The answer is "Yes" and "No." This is because there are really two schools of thought when it comes to cognitive psychology. One of these does indeed place its primary emphasis upon thought, even to the extent of asserting that thought and associated brain processes is really the predominating causal factor in motivation (Solso, MacLin & MacLin, 2007). Clearly, this branch of cognitive psychology does ignore motivational mechanisms in terms of the effects of the environment in shaping and maintaining human behavior through various reinforcement mechanisms.
However, there is another branch of cognitive psychology that realizes both inner and outer processes play a role in human motivation. As noted by Ledley, Marx and Heimberg (2005), this view arises out of clinical psychology in which the goal is to motivate people to make therapeutic changes which, in turn, help them to live more satisfying lives. When this is the goal, both external and internal processes that motivate change become important and so weight is given to both thought/brain processes and reinforcement processes.
Given the foregoing, it seems reasonable to state that a certain subset of cognitive psychology does ignore the external factors that motivate and maintain human behavior. However, in the clinical field, where cognitive psychology is given real-world application, the environment and external reinforcement processes is not being ignored; it is not being ignored because it cannot be ignored if clinicians desire successful treatment. This fact would seem to support the need for inclusion of motivational processes into cognitive psychology's theoretical models, as opposed to its exclusion in an effort to make thought and/or brain processes the ultimate causal factors explaining all human behavior.
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