Cognitive Psychology and Decision Making in Foreign Policy

Cognitive psychology is a branch of cognitive sciences which studies the internal subjective processes as problem-solving, memory, understanding, cognition, language and decision making through concentration on mind. In fact, cognitive psychology aims to answer the question of what is the impact of human mind on decision making process. Decision making in foreign policy is affected by actors who have their own inputs, psychology, and aims. By taking benefit from new means to study the way of information analysis and give a different understanding of how the decisions are made, the present article aims to analyze cognitive psychology as the new area in foreign policy decision making and its shortcomings in analyzing decision making in foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran.