1. An introduction to cognitive mapping
You may use this presentation in its entirety or selected slides from the presentation. However, if you use any of the slides (all or part of their contents) and (all or part) of the associated notes then you must acknowledge the source and copyright of the materials. It is illegal not to do so.
This presentation is intended to provide an introduction to cognitive mapping, which may be used with students or any trainees interested in learning about the cognitive mapping technique.
As with all such things, “practise makes perfect”, so encourage your students/ trainees to practise the method in their own time. It can be used in many different contexts, so encourage them to experiment. The Decision Explorer workbook, “An introduction to Decision Explorer: Decision Explorer workbook 1”, which can be downloaded from is also helpful in encouraging practise with and a deeper understanding of cognitive mapping.
All materials are copyright to Banxia Software Limited ©
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2. You may use this presentation in its entirety or selected slides from the presentation. However, if you use any of the slides (all or part of their contents) and (all or part) of the associated notes then you must acknowledge the source and copyright of the materials. It is illegal not to do so.
The presentation “An introduction to cognitive mapping” and associated notes are copyright to Banxia Software Limited
Version 1.0 released December 2001.
Version 1.1 released February 2001.
Version 1.1 Feb 2001
© Banxia Software Ltd

3. Presentation overview
What is a cognitive map? And why use them?
Guidelines for building maps.
Exercises.
Applications.
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4. What is a cognitive map?
A visual representation of an individual’s or a group’s ideas.
Ideas are linked on a causal basis.
There is a hierarchy within the ideas.
A cognitive map is “action orientated”.
The map should be representative of the interviewee’s not the interviewer’s ideas and opinions.
You should note that when talking about cognitive mapping, you are drawing on the work of Colin Eden and Fran Ackermann, as summarised in their book: “Making strategy: the journey of strategic management”. Sage This book incorporates chapters on the theory and practice of cognitive mapping.
Strictly speaking the term “cognitive map” in this context should only really be applied to a map built for or by an individual. When mapping a group’s ideas, while you may be using the cognitive mapping technique, you are building a “group causal map”. This is because we would not talk about a group having cognition in the way that an individual does. To some, this may be a fine distinction that they are not concerned with. To others, the distinction may represent a strict use of terminology that they want to adopt.
Identifying the hierarchy of ideas, the subordinate and super-ordinate ideas, may be more difficult than you think. Asking the question: “What is the means and what is the end?” or “What is the cause and what is the desired effect?” will help the individual or group to reflect on what has been said. What was, at first glance, thought to be obvious may become a bit of a conundrum.
The “action orientation” of a cognitive map comes from the phraseology used for the concepts and from the notion that a cognitive map is aimed at surfacing the goal or aspiration structure of an individual or group, with a view to problem definition and (ultimately) action to achieve the goals. You are exploring: “what we want to achieve here and what will or will not make it happen”.
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5. What is a cognitive map?
Reading this cognitive map, starting from the concept at the bottom, right-hand corner of the slide:
“Talking to my tutor may lead to me getting a revised submission date [for my project], which in turn may lead to making time for the other priorities that I have to deal with. Making more time [for other priorities] may lead to me being able to present my dissertation findings to the department seminar, this in turn may lead to my being able to incorporate the feedback from the seminar into my final report.”
You can do this for each of the lines of argument.
People who are new to the cognitive mapping technique often have some difficulty in reading maps, especially if voicing the lines of argument (as illustrated above) has not been demonstrated to them. Not everybody is a natural “visual thinker”. We are brought up with and taught to use linear narratives.
Encourage people to voice the lines of argument when they are learning to build maps. The concepts as they appear in the map are generally shorter than the full phrase that would be used in conversation, so voicing the lines of argument helps the reader/ map builder to see how the map fits together.
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6. Why use maps? A picture rather than a list.
A means of structuring (and drawing conclusions from) data.
in interviews, with groups, and managing large amounts of qualitative information from documents, published sources, business plans etc.
A focus for discussion.
Improve interviewing capability.
capture “deep knowledge” and experience.
“A picture paints a thousand words” as the popular saying goes. With a picture (map) you can capture the sense of a lot of information in a single page, which would otherwise take up several pages of linear text.
The cognitive mapping method provides you with a defined way in which to structure (and in so doing draw conclusions from) qualitative information (ideas). The act of building the map helps both the interviewee/ group and the map builder/ facilitator to think more deeply about the issue under discussion.
While the technique was developed for live use, in an interview or with a group in a workshop setting, it can be used to develop maps from printed material, videos or tape recorded conversations. The only real disadvantage with working in this way is that you may not be able to go back to the source of the information and ask for clarification about the exact meaning of and the relationship between ideas. For example, when working from a printed text, it may not be clear in a particular idea who the actor is or what a particular abbreviation is referring to.
With an individual or a group a map can be used as a focus for discussion. The ideas are explicit and shareable and can be openly debated. With regard to improving interviewing capability, maps benefit both the interviewee and the interviewer. Through the questioning process the interviewee is encouraged to question his/ her assumptions about the relationships between ideas, while the interviewer has the opportunity to clarify his/her understanding of the ideas being discussed and the relationships between them.
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7. Guidelines for building maps
Terminology
concepts (the short phrases representing ideas).
links (expressing the relationship between ideas, “may lead to”).
map (the total of all of the concepts - also referred to as “a model” or a portion of the overall map - depending on context).
emergent phrase and contrast (the two poles of an idea, a preference expressed as “rather than”).
In cognitive mapping the short phrases, each of which expresses a distinct idea, are refered to as “concepts”.
The links in a cognitive map are causal but there are other forms of mapping which do not use causal links. Depending on the context within which you are teaching cognitive mapping you may want to point out to your students/ trainees that they can learn this method (cognitive mapping) and then adapt it for their particular purpose or learn this and other methods and use them as appropriate.
Adaptations include the use of “user defined” links - that is links shown in a different display style in the map and to which a meaning other than “may lead to” is attached. You may want to represent different types of causal relationship or just different types of relationship (a mixture of causal, associative, temporal and so on). For example, a pale blue dotted link may be representative of a tenuous, causal link and have the meaning “might possibly lead to” attached to it.
The question: “but what if it’s not a causal relationship?” is one which does often crop up. “Pure” cognitive mapping uses only causal links and all links have the same “weight” (level of importance) attached to them. However, there is nothing to stop you adapting the technique, provided that you and the people who you are working with understand and share the conventions that you are using in your map.
When talking about contrasting poles in a concept, suggest that your students/ trainees listen to their own conversations. We are constantly expressing preferences in our ideas. “I would prefer to leave the office early, rather than stay until 7.00pm” and so on. Often we are not even aware that we are doing this and often the preferences do not follow immediately in the same sentence. The conversation moves on and then you hear the contrast.
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8. Guidelines for building maps
Break down sentences in to distinct phrases, one idea per phrase.
Use an imperative form, indicate the action.
In any pair of ideas look for the cause and effect/ means and end.
Build up a hierarchy (the specific leads to the generic).
Watch out for goals (outcomes, ends in themselves).
Capture the contrasting poles (“rather than”).
Retain users original language as much as possible.
Work on a blank, unlined piece of paper. Use a pencil and have an eraser to hand. Start roughly a third of the way down the page.
One idea per phrase - at first you may find that you do not quite manage this and you may have concepts which contain two or more ideas. This becomes obvious when you starting linking in other ideas. Use an imperative form, for example, “revise date for submission”. Avoid expressions such as “try to get a revised date for submission”, because revising the date is what you want to achieve. The sample map at the start of this presentation does not elaborate what would happen if you did not manage to agree a revised date. Keep asking yourself “how” and “why”, “means” and “ends” questions as you build the map, to check that you are constructing the lines of argument correctly. If you (as an interviewer) are unsure about which is which, ask for clarification. Goals are usually expressed as something that is “wholesome and good”, phrases such as: “What we really want to achieve here is…” are likely to be goal statements. You can check that what you think are goals really are goals by asking if there is a “higher end” above a goal. If the answer is: “no, that’s it”, then you have arrived at a goal. For paper based working, mark goals clearly, using symbols such as “**”.
You do not have to have an opposite pole for every idea in the map. Put in the contrasts that add additional, useful meaning to the map. If the contrast is “black rather than white” or “yes rather than no” then you do not necessarily need to capture it. However, if the contrast is “black rather than bright red” or “yes rather than these conditions apply”, then you should make sure that you capture both poles.
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9. Guidelines for building maps
Getting started
frame the area/topic for the discussion. This does not go into the map but is the subject that you are talking about.
get the first five to ten ideas down on paper and then start putting in the links.
building on the ideas that you already have by using the map to guide the discussion.
for each idea ask about the outcomes (Why is this important? What are we/you trying to achieve?) and the supporting argument (What would make this happen? How would we/you make it happen?)
A common pitfall in building a map is to put the framing question - the topic of the map, as a concept in the centre of the page and then try to link everything into it and out of it. This leaves you with one, enormous “sump” in the map (generally almost everything leads into it). The framing question, which defines the topic of the discussion does not necessarily link into the map in anyway. If you are using Decision Explorer (the software developed to support cognitive mapping) when building your maps, set up a display style called “StartQ” (short for “starter question”), attribute this style to your framing question and place the concept in the top left-hand corner of the first view that you are working on. If you are working with paper and pencil, either note the framing question at the top of the page on which you will be drawing your map, or make a note of it on a separate sheet which both you and your interviewee can share and refer back to.
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10. Developing maps Why? Idea How?
Ask “why” type questions to build up the chains of argument and “how” type questions to fill in the detail building down the chains of argument. This is called “laddering”. You should do this for each of the ideas in the map that you are building. The “heads” (ends/ outcomes) of the lines of argument should be representative of the individual’s or group’s goals. The “tails” (start) of the lines of argument should be representative of triggering events. Tails should be examined to establish to what degree they are actionable. For example, “talk to tutor about project deadline” is something that I can action. There may be other things that I could do in relation to getting a revised project deadline and these would appear as additional options beneath the concept “revise date for submission”. These additional options would be surfaced by answering the question “how might I achieve getting a revised date for submission?”.
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11. Structuring maps Goals Issues Options Actions “not-goals” “not-goals”
This slide shows the model structure that you are building up in a cognitive map. You are building a free network of ideas, so the map will not look as neat and well organised as this. But you when you identify and mark a goal you are “raising it above” the other ideas in the map. Similarly, for ideas which are identified as “key issues”. If you are working with pencil and paper, goals and key issues would be marked up using ** (goal) and * (key issue) notation or your own version of this. When using the Decision Explorer software colour coding is used to distinguish between different types of concept.
Actions
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12. Exercise 1
Map this text: I’m really fed up with travelling through this airport!
"There were long queues at the X-ray machines. Passengers could miss their flights or the flights could be delayed by late passengers instead of the gate closing on time. Then we would all arrive at our destination late. And I think that there would be an increase in everyone’s total journey time, if we all had to allow an extra 30 minutes to get through the X-ray machines. This short of check shouldn't take more than 3 minutes, or even less if you think about it!"
"We couldn’t spend time in the shopping mall either, or at least it was greatly reduced. My wife likes to spend time in the shopping mall, even if I’d rather she didn’t! There are loads of things that this could affect."
"When I complained they just said that they haven’t got the staff - if they had they could operate more X-ray machines. But you can see how crowded it is in here, they would need to clear or find more space, rearrange the whole place to get more machines in."
Map this text to practice using the cognitive mapping technique. It is a good idea to start by reading through the whole text before attempting to construct a map. Then, in the text, underline the phrases which represent the main ideas. The starting point is this passenger’s frustration caused by the “long queues at the X-ray machines”. The “X-ray” model supplied with Decision Explorer gives a fuller picture, this text relates to a small part of the X-ray model and the map which comes from this text is shown on the next slide.
You may want to use a text of your own for this exercise.
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13. Sample map for exercise 1
Hide this slide in the main presentation and in the handout. Give out the solution after the students have tried to map the text for themselves.
Points to note:-
1. The contrast “deploy more staff”, in concept number 12, is not expressed in the text. The interviewer would have said something like: “So, when you complained and were told that they hadn’t got the staff, what is the alternative?” Which, in this case elicited the response: “Well, there are plenty of staff just standing around, they should just deploy more staff to the X-ray machines”.
2. The start of the map (the “long queues at X-ray” concept), does not sit “at the bottom” or “at the top” of the map. This concept is a “key issue” for the passenger. The first few ideas voiced usually sit somewhere in “the middle” of the map, hence the advice to start mapping about a third of the way down the page.
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14. Exercise 2
Think of a topic that is “close to your heart” - it must be a “live”, “emotive issue” for you.
Work in pairs, interview each other in turn.
Frame a “starter question” - e.g. “How might I go about completing project X?”
Interviewer - ask questions to help your interviewee tease out their ideas about the subject. Work “upwards” to surface to what they are trying to achieve (goals/ outcomes) and “downwards” to put in the supporting ideas (explanation) beneath ideas.
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15. Some applications
Exploring causal relationships between ideas in the context of:
problem structuring/ project definition
strategy development
stakeholder analysis
risk management
system dynamics model definition
expert systems definition
interviews
mapping interviews and mapping your thoughts about interviews in research and consultancy
The range of applications of cognitive mapping is very broad. It is the content of the ideas and the relationships expressed between them, which “bend” the technique to a particular application.
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16. Benefits of using mapping
Inter-relationships and inter-dependencies are made explicit.
The interviewee/ group is forced to question and debate the relationship between ideas and what their goals really are.
The map provides a focus for discussion and debate.
Lines of argument make the rational behind a person’s thinking clearer.
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17. An introduction to cognitive mapping
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