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This essay demonstrates that the study of world politics should be situated in a cognitive approach, along with the study of foreign policy making. As I will show, the so-called "rationality-cognitive debate" has become a pseudo-debate. Theories of both foreign policy & world politics must be realistically grounded in the assumptions & knowledge of cognitive actors to advance our grasp of practice as well as theory. The basic assumptions of the approach are described, & the accumulated knowledge is reviewed in five critical areas: (1) the content of policymaker beliefs (from general images to specific preferences); (2) the organization & structure of policymaker beliefs (resulting in coherent vs fragmented images); (3) the common patterns of perception & misperception (eg, the tendency to categorize & stereotype, simplify causal inferences, & use historical analogies); (4) the likelihood of cognitive rigidity to limit change & learning; & (5) the impact on policy making (agenda-setting & framing, & formulation & choice). Although sensitivity to variation in cognition across individuals & cultures is increasingly important, international relations scholars cannot ignore the insights about human cognition if their theories are to reflect international realities. Adapted from the source document.