According to William James’ functionalism school of thinking, the mind’s main function is to assist people in adapting to their surroundings. This method focuses on how the brain functions as a whole to meet practical demands rather than dissecting its individual parts.
The Basic Idea
It posits that our mental states and behaviors are survival mechanisms, in line with our inherent biological goals. Sound like evolution? That’s because functionalism, or functional psychology, stems directly from Darwin’s school of thought, emerging in the late 19th century as a counter to the prevailing theory of structuralism. Unlike structuralism, which tries to simply understand our subjective experience of consciousness, functionalism also aims to find meaning and purpose in what we experience. “The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes. -William James, American Psychologist
Functionalism
Functionalism is an approach to psychology that emphasizes the broad capabilities of the human mind by analyzing mental states and behaviors in terms of their purposes. William James developed this school of thought, which suggests that the mind's primary purpose is to help humans adapt to their environment. Rather than dissecting the brain's individual components, functionalism emphasizes the brain's overall function in meeting practical needs.
“The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.
– William James, American Psychologist”
History
The late 19th-century American psychologist William James is credited with giving rise to functionalism. Darwin's theory of evolution had a big impact on James, who also criticized the structural approach to psychology that had dominated the discipline from the beginning. The goal of consciousness, psychological states, and action should be the emphasis of psychology, James maintained, rather than the particular "introspective" components that comprise our consciousness.
James is recognized for being the first to support a functional approach to psychology, but it wasn't until later in the 19th century that functionalism as a school of thought came into its own, with researchers at the University of Chicago starting to formalize the idea. Functionalism, with a particular emphasis on the biological and animal aspects of learning and behavior, was developed here by John Dewey, Harvey A. Carr, and James Rowland Angell. Edward Thorndike and other functionalists would form another group at Columbia University. Thorndike's contributions to behavior analysis and reinforcement theory served as the foundation for the empirical rules that behaviorism adopted later in the 20th century.
The field of experimental psychology evolved alongside functional psychology. Additionally, the majority of early 20th- century functionalists invented new methods for both laboratory and field studies of animal and human behavior. By manipulating some variables that may explain our behavior, psychologists continue to employ experiments, which has led to significant advances in our understanding of the functional organization of our brains.
Contributions
William James
Frequently regarded as the founder of American psychology, James was among the first to support a practical approach to the discipline. One of America's most influential thinkers of the late 19th century was Harvard Professor William James.
Thorndike, Edward Lee
The law of effect, which asserts that through a process of trial and error, subjects discover the most desired behavioral reactions to certain stimuli, and these become their most used responses in the future, was developed as a result of Thorndike's studies of animal behavior and the learning process.
Harvey Carr
The Psychology Department at the University of Chicago, which had developed into the center of the Functionalist movement, was chaired by American psychologist Carr from 1926 to 1938. The Kerplunk Experiment, a well-known stimulus and response test on rats that he and John Watson did, is what made him most renowned.
John Dewey
American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer, John Dewey, is credited with creating functionalism in his 1896 paper "The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology."
Implications
Functionalism had a significant impact on psychology’s development starting in the 19th century. After functionalism gained popularity, the majority of structuralist concepts that had previously dominated the discipline were contested and did not find their way into contemporary psychology. In the middle of the 20th century, behaviorism—which sees human behavior as a sort of “reflex” in response to outside stimuli—rose directly out of functionalism.
Many of the theories of reinforcement learning and conditioning developed by well-known behaviorists like B.F. Skinner and Iain Pavlov were derived from functionalist research. Pavlov conditioned dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell in his well-known classical conditioning experiment, which you have probably heard about. That most likely wouldn’t have occurred if functionalism hadn’t served as the foundation for research that viewed our thoughts and actions as reactions to outside stimuli.
In clinical psychology, behaviorism and its practical application in Applied Behavior Analysis—which employs empirical methods to promote positive behavior—would grow to be a very popular philosophy. It is still utilized today as an intervention for individuals suffering from disorders like addiction, dementia, and autism.
Additionally, functionalism directly impacted the US educational system. John Dewey's ideas that children should study at the rate that best fits their intellectual development and that the curriculum should empower pupils to draw from their own interests and experiences were largely responsible for this. In order to foster positive behavior, special education settings also employ behaviorist and functionalist concepts.
Last but not least, the experimental tradition that developed with functionalism introduced a variety of study techniques that are still applied in contemporary psychology. These consist of questionnaires, physiological assessments, mental exams, and observation studies.
Controversies
Some people believe that functionalism serves as a link between contemporary behaviorism and early structuralist concepts. It has been criticized by both schools of thinking, of course. Functionalism, according to structuralists, did not adequately describe or make an effort to comprehend the mental processes they were studying.
Psychologists should concentrate on introspection and comprehending these components of consciousness for what they are, according to structuralists, rather than attempting to explain mental states and behaviors in the context of environmental stimuli. Additionally, they contended that functional psychology's applied nature was counterproductive to its primary objective of determining the architecture of consciousness.
In the middle to late 20th century, behaviorists would also criticize certain facets of functionalism. Behaviorists were solely interested in studying human behavior and disapproved of any theory that did not consider mental states to be directly impacted by outside stimuli, whereas functionalists thought it was critical to acknowledge the power of consciousness and internal cognitions like preexisting beliefs.
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