Everything about Functional Psychology totally explained
Functional psychology or
functionalism refers to a general psychological approach that views mental life and behavior in terms of active adaptation to the person's environment. As such, it provides the general basis for developing psychological theories not readily testable in controlled experiments and for applied psychology.
History
Functionalism was a position taken opposing the prevailing
structuralism of the end of the 19th century in psychology.
Wilhelm Wundt, the leading structuralist, gave psychology its first definition as a science as the study of mental experience, of
consciousness, to be studied by trained
introspection. See
History of psychology#Early American Psychology.
William James,
John Dewey,
George Herbert Mead, Harvey A. Carr, and especially
James Rowland Angell were the leading exponents of the functionalist point of view at the
University of Chicago. Another group at
Columbia, led by
James McKeen Cattell,
Edward L. Thorndike, and
Robert S. Woodworth, were also called functionalist and shared some of the views of the Chicago school.
Egon Brunswik represents a more recent, but Continental, version. The functionalists retained an emphasis on conscious experience.
Behaviorists also rejected the methodology of introspection but criticized functionalism because it wasn't grounded in controlled experiments and its theories provided little predictive power.
Contemporary descendants
Evolutionary psychology is founded on the view that the function of all psychological phenomena in human evolution is a necessary perspective to their understanding. Even the project of studying the evolutionary
functions of consciousness is now an active field of study.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Functional Psychology'.
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