Functionalism School of thought

Functionalism School of thought

In 1900 functionalism replaced with structuralism. The founder of functionalism is the American psychologist William James and Cattell.

John Dewey an American educator studied the function of conscious experience and redefined psychology as the study of man’s adjustment to his environment.

Fundamental Tasks:

Functionalism as the name suggest focus on how mind function, or how an organism used mind to adapt the environment. It concerned with practical questioned i.e what do mental processes accomplish. Persons interaction with environment was the major theme of functionalists. The main topic of functionalists to study were thinking, memory, consciousness, motivation, learning, and animal intelligence.

Methods:

Functionalist used introspection method to study consciousness. They also used tests, surveys and experimental techniques to study mental process and consciousness. Functionalists were interested to apply psychological concept in school, business and homes.

Goals:

For functionalists the goal was to understand how the mind and behavior work in adding an organism’s adjustment to the environment.

In other words functionalism focused on the “fundamental utilities of consciousness” . It used experimental method including introspection.

Criticism

I)             Did not describe the relationship of mind and body.

II)            Functionalists used introspection which was not a scientific method.

III)           Functionalists did not explain the concept of unconsciousness.

     IV)      Functionalism did not explain the function of consciousness