Describing a psychological school in its entirety and in detail can be an arduous task, since even within the same current different mentalities could coexist between authors. In addition, it is also worth mentioning that to get to know each school perfectly, you have to go back to its predecessors, which still complicates things a bit more.
However, in Psychology-Online we want to provide you with our help so that you know a little more about the history of psychology. Therefore, this article presents one of the schools best known by all psychologists. Discover the characteristics, the theory and the authors of functionalism.
The school of functionalism is considered the combination of science, concern for practicality, the emphasis on the individual and the theory of evolution. This has its beginnings in the late nineteenth century.
The formal beginning of functionalism began with the publication of the book Principles of Psychology leave me alone. This school predates Titchener structuralism
Functionalism considers the consciousness of people as a current that is constantly changing. This has the characteristics of being personal (it reflects the particular experiences of each one) and continuous (it cannot be divided for analysis).
The authors of this current, from the particular interest they have in knowing the reason for mental processes, begin to worry about motivation. That is, they care about know what drives us to move to meet our needs.
For the functionalists, the assumptions concerning the mind were derived from The theory of evolution and his goal was know the functioning of the mind and behavior, in an attempt to help the body adapt to the environment. For this, the research tools included everything that had an informative value, including introspection, the study of animal behavior and the study of disease mental.
The creator of this trend believed that if an idea worked, it was valid. That is, he claimed that the only criterion that should be used to judge an idea was its usefulness. James indicated that by using the scientific method in psychology, it was absolutely necessary to suppose that all conduct of men was determined.
This thought is what is known as pragmatism, where any belief, behavior or thought must be judged by its consequences. Through this thought, he delimited two different types of mindsets:
- Tender mentality: characterized by being optimistic, religious and dogmatic people.
- Tough mentality: empiricists, atheists and pessimists.
However, for him, pragmatism consisted in the commitment of both mentalities, in accept the best of both and use them in the best possible way according to the circumstances that arise.
Functionalism had the central idea that much of behavior, both animal and human, was governed by the instinct. And that is why the James-Lange theory of emotion was proposed, one of the main theories of emotion, which altered the traditional claim that emotion was the result of perception.
For the authors of this current, the perception of an event takes place first, which will lead to a bodily reaction and finally the emotion will be experienced. In terms of example: if we see a bear, for James, the process we do is: first we perceive it, then we run and finally we get scared.
This theory was later criticized by behaviorists because it was not based on controlled experiments, so their theories had little predictive power.
This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
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