History of Psychology
Chapter 7
Functionalism: Development and
Founding
I. William James (1842-1910):
Anticipator of Functional Psychology
William James

James did not found
functional psychology

James did influence the
movement of functional
psychology
I. William James (1842-1910):
Anticipator of Functional Psychology

A. Jame’s early life

From wealthy family

Educated in England, France, German, Italy,
Switzerland,and US.

Illness and family

Travel is a way of coping with his restlessness

Used will power to cure his depression
I. William James (1842-1910):
Anticipator of Functional Psychology

B. James's career

1 . abandoned chemistry: lab work too demanding

2. medicine: little interest

3. rejected biology: could not tolerate the precise collecting
and physical demands of field work

4. interested in learning from Helmholtz and Wundt
I. William James (1842-1910):
Anticipator of Functional Psychology

5. 1875-1876: taught his first course in
psychology

a. first time experimental psychology taught in
United States

6. 1890: Principles of psychology:


12-year effort
a. most influential psychology textbook ever
I. William James (1842-1910):
Anticipator of Functional Psychology

7. 1890s: recognized as America's leading
philosopher

8. 1899: Talks to Teachers


The beginning of educational psychology
Applying psychology in classrooms
I. William James (1842-1910):
Anticipator of Functional Psychology

C. The Principles of Psychology

a. goal of psychology: study of living people as
they adapt to their environment

b. function of consciousness: is required for
survival

c. emphasizes nonrational aspects of human
nature e.g., Emotion or passion

d. beliefs are determined by emotional factors
I. William James (1842-1910):
Anticipator of Functional Psychology

D. The subject matter of psychology: A new
look at consciousness

1.phenomena: is the subject matter of
psychology and is to be found in immediate
experience

2. conditions: the importance of the body,
especially the brain, in mental life.
I. William James (1842-1910):
Anticipator of Functional Psychology

3. rebelled against artificiality and
narrowness of the Wundtian’s approach

4. introspection does not show elements
exist independently of the observer
(psychologists' fallacy)
I. William James (1842-1910):
Anticipator of Functional Psychology

5. consciousness is
 a. continuous flow: stream of consciousness
 Consciousness is a continuous flowing process
and that any attempt to reduce it to elements will
distort it.
 b. always changing, not recurrent, cumulative,
selective: criterion is relevance
 c. enables one to adapt to one's environment by
allowing one to choose
I. William James (1842-1910):
Anticipator of Functional Psychology

E. The methods of psychology
1 .introspection is a basic tool and is less
than perfect
 2. experimental method
 a. did not use it much
 b. but acknowledged its use as a means
to psychological knowledge, especially
for psychophysics

I. William James (1842-1910):
Anticipator of Functional Psychology

E. The methods of psychology

3 .comparative method: supplements
introspection and experimentation

4. implied functional psychology is not
restricted to a single technique
I. William James (1842-1910):
Anticipator of Functional Psychology

E. The methods of psychology

5. emphasized the value of pragmatism
 a. validity of an idea is its practical utility
 b. anything is true if it works
I. William James (1842-1910):
Anticipator of Functional Psychology

F. The theory of emotions

1 .before James: emotion precedes physical
arousal/response (fearrun)

2. James: physical arousal/response precedes
emotion (runexperience fear)
 if no bodily change, then no emotion
The Functional inequality of women
---Mary Calkins (1863-1930)

A. Mary Calkins

1. James helps her to
overcome barriers of
discriminaiton

2. denied PhD from
Harvard University;
awarded honorary degree
from Columbia University
The Functional inequality of women
---Mary Calkins (1863-1930)

3. 1st women president of the APA

4. 1906: ranked 12th among the 50 most
important psychologist in the US

5. paired associate technique
The Functional inequality of women
---Mary Calkins (1863-1930)

Variability hypothesis (Darwinian ideas)
 The notion that men show a wider range and
variation of physical and mental development
than women; the abilities of women are seen as
more average

Women less likely to benefit from education

Inequality between the sex
The Functional inequality of women
---Helen Woolley (1874-1947)

B. Helen Woolley

1. Born in Chicago

2. Parents supported the
idea of education for
women

3. 1990, received her Ph.D.
under Angell and Deway
The Functional inequality of women
---Helen Woolley (1874-1947)

4. 1921, the president of the National
Vocational Guidance Association

5. 1924, director of the new Institute of Child
Welfare Research at Columbia University.

6. Worked on the area of child development,
education, vocational education, and school
guidance counseling
The Functional inequality of women
---Helen Woolley (1874-1947)

7. Her dissertation was the first experimental
test of Darwinian notion that women are
biologically inferior to men.


The results showed no sex differences in
emotional functioning and only small differences
in intellectual abilities. Women were slightly
superior to men in memory and sensory
perception.
She attributed the differences to the social and
environmental factors
The Functional inequality of women
---Leta Hellingworth (1886-1939)

C. Leta Hollingworth

1. Received her Ph.D.
under Cattell at Columbia
U.

2. Married women can not
permitted to teach in
public school at that time.
The Functional inequality of women
---Leta Hellingworth (1886-1939)

3. Conducted studies on variability hypothesis

4. The results refused the variability hypothesis
and the notion of female inferiority

5. Challenged the idea of woman’s desire to
have career was abnormal or unhealthy
The Functional inequality of women
---Leta Hellingworth (1886-1939)

6. Contribute to clinical, educational, and
school psychology, especially the
educational and emotional needs of gifted
children.

7. But, she was never able to obtain
research grant support.
Functionalism at the Chicago School
---John Dewey (1859-1952)

A. Career
 1. Undistinguished early life

2. Taught high school for few years

3. 1884: received his Ph.D. at John
Hopkins University


4. 1886: Psychology (first American
textbook in psychology)
Functionalism at the Chicago School
---John Dewey (1859-1952)

5. established a laboratory school at U of
Chicago----cornerstone for education
movement

6. 1904: Columbia U., to work on application
of psychology to educational and philosophical
problems
Functionalism at the Chicago School
---John Dewey (1859-1952)

B. 1896: "The Reflex Arc Concept in
Psychology“

1 . attacked molecularism, elementism, and
reductionism of reflex arc

2. behavior cannot be reduced to sensorimotor
elements

3. consciousness cannot be meaningfully
analyzed into elements
Functionalism at the Chicago School
--James Rowland Angell (1869-1949)

A. Career
 1. Born in an academic family


2. studied under Dewey at the
University of Michigan
(undergraduate)
3. Read James’ book and work
with him and received a
master’s degree.
Functionalism at the Chicago School
--James Rowland Angell (1869-1949)

4. Studied in Germany for his Ph.D. but did not
receive his degree

5 . no PhD but received 23 honorary degrees

6. Accepted a position at the U. of Chicago.

7. president of Yale University; helped develop the
Institute of Human Relations

8.1906: APA 15th president
Functionalism at the Chicago School
--James Rowland Angell (1869-1949)

B. The province of functional psychology
 1. 1904: Psychology
 a. function of consciousness: is to
improve the organism's adaptive
abilities
 b. goal of psychology: to study how the
mind assists the adjustment of the
organism to its environment
Functionalism at the Chicago School
--James Rowland Angell (1869-1949)

2. identified three themes for functional
psychology
 a. the psychology of mental operations
 b. the psychology of the fundamental utilities of
consciousness
 c. the psychology of psychophysical relations
(mind-body relations)

3. gave functionalism necessary focus and
stature
Functionalism at the Chicago School
---Harvey A. Carr (1873-1954)

A. – Career
 1 . mathematics major,
switched to psychology

2. first course in
experimental
psychology taught by
Angell
Functionalism at the Chicago School
---Harvey A. Carr (1873-1954)




3. lab assistant with J. B. Watson
4. introduced to animal psychology by
Watson
5. PhD at Chicago (1905)
6. chair at Chicago: 1919-1938; 150 PhDs
Functionalism at the Chicago School
---Harvey A. Carr (1873-1954)

B. Peaked under Carr
 1. Maintained the functional
psychology was the American
psychology

2. nothing could be added to the
functional psychology
Functionalism at the Chicago School
---Harvey A. Carr (1873-1954)

3. 1925: Psychology
 a. the most refined form of functionalism
 b. the subject matter is mental
activity/processes

including memory, perception, feeling,
imagination, judgment, will
Functionalism at the Chicago School
---Harvey A. Carr (1873-1954)

c. function of mental activity
 1) to acquire, retain, organize, and
evaluate experiences
 2) to use these experiences to determine
one's actions

d. adaptive behavior: the specific form of
action in which mental activities appear
“adaptive” behavior.
Functionalism at the Chicago School
---Harvey A. Carr (1873-1954)

4. Functionalism was the mainstream
psychology

5. accepted data from introspection and
experiments

6. emphasis on objectivity

7. Used both animal and human as subjects
Functionalism at the Chicago School
---Harvey A. Carr (1873-1954)

8. Carr believed study of cultural
creations provided information about
the mental activities that produced them

9. Chicago school bridged move from
study of subjective consciousness
toward study of objective overt
behavior
Functionalism at Columbia University
---Robert Woodworth (1869-1962)

Robert Woodworth
A. Career
 1. heard Stanley Hall’s talk, read
James’s book: decided to become a
psychologist

2. 1899: PhD from Columbia with
Cattell

3. taught physiology three years in
hospitals

4. 1903-1945: taught at Columbia U.
(retired a second time in 1958)
Functionalism at Columbia University
---Robert Woodworth (1869-1962)

B. Dynamic psychology

1. psychological knowledge
 a. begin with investigation of nature of
the stimulus and the response (external,
objective events)
 b. However, miss the living organism
itself
 1) acts to determine the response
Functionalism at Columbia University
---Robert Woodworth (1869-1962)

2. Stimulus and response: can be
observed objectively

3. inside the organism: can be known
only through introspection.

4. Accepted introspection, and
observational and experimental methods
are all useful tools for psychology
Functionalism at Columbia University
---Robert Woodworth (1869-1962)

5. dynamic psychology

a. concerned with the causal factors and
motivations in feelings and behavior.

6. emphasized physiological events that
underlie behavior

7. psychology's goal: determine why people
behave as they do
Criticisms of Functionalism

A. "Functionalism" not well defined
 1. Two definition:




an activity
the usefulness of some activity to the organism, e.g., function
of digestion or breathing
2. Carr: the two definitions are not inconsistent and
both referred to the same process.
B. Titchener's structuralists: functionalism is not
psychology
Criticisms of Functionalism

C. Applied aspects
 1. Carr: argued both pure and applied psychology
 a. adhere to rigorous scientific procedures
 b. valid research can be performed in
classrooms, labs, etc.
 c. it is the method, not the subject matter, that
counts
 2. Later, applied psychology has become so
pervasive in American psychology
Contributions of Functionalism

A. shift in emphasis from structure to function

B. research on animal behavior became an area of
study for psychology

C. inclusion of humans other than "normal adults"
as subjects

Infant, children, or people with mental disabilities
Contributions of Functionalism

D. inclusion of methods beyond
introspection


Physiological research, mental tests,
questionnaire,s, and objective descriptions of
behavior
E. emphasis on the application of the
methods and findings of psychology to
the solution of practical problems.