Chapter 12 – Functionalism
A History of Psychology:
Ideas and Context (4th edition)
D. Brett King, Wayne Viney, and
William Douglas Woody
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Functionalism
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Embraced a process orientation
– rooted in becoming.
– Other psychologies accepted static
elements of experience and a being
approach.
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Functionalism is difficult to define.
Functionalists emphasize the importance
of how questions in addition to what
questions.
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William James
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William James brought psychology to the US.
James’s work was extremely broad
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He moved from psychology to philosophy.
General characteristics of James’s thought:
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He took a strong individualistic perspective rooted
in individual experience.
He advocated multiple levels of analysis,
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There is not one correct level of analysis.
Jamesian pluralism had several implications for his
psychology.
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He denied that there is a primary or foundational content
area in psychology.
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William James
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General characteristics of James’s thought:
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Free will as found in experience.
Moralistic psychology and philosophy.
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He was willing to tell the reader what to do.
Radical empiricism.
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Philosophical discussion should be limited to and include
all things found in experience.
Monism should be regarded as a hypothesis.
Pragmatism was a method, a theory of truth, and a
way of thinking about the world.
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Theories should be judged by the work they do in the
world.
Words, theories, concepts, and such are “instruments, not
answers to enigmas”
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William James
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James defined psychology as “the science of
mental life, both of its phenomena and of their
conditions.”
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James defined habit as essential to the individual
and to civilization.
James saw experience and thought as a stream.
James described the self as the totality of all those
things that belong to us.
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The material self is comprised of what we physically own.
The social self is a plurality of selves for different social
situations.
The spiritual self is a personal, subjective, and intimate
self that sits in judgment of the other selves.
Self-esteem is the ratio of our success to our pretension.
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William James
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James promoted the James-Lange theory of
emotion.
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Experience of emotion is the experience of the activity of the
body.
James accepted instincts in humans and other
animals.
James separated primary memory from secondary
memory.
James’s legacy continues through the present.
Under his leadership, the methodological,
conceptual, and substantive boundaries of
psychology greatly expanded.
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Hugo Münsterberg
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Hugo Münsterberg presented a
psychology tuned to the daily lives of
humans.
He greatly broadened the scope of
applied psychology.
– Psychology and law
– Psychotherapy
– Industrial psychology
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G. Stanley Hall
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G. Stanley Hall founded the APA
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Hall’s psychology was centered in development
across the lifespan including:
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Founded several journals
Directed the Ph.D. of Francis Sumner, the first Black
psychologist
Authored numerous books and scholarly articles.
Childhood
Adolescence
Senescence.
He advocated a biological approach to psychology.
He argued for a wide range of approaches to the
study of childhood.
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The University of Chicago
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The University of Chicago was a center of Functionalism.
John Dewey criticized reductionistic approaches to psychology.
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He argued that experience must be understood in a naturalistic
context.
His areas of interest included democracy, economics, schools, art,
and the nature of learning.
James Rowland Angell defined functional psychology as “the
identification and description of mental operations rather than
the mere stuff of mental experience.”
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He argued that a functional approach must include social and
biological contexts
He advocated the study of the contributions of mental events to our
adjustment to the world.
Harvey A. Carr argued that psychology is primarily concerned
with mental activity, including both experience and behavior.
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Carr employed a variety of methods.
He viewed psychology as broad in scope.
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Columbia University
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Psychology at Columbia University was also functional.
James McKeen Cattell initially developed mental tests.
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Unfortunately, his tests were not correlated with anything
Cattell’s career as an editor was more fruitful.
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He edited Science as well as numerous other prestigious journals.
He helped to bring psychology into mainstream science.
Robert Sessions Woodworth expanded experimental
psychology.
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Functional Autonomy refers to the idea that a means for
satisfying a motive may acquire drive properties.
Dynamic psychology emphasized the importance of
understanding the causes of behavior.
Woodworth also influenced psychology through his textbooks.
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In his texts, he clarified the notion of the experiment and separated
it from correlational work.
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Mary Whiton Calkins
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Mary Whiton Calkins completed an informal
doctoral program at Harvard.
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She was denied her doctoral degree because of her
gender.
Calkins defined psychology as the science of the
conscious self.
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Her emphasis on the self continued the tradition of
personalism.
Calkins developed the paired-associate method to
study memory.
She conducted one of the first formal studies of
dreaming.
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Leta Stetter Hollingworth
• The growth of applied psychology
continued in functionalism.
• Leta Stetter Hollingworth empirically
challenged the variability hypothesis, the
belief that men are in all ways more
variable than women.
– Hollingworth also demonstrated that the
abilities of women are not affected by the
menstrual cycle.
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Helen Wooley
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Helen Wooley applied psychology to the
study of gender differences.
– She studied the consequences of dropping
out of school.
– Despite inconclusive results, Wooley was a
pioneer in the fields of childhood education
and welfare.
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Alfred Binet
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Alfred Binet developed the first usable tests of
intelligence.
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His goal was to identify schoolchildren who may
need extra assistance or advanced teaching.
Lewis Terman brought Binet’s intelligence tests to
the United States.
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He published the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale.
To place army recruits during World War I, Robert
M. Yerkes developed the Army Alpha and the Army
Beta tests of intelligence.
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Evaluation
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An evaluation of functionalism.
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Weaknesses
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The system did not last in any organized fashion.
It seems vague.
Thinkers are only loosely connected
Researchers focused more on applied than basic research
questions.
The eclecticism makes it difficult to make a clear statement
of functionalism.
Current psychology in America may be regarded as
functionalist due to
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Its problem-focused eclecticism, and
Its applied nature.
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