14 Facts About Functional psychology

Functional psychology or functionalism refers to a psychological school of thought that was a direct outgrowth of Darwinian thinking which focuses attention on the utility and purpose of behavior that has been modified over years of human existence.

Structural psychology was concerned with mental contents while functionalism is concerned with mental operations.

Functional psychology did not think that considering how the mind affects behaviour was worthwhile, for he considered behaviour simply as a learned response to an external stimulus.

Functional psychology argued that mental elements identified by the structuralist were temporary and only existed at the moment of sensory perception.

The first of his ideas being that functional psychology is focused on mental operations and their relationship with biology and these mental operations were a way of dealing with the conditions of the environment.

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Functional psychology's first important contribution to the development of functional psychology was a paper criticizing "the reflex arc" concept in psychology.

Functional psychology was influenced by the Fechner's work on perception and from the Elements of Psychophysics.

Functional psychology used himself as a subject when he set out to prove that some higher mental processes could be experimentally investigated.

Functional psychology's experiment was hailed as an important contribution to psychology by Wundt.

Functional psychology noted that it was a psychologist's job to understand these functions so they can discover how the mental processes operate.

In 1890, he argued that Functional psychology should be a division of biology and adaptation should be an area of focus.

In 1901, Joseph Jastrow declared that functional psychology appeared to welcome the other areas of psychology that were neglected by structuralism.

Edward Titchener made arguments that structural psychology preceded functional psychology because mental structures need to be isolated and understood before their function be ascertained.

Evolutionary Functional psychology is based on the idea that knowledge concerning the function of the psychological phenomena affecting human evolution is necessary for a complete understanding of the human psyche.