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The School of Functionalism
The School of Functionalism
Context : Late 1800’s
Domain : Functions of the Mind
Founder : William James
Catalyst : inspired by Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution
growth of scientific thinking during the industrial age
Method : Introspection – a method in which one examines his/her own
thoughts and feelings, and reports them for analysis
Contribution : a) Emphasized the adaptive functions of the different mental
structures
Criticisms : a) studying the mind cannot possibly result to something scientific
because the mind is intangible (ergo, it cannot be observed nor
measured)
b) the use of introspection can be too subjective (biased) and
therefore prone to errors and inconsistencies
William James The interior room of the Harvard University
(1840‐1910) psychology laboratory
- the first psychologist in the US
- established the first psychology demo
laboratory in US at Harvard University
- published Principles of Psychology (a book
that became very influential in the history
of psychology)
- emphasized the importance of asking good
questions rather than gathering data
A chain reaction experiment at Harvard University
psychology laboratory
a reprinted cover of
James’ book,
Principles of
Psychology – perhaps
the best selling book
in psychology to date
(is still in print)
2
James McKeen Cattell
(1860‐1944)
- a student of Wundt
- the first professor of psychology in the US at the
University of Pensylvania
- hailed by New York Times as the “Dean of American
Science”
- founded the journal Psychological Review in 1894 along
with James Mark Baldwin
- founded other scientific journals like Science, Popular
Science, and Scientific Monthly
- known for his contributions in psychometrics and mental
testing (introduced the phrase “mental test”)