The founder of functionalism
Cioffi (2017) defines functionalism as a theoretical perspective in sociology. This perspective considers society to function as a structure other than independent units to achieve both society’s social and biological requirements. While many researchers have been associated with the origin of functionalism, William James, John Dewey, and Edward Thorndike, among others, are the main focus of this paper. These researchers are vital to explain the origin of functionalism (PSYC 408). While functionalism was motivated by Darwin’s theory of evolution, William James associated natural selection as the factor leading to the development of an organism well adapted to its environment. Through the organism’s traits, a function for both reproduction and survival was of interest to James as the organism became naturally selected. His psychological study of the role that behavior plays in the world gave rise to functionalism.
According to PSYC 408, James believed that the perception of an event has consequential emotion. Therefore, our bodies would react by flight when we see a bear as a sign of how we experience emotions. This is an external stimulus that forces our bodies into a predictable reaction. The U.S. Functionalism indicates the current age as the age of functionalism and the article The Reflex Arc in Psychology written by John Dewey dated 1896 and through this article, understanding the function rather than the contents of the mind led to the research on brain’s functioning, with the major one being an environmental adaptation. While functionalists realized that organisms were unique, what made them so was of interest to them. It was Charles Darwin and William James that influenced the functionalists among other researchers (Davey 2018).
Edward Thorndike is associated with the branch of behaviorism known as operant conditioning. The consequences of human behavior, a critical factor in functionalism is considered in his operant conditioning. Associations that are developed between events form the basis of classical conditioning. Therefore, Edward Thorndike is regarded as the founder of modern educational psychology (Rowe 2017). Watson studied philosophy under the guidance of John Dewey at the University of Chicago, and his arguments were on behavior, and John Dewey supported most of which argued that human beings were no different from animals. According to John Dewey, human beings acquire skills based on a hands-on approach that is termed as pragmatism. Therefore, his school of thought is that reality must be experienced in his educational argument. According to his theory, students must consequently interact and learn from their environment.
I conclusion, most researchers contribute to the work of William James. Functionalism was the work of William James with a few supporting evidence from other researchers on how human beings respond to stimuli in their environment in such a way that can be predicted. Like John Dewey argues, there exist learning when students, human beings, interact with the environment, so does William James proposes in his functionalism.
Behaviorism approach
Behaviorism is an approach to psychology. This approach emphasizes the use of objective and scientific methods to investigate observable behaviors that result from responding to environmental stimuli (Aliakbari et al. 2015). When John Watson was given a marketing ob at J. Walter Thompson advertising agency by Stanley Resor, it was his chance to use fear, love, and rage in the advertisement. This, coupled with other pieces of evidence, helps to understand whether behaviorism is considered an exclusively American approach to the mind and or whether it draws from different sources and traditions (PSYC 408).
The behaviorist improvement began in 1913. This improvement was when John Watson made an article entitled Psychology as the behaviorist views it. This article sets out the different essential assumptions concerning theory and social examination.
Behaviorism focuses on the effects of natural factors on behavior. This effect is to the near dismissal of essential or gained components. This totals fundamentally to consideration of learning. We learn new lead through customary or operant embellishment (Malim 2017). Theories ought to be reinforced by exploratory data gained through mindful and controlled observation and estimation of lead. Mind science from a behaviorist point of view is a virtual target test to some portion of ordinary science. Its speculative target is to estimate and control. The pieces of a theory should be as clear as it could sensibly be normal. Behaviorists propose the usage of operational definitions while conducting such scientific research.
While behaviorists consistently recognize the existence of emotions, they favor not to think about them as merely observable and that they can be reasonably and scientifically assessed. In this manner, internal events, for instance, thinking, should be explained through standard terms (Baum 2016). There’s no significant separation among humans and animals. For this reason, research should be possible on animals similarly as it would be conducted on human beings. Therefore, rodents and pigeons transformed into the fundamental wellspring of data for behaviorists, as their environment could be adequately controlled.
Carson (2019) argues that all behavior, paying little heed to how eccentric, can be diminished to a direct response to known environmental factors. Watson portrayed the explanation behind mind science as to foresee, given a specific stimulus, expected reaction, or given the feedback, state a causative situation or redesign that which might have caused the observable response. Therefore, behaviorism is not only an American approach to the mind but also draws from other sources and traditions.
Aliakbari, F., Parvin, N., Heidari, M., & Haghani, F. (2015). Learning theories application in nursing education. Journal of education and health promotion, 4.
Baum, W. M. (2016). Understanding behaviorism: Behavior, culture, and evolution. John Wiley & Sons.
Carson, R. C. (2019). Interaction concepts of personality. Routledge.
Cioffi-Revilla, C. (2017). Computation and social science. In Introduction to computational social science (pp. 35-102). Springer, Cham.
Davey, G. C. (2018). Psychology. John Wiley & Sons.
Malim, T. (2017). Introductory psychology. Macmillan International Higher Education.
PSYC 408 American Psychology and Functionalism Narrative
PSYC 408 Functionalism and Animal Models in Psychology Narrative
PSYC 408 Intelligence Testing in Humans Narrative
PSYC 408 Pavlov Watson Behaviorism Narrative