H I S T O RY & S C H O O L S

O F P S Y C H O L O G Y:
FUNCTIONALISM &
B E H AV I O R I S M
NIMRAH AHMED
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• Book- A history of Modern Psychology by Schults and Schultz (10th
Edition)
• Chapter:7- make sure to read contributions and criticism
• Chaprer:8 make sure to read contributions and criticism
• Chapter:9- (Conditioned Reflexes) 203- 205,(Influence) 208- 209
• Chapter:10- (Contributions of Watson’s Behaviorism) 231- 232
• Chapter:11- (Skinner)246-247, 250-252 (Bandura and Rotter) 252-259.

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FUNCTIONALISM
• Functionalism was introduced, the aim for it was to see how the mind functions
and adapts and the processes that lead to practical consequences
• The main weakness of Voluntarism and Structuralism was addressed
• Functionalist moved from mental functions to the application of psychology
• Meaning that the emergence of Applied Psychology can be credited to
Functionalists, in the US
• What is the difference between basic and applied psychology?

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WHAT IS FUNCTIONALISM
• The goal of psychology is not the discovery of the elements of experience but
rather the study of living people as they adapt to their environment. The
function of consciousness is to guide us to those ends required for survival.
Consciousness is vital to the needs of complex beings in a complex
environment; without it, human evolution could not have occurred

• This was explained by William James

• There are some important figures who have contributed to the school of
functionalism
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• Herbet Spencer (1820-1903)
• Spencer’s work includes expanding on Darwin’s theory of evolution
• Spencer believed that everything in this universe evolves, including
human character as well
• Darwin formulated the idea of survival of the fittest but Spencer coined
the term
• What is survival of the fittest?

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• In his Social Darwinism- only the best and the most capable
humans survive, given that there are no interferences. Which
means no interventions from government or anything, let people
be and then only the best ones live. Exactly the way ‘survival of
the fittest’ applies to animals and plants, it applied to humans too
• Any interference allows the weak to survive also and not go
extinct, this interferes with the natural process of evolution
• The US carried an individualistic spirit and the Social Darwinism
resonated well with them and hence keeping Darwins work as the
basis, they moved forward
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• William James (1842-1910)
• He was born into a wealthy family, in the US, where the cure for
any illness was travelling
• His mother paid attention to the children only when they fell sick,
hence he would be ill more often then not
• He tried his luck at medicine, art, chemistry etc.- but soon realized
that he did not enjoy precision and data collection as such
• After trying his luck everywhere, he showed interest in
psychology
• He suffered from depression as well
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• He suffered from neurasthemia (p.133). A term coined by George
Beard indicating towards fatigue, and it was considered an
epidemic
• What was Neurasthemia? During the 19th century, as the
Industrial Revolution came about, life changed and people started
suffering complaining about being exhausted, tired, having a
headache and the like- this was also known as Americanitis
• William James did not want to be a psychologist and did not want
to be called a psychologist
• He was not the founder of Functionalism, but his ideas of the
philosophy of life were welcomed by the functionalist school of
thought and inspired future psychologists 8
• How William James discovered Psychology?
• When he went through really tough times and was battling with
depression, he focused on the idea of free will and came up with the
philosophy of life
• Believed that he had the power and the will to cure himself of
depression
• He hadn’t studied psychology or sat through its lecture, but was hired
to teach psychology at Harvard. There he opened a lab but he was not
an experimentalist
• He met with Wundt and liked him initially, but then later developed a
dislike for him
• In his book, The Principles of Psychology, he attacked the work of
Wundt and Titchner
• His work sparked interest in educational psychology
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• Subject matter of psychology according to Functionalism
• What do you write with?
• Why do you write with that?
• When you go to purchase something to write with, what do you look for?
• Would you care about what that pencil is made up of or how the lead and
the other parts came together?
• When one is more interested in the functions- basically the what? Rather
than the how?- that is the Functionalism approach

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• Functionalism— the goal of psychology is not the discovery of the
elements of experience but rather the study of living people as they adapt
to their environment. The function of consciousness is to guide us to those
ends required for survival. Consciousness is vital to the needs of complex
beings in a complex environment; without it, human evolution could not
have occurred
• In his disagreement against Wundt he defined consciousness as a
continuous flow, and any attempt to divide it into distinct phases can only
distort it. James coined the phrase stream of consciousness to express this
idea
• He also stated that this consciousness survived all these years, throughout
human survival on earth, because it helped them adapt
• Can you notice any hint of Darwin here?
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• Subject matter for Psychology:
• Moved from the structure of consciousness to the role the mind plays in helping people
adapt to their environment
• Functionalism was influenced by Darwins work which focused on how behaviors help
people adapt
• FOCUS: cause and consequence of mental behaviors, not what it is made up of
• Functionalism is the theory that defines mental states by their function. What this
means is that your brain is inherently neutral, without behavior, but produces different
behaviors depending on the signal it receives. Think of it like a computer. You type in a
set of data, the computer analyzes it and creates a chart analyzing the data. Like a
computer, your brain receives all sorts of data: what you see, hear, feel, taste, and
touch. Your brain calculates the data and creates a behavior that is an appropriate
response to your surroundings. That's the essence of functionalism
• Structuralism is interested in "what is consciousness?" while functionalism is interested
in "what is consciousness for? What are the purposes or functions of consciousness and
basic mental processes?"
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• Methods of Psychology
• James wrote, “Introspective observation is what we have to rely on first
and foremost and always; the looking into our own minds and reporting
what we there discover. Everyone agrees that we there discover states of
consciousness”
• Introspective results could be verified by appropriate checks and by
comparing the findings obtained from several observers
• He was not an experimentalist but said that in order to study psychology,
experiments were important
• The methods he put forth can also be seen as his contributions. Here he
also adds what we now call observer bias and emphasizes on the
importance of research
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• Ideas James put forth
• Comparative method- which involves uncovering information from animals
and humans to really understand mental life (Since the next school was
behaviorism, the use of animals with that school was very common)
• Pragmatism- the basic tenet of which is that the validity of an idea or
conception must be tested by its practical consequences
• Theory of emotions-
• What happens when you see a lizard?
• What comes first? An emotion or physiological reaction?
• James stated that the action preceded the emotion and hence Carl Lange
supported his idea and the correspondence between the two theories led to the
James-Lange Theory of Emotions- one experiences an emotion because of the
way that their physiology changes. Eg, you feel scared of a lizard because your
heart beats faster and that makes you feel scared 14
• Three parts of the Self:
• 1. Material Self- everything that we consider unique and our own
(eg, body, clotes etc)
• 2. Social Self- the different behaviors we have in different social
settings with different people
• 3. Spiritual Self- our inner being
• Habit- Repetitive or habitual actions involve the nervous system
and serve to increase the plasticity of neural matter. As a result,
habits become easier to perform on subsequent repetitions and
require less conscious attention. E.g. Driving

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• Functional Inequality of Women
• Variability Hypothesis- an idea based on Darwins theory that
men are developmentally superior to women because they are
more talented and etc
• There was discrimination against women but during that time
William James stood up for Mary Calkins- a lady who completed
her degree from Harvard but was not granted the degree
• Following this later, Helen Thompson and Leta Stetter proved
this hypothesis invalid
• Now we notice that a male dominated and controlled field has
changed
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• G. Stanley Hall
• The one to come back to the US and opened a lab, and he was
Wundt’s student. He also worked with William James
• In 1887 he found the American Journal of Psychology which is still
considered one of the most important publications and he found many
other journals also
• He was interested in genetics and the evolutionary theory and thus
focused on the psychological study of childhood and used
questionnaires
• He gave the recapitulation theory- the psychological development of
the children repeat the history of the human race. Meaning every
human goes through certain stages of life that everyone universally
go through. Eg, was the first one to say that adolescence is a separate,
universal, evolutionary stage in every individuals life 17
• We still don’t see anyone really talking about functionalism, or
any movement towards a new school of thought
• There were ideas that only went against Titchner and Wundt but
no one said or aimed or explicitly stated that they wanted to start
a new movement
• There existed different functional psychologist, with their only
similarity being the subject matter they studied
• Titchner accidently name the school. He did not life the new
movement that went against Structuralism and in an article
clustered that movement under the term Functionalism
• Functionalists also sparked interest in applied psychology
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• The two main figures for Functionalism
• John Dewey (1859-1952)
• Published the Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology- which
criticized Wundt’s and Titchners work and introduced a new idea
• Reflex Arc -any unit of behavior ends with the response to a
stimulus, such as when a child withdraws his or her hand from a
flame. The next time, the child will not be attracted to the flames,
because the perception has now changed
• Through this theory, S-R is not seen as linear, once the
perception changes the way a child responds changes
• Do you notice any elements of evolution here?
• There is adaptation, the idea of evolving and adjusting
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• James Rowland Angell (1869-1949)
• In his book Psychology (1904) he noted that the function of
consciousness is to improve the organism’s adaptive abilities. The goal
of psychology is to study how the mind assists the organism in
adjusting to its environment
• He outlined the ‘Province of Functional Psychology’ stating that it had
three themes, all of which go against the ideas of Wundt and Titchner:
• 1. it focuses on the mental operations rather than the elements or
structures of it
• 2. it focuses on discovering the role performed by the consciousness
for adaptation and survival
• 3. it doesn’t distinguish between mind and body and believes that they
interact and act as a unit for an individuals survival
• Both were professors at University of Chicago and at one point
functionalism was called the Chicago school 20
• Robert Sessions Woodworth (1869-1962)
• Another important figure in psychology
• The Woodworth Personal Data Sheet, sometimes known as the Woodworth
Psychoneurotic Inventory was a personality tests, commonly cited as the
first personality test, during WW1 for the US Army. It was developed to
screen recruits for Shell Shock risk but was not completed in time to be
used for this purpose. It instead became widely used in psychological
research and led to the development of many other personality tests. Eg. of
questions he used: "Does the sight of blood make you sick or dizzy?"
• Please read the Criticism on Functionalism and its Contributions

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• Moving towards Applied Psychology
• Coca-Cola case: in 1909, there was a case against the company
where the drink was said to contain caffeine. The company hired a
psychologist names Harry Hollingworth who conducted a small
experiment to see the impact of caffeine on subjects
• After this case, psychology entered organizations, and the idea that
psychologist could make money through the practicality of
research became evident
• It was America where functionalism took over and applied
psychology or practical psychology was also formed, meaning that
psychology entered schools, factories, marketing etc
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• Mental Testing
• James Cattell (1860-1944)
• Promoted a practical, test-oriented approach to the study of mental
processes. 1890, Cattell used the term mental tests
• Developed very basic tests
• Know that it was Raymond Cattell who is known for the 16PF Test
• Alfred Binet (1857-1911)
• Binet provided an effective measure of human cognitive abilities and
thus initiated the era of modern intelligence testing. He also
conducted research on issues in developmental, experimental,
educational, and social psychology
• In 1904 he also investigated the intellectual tasks that children could
master at different ages
• Through tests he introduced the concept of mental age. What is it?23
• In 1916, Terman developed a version of Binet’s test and called it the
Stanford- Binet Test, and adopted the concept of IQ
• When WW1 took place, when wanting to asses the intelligence of
recruits, Titchner was approached and he refused. Why?
• Because he was against the application of psychology in any way
• The Stanford-Binet was an individual assessment test
• Robert Yerkers, the APA president, assembled a group of
psychologists and came up with the Alpha and Beta tests, the latter
being for illiterate people
• And during this time Woodworth’s Personal Data Sheet was also
used
• Post war: Public acceptance of psychology as a useful subject, jobs
for psychologists other than teaching and the idea that psychology is
not limited in anyway
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• The Clinical Psychology Movement
• Lightner Witmer (1867-1956)
• Coined the term and is known for applying psychology to the assessment and
treatment of abnormal behavior
• 1896,opened the first clinic where he assessed and treated learning and
behavioral problems in school children, known as school psychology today
• He did not practice psychotherapy there, the way we know clinics to operate in
todays world
• While he worked at the clinic, he recorded data because there was nothing with
relevance to treatment and diagnosis with children
• Witmer’s team approach, in which physicians, psychologists, psychiatrists, and
social workers combined to evaluate all aspects of a patient’s problem - gained
popularity
• When WW2 ended in 1945, the lack of mental health professionals led to a rise
in establishing clinical psychology as well
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• Many people who studied under Wundt in Germany such as
Stanley Hall, James Cattell, Lightner Witmer- all went out to
different directions in the US
• They changed the nature of American Psychology
• From lecture halls and labs psychology became an applicable
science
• Therefore the functionalist school of thought moved psychology
forward, which has its roots in Darwins theory of evolution

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 BEHAVIORISM
• Remember the Clever Hans story?
• The story of that horse led to the importance of experimental
psychology and the idea that animals were capable of learning. It
also threw consciousness to one side and promoted experimental
studies on behavior
• Focus shifted on what was observable and what could indicate
about an individual that could be objective in nature
• This is how animal psychology also came about

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• Edward Lee Thorndike (1874-1949)
• Trial and error learning-Puzzle box with a cat
• He came up with a few laws such as law of effect, law of exercise
and law of use and disuse- which basically indicated that when a
particular response is made in a given situation, based on the type
of result it leads to, an association is formed
• He also focused on reward and reinforcement and punishment
• Pavlov (1849-1936)
• Heard of him before?
• Influenced by Descartes Reflex Theory
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• John B Watson (1878-1958)
• Are you aware of the Little Albert story?
• It was John B Watson who conducted those experiments
• In 1914, he argued for the acceptance of animal psychology and wrote
about the advantages of animal subjects in research
• Because of his affairs and a notorious reputation, he was forced to
resign from John Hopkins
• Therefore to earn, he became an applied psychologist in the field of
advertising stating that behavior of humans as consumers of goods
and services can be predicted and controlled
• Worked on child rearing practices which involved minimal contact
with children. When his wife died, he briefly hugged his son but never
spoke of her again 29
• The reason why Behaviorism is associated with him is because he
had a goal for building a new psychology in response to
structuralism amd functionalism
• He wanted to make psychology a science of behavior where both
humans and animals are investigated. Psychology should aim at
predicting and controlling behavior making the subject matter of
psychology- the behavior
• His behaviorism was the first stage, the second stage from 1930-
1960 is called neo-behaviorism and included Tolman, Hull and
Skinner which was focused on learning
• Next the third stage, socio-behaviorism included work of Rotter
and Bandura, 1960-1190, that involved cognitive processes also
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• Neo-behaviorism
• Focus on problems that are observable
• They believed that any concept reflects the method through which it
is discovered
• What is the soul? How can it be observed in the laboratory? Can it be
measured and manipulated under controlled conditions to determine
its effects on behavior? If not, then the concept has no use or meaning
or relevance for science
• 1. Edward Tolman (1886-1959)
• Why do you come to class? Is there a purpose?
• He called this Purposive Behaviorism- stating each behavior has a
purpose
• His work was criticized by other behaviorists. Can you tell why?
• Because having a goal indicated mental activity 31
• Clark Hull (1884-1952)
• Said humans work and operate like machines and hence they should be
approached in the same way
• Intervening variable- he spoke about intervening variable but for him it was
S-D-R, where D stands for the Drive. He said that drive is what motivates
the behavior. E.g.-
• A simple example involves touching a hot stove and getting burned. The
painful burn, caused by actual physical damage to the body’s tissues,
produces a primary drive—the desire for relief from the pain. Other
environmental stimuli associated with this primary drive, such as the sight
of the stove, may in the future quickly lead to withdrawing the hand when
this visual stimulus is perceived. In this way, the sight of the stove becomes
the stimulus for the learned drive of fear. These secondary or learned drives
that motivate our behavior develop from the primary drives
• Primary are biological drives and secondary are learned 32
• Law of primary reinforcement: When a stimulus-response
relationship is followed by a reduction in a bodily need, the
probability increases that on subsequent occasions the same
stimulus will evoke the same response. Eg, if removing the hand
off a hot stove satisfies a bodily needs, in another instance with a
similar stimuli, the response will be the same

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• Skinner (1904-1990)
• Heard of him before?
• Operate conditioning, the Skinner box and the rat
• Law of acquisition: strength of a behavior increases when a
reinforcement is presented

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• Socio-behaviorism
• Albert Bandura
• Julian Rotter
• He came up with the internal and external locus of control, which
is associated with reinforcements. When reinforcements depends
on own behavior- ILC (internal locus of control) and when
reinforcements depends on others- ELC (External locus of
control)

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• Don’t forget to read all the marked pages
• Thank you

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