Functionalism

Functionalism was focused around the developmental, adaptive, and dynamic features of
experience. This was radically different from structuralism

When structuralism focused on WHAT questions, functionalism explored HOW questions.

Functionalists encouraged both basic and applied science and adopted a variety of methods.
But one central focus was –adaptation

William James -most important figure

• Although he had a medical degree, he did not practice. He studied physiology but rarely taught
or researched it.
• He had no formal training in psychology or philosophy, and his first lecture on the subject
was his own. Yet he was a psychology and philosophy professor.

James is known for his extensive contributions to psychology, particularly in the areas of
religion and education.

James was a pioneer in the development of pragmatism, highlighting the significance of

relationships between things.
Pragmatism - is the belief that if an idea works, it is valid.

General Characteristics of James’s thought

• His philosophical perspective developed from his empathy towards individuals and their
challenges. According to Earle (1967), James focused on engaging with and understanding
people's perspectives on life.
• He valued their shared emotions and aspirations more than their practicality
• The philosophy that emerged was notable for its openness to differences and its willingness
to experiment with methods, giving it face validity.
• It is not pessimistic or optimistic—it is, above all, practical—but it leaves ample room for
theoretical and non-utilitarian intellectual endeavor.
• One of its main characteristics is its credibility.
• James’s work is consistently free from any sense of being forced, limited, or shallow.
• His ideas are intricate and multifaceted, often containing contradictions that have intrigued
psychologists for a long time.
• James’s psychology and philosophy are cut from the same cloth, so it is important to grasp
the themes that run throughout all his writings.

Individualism
James’s writings exhibit a strong individualistic quality- emphasis on the importance of the
individual
• He believed that circumstances shape individuals but, in turn, individuals act on the world
and shape it in ways that would not happen without the unique contribution of the
Individual. Thus, individuals and circumstances make history
• James made extensive use of biographies and case studies to illustrate the importance of the
individual
• Getting away from individual experience leads to the study of abstractions, and thus we are
detached from reality
• He was greatly concerned with the failure of large institutions to acknowledge and uphold
traditional values of freedom, individuality, and pluralism.

Multiple levels of analysis

With a background in physiology and medicine, he strongly focused on the biological
and physiological aspects of behaviour.
• However, he was not a reductionist
• He recognized the significance of both the psychological world of experience and its
biological correlates.
• Experience cannot be reduced to or explained by turning to an alien biological basis.
• Illustrated this point is his renowned work, The Varieties of Religious Experience
• During James’s era, religious experiences were often interpreted in relation to neurological
Processes. James argued that neurological processes apply to atheistic beliefs.
• Discovering the biological basis of belief does not undermine its validity.

Jamesian pluralism
• James considered the concept of there being only one real thing from which all else is
derived - (monism), while also acknowledging other possibilities.
• He was nevertheless a pluralist and repeatedly referred to himself in that way

James’s pluralism had implications for his psychology:

1. One implication is Methodological

• Upon examining his psychological and philosophical works, a pragmatic pluralism is revealed
where methodology is secondary to vision.
• James utilized various methods and was open to different approaches.

2. His pluralism had significant implications for the subject matter of psychology
• While experience is crucial in his philosophy, there is no single content area or worldview
that serves as the foundation for all other areas (e.g., learning, sensing, and emotion)
• James’s psychology had enormous scope, including basic and applied problems, the
psychology of religion, and even paranormal phenomena.
• With his concept of stream of consciousness, James opposed those who were busy searching
for the elements of thought.

Stream of consciousness
According to James:
1. Consciousness is personal.
• It reflects the experiences of an individual, and therefore it is foolhardy to search for
elements common to all mind

2. Consciousness is continuous and cannot be divided up for analysis

3. Consciousness is constantly changing.

• impossibility of stepping into the same river twice, One can never have exactly the same idea
twice because the stream of consciousness that provides the context for the idea is
ever-changing

4. Consciousness is selective.
•Some of the many events entering consciousness are selected for further consideration and
others are inhibited- free will

5. Consciousness is functional.
-According to James, the most important thing about consciousness—and the thing the
elementalists overlooked—is that its purpose is to aid the individual in adapting to the
Environment.
Here we see the powerful influence of Darwin on early U.S. scientific psychology.
• Consciousness, then, is personal, continuous, constantly changing, selective, and purposive.
• Very little in this view is compatible with the view held by Wundt the experimentalist
(although it is very much in accordance with the view held by Wundt the voluntarist) or later
by the structuralists.

Habits and Instincts

• James believed that much animal and human behavior is governed by instinct
• James did not believe that instinctive behavior is “blind and invariable.”
• Rather, he believed that such behavior is modifiable by experience.

• Furthermore, he believed that new instinct like patterns of behavior develop within the
lifetime of the organism.
• James called these learned patterns of behavior - habits.
• According to James, habits are formed as an activity is repeated.
• Repeating information strengthens neural pathways in the brain, facilitating the flow of
energy through them
• Thus, James provided a neurophysiological explanation for habit formation, which closely
resembled Pavlov’s account of learning.
• Habits are functional because they simplify the movements required to achieve a result,
increase the accuracy of behavior, reduce fatigue, and diminish the need to consciously attend
to performed actions.

James gave five maxims to follow in order to develop good habits and eliminate bad ones.
1. Place yourself and circumstances that encourage good habits and discourage bad ons
2. Do not allow yourself to act contrary to a new habit that you are attempting to develop
 3. Do not attempt to slowly develop a good habit or eliminate a bad one. Engage in
positive habits completely to begin with an abstain completely from bad one
4. It is not the intention to engage in good habits and avoid bad ones that is important- it is
the actual doing so.
5. Force yourself to act in ways that are beneficial to you even if doing so is distasteful and
requires effort

Self
James discussed what he called the empirical self or the “ME” of personality that consists of
everything a person could call their own.
He divided empirical self into three parts:
1. The Material Self consists of everything material that a person could call his or her own
such as their own body family and property
2. The Social Self is the self as known by others
3. The Spiritual Self consists of a person's states of consciousness. It is everything we
think as we think of ourselves as thinkers. Spiritual self also includes emotions
associated with various states of consciousness. The Spiritual self then has to do with
the experience of One’s subjective reality.
Self as knower- According to James the self, “empirical self” is - partly known and partly
knower - partly object and partly subject. James struggled with the concept of self as knower
and thought it was similar to old philosophical concepts such as soul & spirit.

Self esteem - James was the first to examine circumstances under which people feel good or
bad about themselves. Concluded that a person's self esteem is determined by the ratio of
things attempted to things achieved
SELF ESTEEM = SUCCESS/ PRETENSIONS.
Hence according to James one could increase self esteem either by succeeding more or
attempting less.

Emotions
James reversed the traditional belief that emotion results from the perception of an event.
For eg- it was traditionally believed that if we see a bear, we are frightened and we run.
Acc to James, if we see a bear, we run and then we are frightened.
• Perception, according to James, causes bodily reactions that are then experienced as
Emotions.
- In other words, the emotions we feel depend on what we do.

• Coupled with James’s belief in free will, his theory of emotion yields practical advice: Act the
way you want to feel.
• Alternatively, spending the entire day in a slumping position, sighing, and responding with a
a gloomy voice can prolong your melancholy.
• To overcome negative emotional tendencies, we must consistently and methodically
practice the behaviors associated with the positive attributes we want to develop.
 - His theory of emotion is also virtually the same as Carl George Lange’s. So theory
together is known as James- Lange theory of emotion

Free will
Few psychologists have struggled with free will and determinism with the intensity that
James devoted to the issue
• While psychology can rely on methodological determinism, James believed that it’s unlikely
we will ever be able to pre-write a biography of an individual.
• He noted that without the assumption of determinism, science would be impossible, and
insofar as psychology was to be a science, it too must assume determinism.
• Science, however, is not everything, and for certain approaches to the study of humans, the
assumption of free will might be very fruitful

Hence according to James’s Ideo-motor theory of behaviour - An idea of a certain action

causes that action to occur. He believed that actions flowed habitually or reflexively into
behaviour. This automatic process continues unless mental effort is extended to purposely
select and hold an idea of interest in consciousness.
For James voluntary action and mental effort were inseparable.
- From the ideas of various possible actions one is selected for attention and that is the
one that causes behaviour and continues to do so as long as the idea is attended to.
- THUS “Effort of attention is thus the essential phenomenon of will”

Pragmatism
James’s writing consistently reflects his belief in pragmatism.
• Pragmatism, a key aspect of functionalism, states that beliefs, thoughts, and behaviors should
be evaluated based on their Consequences
• Any belief that contributes to a more effective and fulfilling life is VALUABLE , regardless of
whether it is scientific or religious.
• From a pragmatic perspective, truth is not an external, fixed entity to be uncovered, contrary to
the beliefs of rationalists.
• Truth must be evaluated based on its effectiveness under changing circumstances
• What works is true, and because circumstances change, truth must be forever dynamic.
• insisted that words and concepts be judged by their practical consequences.
• encouraged the use of any method that would shed light on the complexities of human
existence-study of animals, children, preliterate humans, and abnormal humans.
• According to the pragmatist, the criterion of the validity of an idea, is its usefulness
• Following his belief that any idea has potential pragmatic value, James enthusiastically
embraced parapsychology and in 1884 was a founder of the American Society for Psychical
Research

James’s Contributions to Psychology

• James helped incorporate evolutionary theory into psychology.
• By stressing what is useful, he represented a major departure from the pure psychology of
both voluntarism and structuralism.
• His pragmatic approach in psychology naturally led to the development of applied psychology.
• For functionalists , usefulness defined both truth and value
• James expanded research techniques in psychology by accepting introspection and all other
techniques that could provide valuable insights into human behavior.
• James also expanded the subject matter of psychology by studying all aspects of human
existence—including behavior, cognition, emotions, volition, and even religious experience
• James’s eclecticism is very much in accordance with postmodernism, which is becoming
increasingly influential in contemporary psychology.
• In 1892, at the age of 50, James concluded that he had exhausted all his insights on
psychology.
• He chose to focus entirely on philosophical matters, which meant he had to step down as
director of the Harvard Psychology Laboratory.
• James aimed to uphold the laboratory’s reputation as the top in the nation by recruiting a
highly skilled psychologist with a creative and experimental approach, and one who did not
support Wundtian psychology.

James’s legacy by Viney

• James’s leadership stimulated the expansion of the methodological, conceptual, and
substantive boundaries of psychology.
• James left us with a legacy that monism—any monism, be it spiritual, material, political,
psychological, scientific, or religious—is but a hypothesis
• Positive side of James’s legacy is that he encouraged us to pursue alternatives.
• One of the best things about James is that his major works are still being read.
• Even though ecology didn’t become a formal field until a long time after James’s work, some
experts now say that ecological views and Jamesian metaphysics have clear similarities.
• growth of a deep and serious awareness of how complicated our relationship with the world
is.
• In a statement to a Harvard men’s club, he talked about “innocent beasts [who] have had to
suffer in cattle cars and slaughter pens and lay down their lives that we might live”
• James embraced the idea that human experience is not the highest or only type of
experience extant in the universe.
• Neither are humans the only creatures with valuative types of experiences.
• His work shows how insensitive we are to things we still take for granted today.
• In any case, his mature philosophy, which emphasizes on feelings, relationships,
uniqueness, variety, perspective, and balance, is a useful metaphysical framework for
ecology.