Functional psychology or functionalism refers to a general psychological philosophy that considers mental life and behavior in terms of active adaptation to the person's environment. As such, it provides the general basis for developing psychological theories not readily testable by controlled experiments and for applied psychology.
Functionalism arose in the U.S. in the late 19th century as an alternative to Structuralism (psychology). While functionalism never became a formal school, it built on structuralism's concern for the anatomy of the mind and led to greater concern over the functions of the mind, and later to behaviorism.
Read more about Functional Psychology: History, Contemporary Descendants
Famous quotes containing the words functional and/or psychology:
“Indigenous to Minnesota, and almost completely ignored by its people, are the stark, unornamented, functional clusters of concrete—Minnesota’s grain elevators. These may be said to express unconsciously all the principles of modernism, being built for use only, with little regard for the tenets of esthetic design.”
—Federal Writers’ Project Of The Wor, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“A large part of the popularity and persuasiveness of psychology comes from its being a sublimated spiritualism: a secular, ostensibly scientific way of affirming the primacy of “spirit” over matter.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)