Structuralism vs. Functionalism Jessica A. Brooks Psychology 426 August 14, 2009
Structuralism vs. Functionalism Structuralism and functionalism investigate the human mind and use the mind as the subject of every study. They are also both are concerned with the conscious self. While they share some similarities, they also show some variation. Structuralism focuses on “revealing the most basic structures or components of the mind” (Zimbardo, 2006). Functionalism, on the other hand, focuses on mental life and behavior according to how a person interacts, or functions, in their environment. Structuralism was introduced to the United States by Titchener, with his own twist on Wundt’s structure of
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Functionalism is concerned with how the mind functions, and consequently also used the technique of introspection. “Functionalists studied the mind not from the standpoint of its composition-its mental elements of structure-but rather as a conglomerate or accumulation of functions and processes that lead to practical consequences in the real world” (Schultz, D.P. & Schultz, S.E., 2008, p.143). Functionalism emphasized individual differences and aimed to answer the question of what is accomplished by mental processes, or mental functions. However, since the definition of function was not exact, that question could not be answered. While neither Structuralism nor Functionalism was able to answer the questions, they both wanted psychology to become scientific. Structuralism sought to discover what happens when an organism does something; Functionalism wanted to know how and why the organism does what it does. Using introspection to search for the answers to these questions was not scientific enough, and they both failed. Searching for the elements of conscious experience, as in Structuralism, did not obtain the original goal; it relied too much on the deliberation of one’s own thoughts. The experimental tactics used in structuralism would not work with standards of current time because the experiments were too subjective, making the results seem unreliable. Functionalism, believing that mental processes could be explained by understanding the adaptive
Structural functionalism is a framework for building theory that sees society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability. Essentially, structural functionalism is how every part of society fits and works together to keep everyone involved, united and to support the process of moving our nation forward. The colony that Flik lives in and that encounters an issue is its own small part of the world that follows structural functionalism; however, when Flik ventures off into the bug world to find warrior bugs it is easy to see ways that structural functionalism works outside of the colony. In the ant colony, the audience can see structural functionalism because each ant has a job that they do to ensure the success of the colony. The ants collect food together and follow orders from people who are higher in position like Princess Atta or The Queen. Through following orders and working together, the colony is able to find a balance and accept what they must do to become successful in fulfilling the needs of not only themselves but also the demanding grass hoppers.
Functionalism was developed as a combination of the Behaviorist theory and the Identity theory. Behaviorism believes being in a mental state is the same as a physical state, which is a noticeable behavioral characteristic. For instance, if one claims they are unhappy, there physical state could include a frowning display or inappropriate posture. On the other hand, the Identity Theory suggests when one
According to Griffiths & et. al (2015), functionalism is a structure with interrelated parts designed to meet the biological and social needs of the individuals in that
Structural Functionalism states that everything in society serves a purpose, whether it is positive or negative. Structuralists look
In this essay, I am going to write a response to the objection raised by the functionalists towards identity theory. Identity theory is a form of physicalism; it states that a particular mental state is identical to a particular physical state of body and brain, for instance mental sensation such as pain is simply just the firing of C-fibres (Smart, 1959). This is a reductionist view as it reduces our psychological state to a materialistic and physical form. A prominent objection against identity theory is Functionalism, in which the main advocate Hilary Putnam stated that identity theory is too narrow as it ignores multiple realisability. In the next paragraph, I will write a little more about functionalism, and in the end, I will ultimately conclude that functionalism is a better theory than identity theory.
Strucutral functionalism is a form of functional analysis. Functional analysis (or functionalism) is one of the major theoretical perspectives in sociology. In fact, many of the early giants of sociology, such as Spencer, Comte, and Durkheim were functionalists. Essentially, this perspective sees society as comprised of many parts that contribute in unique ways to the operation of the whole society.
In my opinion both of the theories structuralism and functionalism involved the study of the human mind and how it works and they were both concerned with the mind at the conscious level. Personally, my feel of the two is that functionalism is more important than structuralism. I believe that functionalism is far better school than structuralism as it is more flexible and scientific in nature which I can relate myself with. I happen to think that functionalism is an object that is designed to determine solely by its function. These are a few of the similarities between structuralism and functionalism. Throughout this paper I will further explore some of the differences between these
Functionalism, one of the most influential and widespread theories of mind of our day, proposes a model of human behaviour based on the way certain inputs are processed when the mind is in a given state, to yield certain outputs. This theory concerns itself only what mental states do, rather than the substance with which they are made, or whether they exist at all; this is called ‘multiple realizability’. In other words, the theory is ontologically modest, or flexible, and this enables functionalism to stay compatible with Cartesian dualism or monisms like materialism, an advantage when other theories lose followers due to their ontological preconceptions. The other notable strength functionalism claims is that it avoids some of the pitfalls of its counterpart theory, behaviourism. However each of these apparent strengths has flaws, both in and of themselves and in comparison to other theories of mind. These strengths and their flaws will be assessed in this essay, but allow me first to outline what the functionalist theory of mind proposes.
Functionalism is a theory of the mind in contemporary philosophy, developed largely as an alternative to both the identity theory of mind and behaviorism. Its main idea is that mental states are constituted solely by their functional role. The conflict perspective views the social world as difficult unfair and unreasonable. This perspective is typically more pessimistic. Symbolic interactionism is a theory that develops from practical considerations and that alludes to people's particular utilization of dialect to make images, normal implications, for deduction and correspondence with others.
The second version of functionalism is causal-theoretical functionalism. Causal-theoretical functionalism classifies mental states in terms of their psychological theory. There are two versions of psychological theory:
Functionalist looks at society on a macro level. It is a consensus theory and structuralists prefer to use functionalism as it agrees with their ideals and models and they prefer to look at society as a whole. Functionalists are interested in studying what family is most functional.
* The functions of the mind, not its raw elements, were the subject matter of psychology for the functionalists.
The functionalism theory is also known as structural functionalism and lays claim on the fact that the society is composed of interdependent portions each of which adds to the functioning of the whole society. Functionalists break
Functionalism developed out of the positivist observation that 'all positive speculations owe their first origin to the occupations of practical life' (Comte, 1865, pg 11) and the boundaries of scientific knowledge can not go further than empirically observable truths and views societies as holistic systems where 'the whole is greater than the sum of its parts' (Taylor et el, 1997, pg 662). Functionalist analysis draws on three assumptions essentially seeking to transform society into a theoretical system of reality. The first assumption is that there are zero independent parts operating within
To begin, functionalism is a theory in the philosophy of mind that defines mental states through its inputs, outputs, and causal relation to other mental states, or its function (Jackson,4). The inputs are things you perceive in the world and the output is how you react or your behavior. A behaviorist is only concerned with inputs and outputs when defining mental states, whereas a functionalist takes it a step further. They also examine the casual relationship to other mental