William James. American psychology - Essay Example

William James William James was one among the greatest American psychologists who contributed heavily not only to the development ofpsychology, but also to the development of philosophy. He was born at the Astor House in New York City on January 11, 1842 and died on August 26, 1910. By profession he was a doctor, but his greatest contributions came in the field of psychology and philosophy. He wrote several books on science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religion and mysticism. Moreover he was also an advocate of pragmatic philosophy and wrote many books on pragmatism. His brothers and sisters were also famous in America as literature writers. Even though the contributions of William James are multifaceted, this paper focuses mainly on his contributions to psychology in general and to the development of theory of functionalism relating to the history of psych systems, in particular. Theory of functionalism, developed by William James, caused major changes in the history of American psychology. Theory of functionalism is derived from Darwin’s evolutionary theory. It focuses mainly on the examination of the function and purpose of mind and behavior. “Rather than the structures of the mind, functionalism was interested in mental processes and their relation to behavior”(Functionalism). William James argued that mental structure has nothing to do with the human behavior whereas the mental processes or the activities have definite association with the human behavior. For example, a person behaves aggressively or friendly because of the mental processes rather than the structure of his mind. In other words, the behavior of the people is the outcomes of the mental processes. William James was more interested in the consciousness of mind rather than the structure of mind. Structural psychologists tried to break the mental events to the smallest elements in order to study the human behavior whereas William James analyzed human behavior by taking an event as a whole and the impact of the environment on behavior. In his opinion, there are no specific areas which contribute to a particular behavior of a person. He argued that the mental functions work together while responding to an incident. “James proposed that mental life is a unity that flows and changes. In Principles of Psychology he presented illuminating ideas concerning consciousness, attention, memory, habits, and emotions” (William James and Functionalism). William James was more interested in studying how mind functions and he used the method of introspection for that. He argued that different people may behave differently to a particular stimulus because of individual differences. In other words, the mental processes are different for different people and hence the human behavior may also vary with respect to a particular stimulus. For example, two persons may have different perceptions when they see a girl dating with a boy. The first person may take it lightly whereas the second person may take it seriously. This is because of the different perceptions or consciousness of the people. The first person could be more liberal in his approach and attitude whereas the second person could be more traditional or fundamental in his approaches. These differences in perceptions or consciousness forced these two people to respond differently to a particular incident. Here the structure of the mind has nothing to do with the behavior of these people. Functionalist opposes the search for the elements of consciousness as futile. They believed that the mind has the function of helping us to adapt to the environment. They want to understand the function of the mind, the way it helps us to adapt. They want psychology to be practical, not pure science. They believed that the needs and motivations of the organism should be understood if someone wants to understand behavior. Functionalist are more interested in what makes people different from each other than in what makes them similar (Magazine) William James was more interested in answering the questions like; what or men do; how do they do and why do they do it. In other words, William James concentrated more on sensation and perception in order to explain human behavior. He used the methods of physiology, varied conditions and introspection in finding answers to human behavior. In other words, in order to analyze the question, how we see, William James was interested in analyzing the anatomy of eye and focusing mechanism. But this physiological method cannot give answers to problems related to psychological processes such as learning, perceiving etc. The method of varied conditions used for finding answers to such difficult questions with respect to mental processes. In other words, functionalists studied the responses of a person in varied conditions in order to give answers to human behavior. Introspection methods were also used extensively by functionalists to study the human behavior. For example, functionalists asked the reports from a person immediately after he becomes angry, in order to learn more about how he becomes angry. However, the subjectivity elements are more in thus type of analysis and observations and we cannot say that these analysations are 100% accurate or right. Functional psychology has contributed heavily to the evolution of behavioral psychology. Both structural psychology and functional psychology failed to raise the standards of psychology. None of the results obtained from structural psychology or functional psychology could be measured or standardized which resulted in the failure of psychologist’s attempts to raise the standards of psychology to the levels of science. However, behavioral psychologists succeeded in measuring the human behavior and they modified the definition of psychology from the study of mind to the study of behavior. Behavioral psychology took many of the theories and concepts of functional psychologists and we can safely say that functionalism played a definite role in the development of behavioral psychology and in raising the standards of psychology. To conclude, William James was a great American psychologist and philosopher whose main contributions were in the development of functionalist psychology. Darwinian Theory of evolutions influenced William James very much when he developed his theories of functionalism. Functionalist theory of psychology influenced the evolution of behavioral psychology very much. Works Cited 1. “Functionalism”. Web. 27 March 2011. 2. Magazine, Leona E. “William James and Functionalism : Theory of Functionalism In Education Psychology”. 2010. Web. 27 March 2011. 3. “William James and Functionalism”. Web. 27 March 2011. http://www.psych.utah.edu/gordon/Classes/Psy4905Docs/PsychHistory/Cards/James.html> Read More