Functionalism and Behaviorism
Name:
Institutional Affiliation:
Functionalism And Behaviorism
Introduction
Psychology is the study of mind and behavior. Since people have varied perceptions and thoughts with regards to this definition, scholars in the past and present have come up with various classical theories related to psychology, all of which are geared to helping people to better understand the different perspectives of psychology and how it impacts the daily lives of humans (Bjorklund & Pellegrini, 2002). In this paper, I will aim to compare and contrast two major schools of psychology that is functionalism and behaviorism and their impacts in the field of psychology.
Functionalism can be defined as a psychological philosophy, which considers mental life and behavior with regards to active adaptation to the person’s environment. Therefore, it provides people with the general basis on which they can develop psychological theories that are not readable and testable through controlled experiments and applied psychology. The whole idea of functionalism first arose in the United States back in the 19th century. During that time, it was used as an alternative to structuralism (Zhong, 2008).
Behaviorism, on the other hand, is a psychological approach, which combines different elements of psychology, methodologies, and theory. Therefore, this means that behaviorism is mainly concerned with the observable and measurable aspects of human behaviors. That is why in
I look at functionalism from the perspective of my career. Working in a doctor’s office takes every department working together as a whole in order to provide the best care for the patients. Functionalism uses a macrolevel of analysis because it takes several different people in several departments to come together as a whole to help the patients sustain their health. If we do not work together the patients will not get the care that they deserve. I view conflict theory from the perspective of the film “The Outsiders”.
Finally, the three sociological perspectives can be seen. Functionalist can be observed in the way
That is why behaviorism is very useful in this case. In his book Psychologists as Behaviorist View It, the famous psychologist John B. Watson stated that, “it is only possible to judge objectively while observing behaviors, thoughts and sentiment should be ignored”. A materialistic view in which could bring more questions concerning human nature, specifically its free will. Perhaps, all human behaviors are innate, determined by genes, brain size, or other biological attributes. This theory stands in contrast to the notion of human behavior being determined by culture or other social forces ("Determinism, Biological").
There are three different forms of functionalism such as the analytic functionalism, physchofuctionalism and machine-state functionalism. Analytic functionalism is the most common of them all, it describes the function of a job description of mental states. The second from is physchofunctionalism in which opposes to the idea of behaviorism and saying no to the physical aspect of the mind. The last form of functionalism is the machine-state functionalism in which was founded by Hillary Putnam. Putnam was an American philosopher whose ideas were based on the apologies of mind.
We look are homelessness and functionalism and how on a macro leave how it affects homeless. We also look at the programs that available for people. Explanations using sociology theory The functionalist perspective, also called functionalism, is one of the major theoretical perspectives in sociology. Edward Durkheim, was the regional person who was greatly interested in seeing how social order is possible or how society remains relatively stable.
Functionalism is usually analyzed as macrostructure which includes things like school systems and economic factors that can have an influence on substance abuse. From a functionalist perspective, someone can be using drugs and alcohol abusively based on issues in their social life. Society has this norm where people are required to work to be able to live comfortably independently. There are people who balance work and school which becomes stressful but they are required to work for financial support and they need education for a better future so they are forced to do it. With these heavy responsibilities, a person seeks leisure during their time off.
Structural-functionalism or functionalism, are groups of individuals who advocate, or work according to the principles of functionalism. The show however, portrays behavior that is clearly not functional and could be considered dysfunctional for society. But, there are examples of groups of people or individuals who work together for the well-being of the town. For instance, Quahogs news crew which consist of anchors and reporters work together the provide news for the town. The Quahog Police Department.
Psychological functionalism is the idea that culture is composed of many different elements. All these things are connected and work together to meet the needs of individuals in the culture. And culture exists to meet the biological, psychological, and social needs of individuals. In “Days of the Dead” Alma Guillermoprieto describes how the artist Rosa Marfa Robles brought to life the macho narcotraficante culture of her native state. This type of culture in her native state has brought many violent acts and murders.
It’s often known as the consensus theory due to the fact that in functionalism everything works together, there is complete agreement. It doesn’t take into account social factors that may affect aspects of life. On the contrary, it views society as a system in which all parks work together to make everything work in consensus (Dottin). Emilie Durkheim said, “There are two types of men: the great and the small” (Durkheim). This leads us into the discussion of the inequality of functionalism.
Health is something different to each individual. It can be described as simply being able to function daily, to fulfil a social role. According to Talcott Parsons (1979) this functionalist approach was essential to maintain good health and healthcare. Hence, avoiding impairment of our roles in society.
Social interactions all contribute to a system that works together to create a balance, according to functionalists. This perspective emphasizes order and stability. Change is not only not a priority of a functionalist, but they would argue that change would simply upset the balance. It would make sense for a functionalist to not necessarily want to hire a person under the age of thirty. Our generation is constantly changing and evolving and people in older generations may view that change as negative.
Modern psychology now bases its theories in feasibility and replicability. The fact that most of the constructs in Freud’s theory such as the id, ego and superego cannot be tested and proven has made the theory invalid today. On the other hand, behaviorism is still very valid as its based on scientific laboratory experiments. Behaviorism has been replicated in many studies with the same results being achieved. The theory is still valid in modern therapeutic applications through behavior modification and behavioral therapy e.g flooding and shaping.
Psycho functionalism bases the identity of mental states on underlying cognitive mechanisms in (scientific hypotheses about) the brain as well as the
In addition, the causal role for mentality is removed. So it could be argued that theory that the mind causes behavior is equivalent to theory that the mind is behavior. The behaviorist theory solves the inverted qualia theory by the defining mental states in reference to their associated behaviours instead of of by reference to their conscious qualities thereby avoiding the inverted qualia problem altogether concluding that if two people behave as If they both see the same color then they probably do. (Jessica Lerm, personal communication, April 9, 2015).
John B. Watson Theory of behaviorism: The term behaviorism refers to the school of psychology founded by John B. Watson based on the belief that behaviors can be measured, trained, and changed. Behaviorism was established with the publication of Watson 's classic paper, Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It (1913). Behaviorism, also known as behavioral psychology, is a theory of learning based upon the idea that all behaviors are acquired through conditioning. Conditioning occurs through interaction with the environment.