Under the influence of Charles Darwin, the psychology school of functionalism focused on how consciousness adapts to different environments and how the mind contributes to human change and survival. While structuralist was trying to divide the units of the mind, the functionalist had a completely different idea on what, why, and how we should study the mind. According to the functionalist William James, elements of the mind are both constantly changing and connected to one another, therefore, cannot be broken down for analysis. James called this concept "stream of consciousness," which he first introduced in his article, "On Some Omissions of Introspective Psychology" in 1884, and later in the Principles of Psychology in 1890. James' The Principles of Psychology was a highly influential textbook that covered many aspects of psychology that opposed the aspects of structuralism. James described
…show more content…
When study behavior, the behaviorist believed that complex behavior could be understood by breaking the behavior down to its basic elements such as the stimuli and conditioned responses; while Gestalt psychologist took a molar approach to study behavior without dividing them for further analysis. John Watson published the article, "Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist", in 1919, which he officially mentioned the stimuli-respond psychology. This suggested his view of a passive brain that responds to specific stimuli as a learned function. The Gestaltist looked at human brain as active, and that the brain itself organizes the incoming information and process it cognitively as the nature of the brain. Watson believed that people are shaped by their experiences while the gestalt psychologists would lean more toward the nativist side of the argument because they believed that the powers of the mind and brain's ability to organize information like law of Prägnanz did not come from
When study behavior, the behaviorist believed that complex behavior could be understood by breaking the behavior down to its basic elements such as the stimuli and conditioned responses; while Gestalt psychologist took a molar approach to study behavior without dividing them for further analysis. John Watson published the article, "Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist", in 1919, which he officially mentioned the stimuli-respond psychology. This suggested his view of a passive brain that responds to specific stimuli as a learned function. The Gestaltist looked at human brain as active, and that the brain itself organizes the incoming information and process it cognitively as the nature of the brain. Watson believed that people are shaped by their experiences while the gestalt psychologists would lean more toward the nativist side of the argument because they believed that the powers of the mind and brain's ability to organize information like law of Prägnanz did not come from