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William James's Theory Of Functionalism

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When one visits an local art museum, the muted objective is to stand back and enjoy the finesse of the artwork as a whole. This is exactly what the American psychologist William James acquired into his own theories. His most prominent theory is called Functionalism. According to Ned Block, a student of New York University, Functionalism looks at the wholeness of the mind and body rather than the individual parts. My personal definition would be that Functionalism is the knot that ties the mind and body together. To better interpret the impact that William James had in the psychology timeline, one needs to distinguish James ' reasonings and even his contradicting competitors. William James was born into a 'curiosity of the …show more content…
James stood strongly by his theory that the human brain and behavior are eternally developing. He declared that the experiences that the human brain encounter are adapted into their lifestyle and could affect their behavior. To be more specific, James announced that mental abilities were evolved because a human conscious can adapt to it 's surroundings. All of these theories and methods were adjusted to form Functionalism. Unfortunately, not everyone complied to James ' new psychological perspective. Beforehand, the most well known theories of psychology declared the very opposite of James ' …show more content…
In laboratories today, Functionalism is still a circulating approach to countless scientists. Due to Jame 's introducing his methods and theories, many psychologists are using behaviorism for their base of investigating the mind. To emphasize James ' contributions, scientists today are now using his theories and look at the behavior of animals in the interrelationships between three parts. These parts are the environment the patient is put in and how the patient reacts to it, the automatic nervous system (the fight or flight muscle response that the patient does not have control over), and the somatic nervous system (the muscle response that the patient controls. In my personal opinion, psychology today would be considerable different if it weren 't for William James and his contributions. From the 1920 's to 2014, Functionalism is one of highest approaches to

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