This movement arose in the U.S. in the late 19th century in direct contrast to Edward Titchener's structuralism, which focused on the contents of consciousness rather than the motives and ideals of human behavior.
At the start of the nineteenth century, there was a discrepancy between psychologists who were interested in the analysis of the structures of the mind and those who turned their attention to studying the function of mental processes.
John Dewey, George Herbert Mead, Harvey A. Carr, and especially James Rowland Angell were the main proponents of functionalism at the University of Chicago.
Another group at Columbia, including notably James McKeen Cattell, Edward L. Thorndike, and Robert S. Woodworth, were also considered functionalists and shared some of the opinions of Chicago's professors.
Behaviourists also rejected the method of introspection but criticized functionalism because it was not based on controlled experiments and its theories provided little predictive ability.
Perhaps, a combination of both the functionalist and behaviourist perspectives provides scientists with the most empirical value,[citation needed] but, even so, it remains philosophically (and physiologically) difficult to integrate the two concepts without raising further questions about human behaviour.
Utilizing the Darwinian ideology, the mind was considered to perform a diverse biological function on its own and can evolve and adapt to varying circumstances.
Lastly, the promise of the impact of functional psychology to the improvement of education, mental hygiene and abnormal states.
He argued that mental elements identified by the structuralist were temporary and only existed at the moment of sensory perception.
[5] Mary Calkins attempted to make strides in reconciling structural and functional psychology during her APA presidential address.
It was a goal of Calkin's for her school of self-psychology to be a place where functionalism and structuralism could unite under common ground.
[6] John Dewey, an American psychologist and philosopher, became the organizing principle[clarification needed] behind the Chicago school of functional psychology in 1894.
[4] Later in his life, Dewey neglected to mention Wilhelm Wundt, a German philosopher and psychologist, as an influence towards his functional psychology.
[10] At the time it didn't seem worthwhile to bring up old theories from a German philosopher who only held a temporary spotlight and whose reputation went into a rather negative decline in America in the early twentieth century.
Despite this claim, it is possibly one of the greatest ironies in the history of psychology that Wundt be deemed responsible for major contributions to functionalism due to his spark of several functionalist rebellions.
Like evolutionary psychology, James's functionalism was inspired by Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection.