History of psychology(William james)

 Psychology is an exciting field and the history of psychology gives the opportunity to make decisions of how it has grown and developed. It tells us about the important period of time and place that defines who we are. Wundt attracted students to study the new experimental psychology and work in his lab and also work on  his given the theory of structuralism. On the other hand, In America William James, G. Stanley Hall, and James McKeen Cattell and his group identified with functionalism.

William James (1842–1910) won universal fame by writing the most important book in the field of psychology, that is "Principles of Psychology, published in 1890. According the theory of James, consciousness helped us adapt to our environment in such ways as allowing us to make choices and have personal responsibility over those choices. He is called the father of American psychology. The focus of functionalism was about how behavior actually works to help people live in their environment. Functionalists gives methods such as direct observation to study the human mind and behavior.

In Structuralism, the aim of psychology is to study the structure of the mind and consciousness, while functionalism aim is to understanding the purpose of the mind and consciousness. Functionalism was developed as a response to structuralism.

Functionalism dives the idea of solutions to the mind/body problem. Solutions to the mind/body problem usually try to answer questions such as: What is the ultimate nature of the mental? what makes a mental state mental? Or more specifically, What do thoughts have in common in virtue of which they are thoughts? That is, what makes a thought a thought? What makes a pain a pain? In fact the difference between structuralism and functionalism is that structuralism focus on the structure of the mind whereas functionalism focus on the function of the mind i.e. analyze “why and how” the mind function.