Structuralism and Functionalism

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The term psychology is defined as the scientific investigation of mental processes and behavior (Kowalski & Westen, 2012.) Mental processes and behaviors comprise of thoughts, actions, emotions, perceptions, memories, level of rational thinking, and moreover, the biological activities that maintain bodily function. Psychology has been placed into the categories or fields. For example, occupational, health, human development, social, law, and color psychology. The initial major psychological schools of thought were structuralism and functionalism. Structuralism was developed in 1879 by Wilhelm Wundt within the walls of the first psychological laboratory in Leipzig, Germany. Structuralism can be defined as the study of the elements of consciousness. The idea is that conscious experience can be broken down into basic conscious elements, just as physical matter can be described as consisting of chemical structures that can in turn be broken down into basic elements. Wundt’s structuralism approach wanted to recognize the building blocks, or the structure, of the psychological functioning. Structuralism focused on uncovering the fundamental mental components of perception, consciousness, thinking, emotions, and other kinds of mental states and activities. In addition, structuralism relied on the method called introspection, which was utilized by Wundt and colleagues like student Edward Titchener. Introspection is the process used to explore human mental function as they complete assorted tasks. These psychologists’ primary interest lied in how individuals processed sensory stimuli. This exploration led to the distinction between sensation or stimulus' effect on one of our senses, and perception, or our brain's interpretation of the stimulus. He discovered that when he asked people to listen to a sound and respond as soon as they heard it, they were much faster than
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