Functional Psychology
Functional psychology, or functionalism, is a psychological philosophy that focuses on mental processes and behaviors from the perspective of active adaptation to one’s environment. This approach provides a general foundation for developing psychological theories that are difficult to test through controlled experiments and also supports applied psychology. Functional psychology emerged in the United States in the 19th century as an alternative to Edward Titchener's structuralism. While structuralism did not become a formal school, functionalism led to an interest in the autonomy of the mind, which later contributed to the greater focus on behaviorism in understanding the functions of the mind. Edward Thorndike and William James are considered the founders of functional psychology.
Modern Legacy
Evolutionary psychology (EP) is based on the idea that to fully understand the human mind, it is necessary to understand the functions of psychological phenomena influenced by human evolution. Even projects studying the evolutionary functions of consciousness are currently active research topics. Like evolutionary psychology, William James’s functionalism is known to have been inspired by Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection.
Evolutionary Psychology
Evolutionary psychology (EP) is a field of study that aims to understand the psychology of animals, including humans, from ecological and evolutionary perspectives. While EP can be applied to any animal with a nervous system, it mainly focuses on human psychology. Evolutionary psychology suggests that the brain contains many functional mechanisms known as evolved psychological mechanisms (EPMs) that have developed through natural selection. Examples of EPMs include vision, hearing, memory, and motor control. More controversial examples involve mechanisms that help avoid incest, detect cheaters, and determine mating preferences and strategies, as well as spatial awareness. Most evolutionary psychologists believe that EPMs are generally universal within a species, except for differences related to sex and age.
Evolutionary psychology has its roots in cognitive psychology and evolutionary biology. It also relies heavily on fields such as behavioral ecology, artificial intelligence, genetics, animal behavior, anthropology, archaeology, biology, and zoology. While closely related to sociobiology, EP focuses on mechanisms specific to certain domains rather than general ones, emphasizes the relevance of fitness measurements, the importance of mismatch theories, and focuses more on the psychology behind behaviors than on the behaviors themselves. Many evolutionary psychologists argue that the mind consists of both domain-specific and domain-general mechanisms, particularly evolutionary developmental psychologists. Today, most sociobiological research is conducted within the scope of behavioral ecology.
The term "evolutionary psychology" in science was likely first used in a 1973 paper by G. C. Williams. Jerome Barkow, Leda Cosmides, and John Tooby popularized the term in their influential 1992 book "The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture." Evolutionary psychology has been applied to various fields, including economics, aggression, law, psychiatry, politics, literature, and sexuality.