Functional Psychology

1896

John Dewey (1859–1952)

Few individuals can claim to have had as wide-ranging an impact on American life and thought as John Dewey. His influence was most broadly felt in philosophy, psychology, and education. In such a short space as this, however, all that can be done is to indicate merely two aspects of his influence on psychological topics.

Dewey’s 1896 article “The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology” was a challenge to the received wisdom that separated stimulus from response. He argued that such a separation was false; that the two could only be considered together, as one has no meaning without the other. Along with his colleagues, he developed functional psychology, which emphasizes the importance of the social context on how we think and act, and he argued that we should consider how mental activity helps us adapt to the world around us. This approach was counter to Cornell psychologist E. B. Titchener’s structuralist approach, the other leading methodology at the time. Structuralism focused on the contents and structure of thought and completely eschewed application.

In Chicago, Dewey began his work on education, in which he had a long-standing interest. His lengthy and notable career as a philosopher and psychologist of education flowed directly from his functionalist psychology, which emphasized the function or action of the mind. He knew from experience that the then-standard practices of drill and rote learning deadened a child’s mind. Instead, he proposed the importance of experiential education: children learn best by doing. Teaching is important, but a child must be given an opportunity to act on that instruction, and to make sure it happens, a school must provide opportunities to critically and creatively engage a child with educational materials.

Like Friedrich Froebel, Maria Montessori, and Lev Vygotsky, Dewey believed in a psychology of education that emphasized learning by doing.

SEE ALSO Kindergarten (1840), The Principles of Psychology (1890), Casa dei Bambini (1907), Zone of Proximal Development (1934)

E. B. Titchener, who headed the opposing methodology, structuralism.

John Dewey is one of only two American psychologists to be honored with a US postage stamp.