Two Early Approaches: Structuralism and Functionalism 

For those who are still confused, I've heard it explained this way. Structuralism basically breaks consciousness down into sensations, emotions, and feelings. A key component of this is introspection - which is basically looking "inwards" and reflecting on your sensations, emotions, and feelings. So a structuralist would say that when you look at a banana, you think "well, it's really long, kinda yellow, I remember seeing my friend throw one in MarioKart, looks kinda mushy, I feel sick when I look at it. OH, IT MUST BE A BANANA!". Now functionalists think that this is ridiculous. Consciousness is too complex to be broken down. Not only that but it would be terribly inefficient to go through this whole entire process everytime you look at a banana. In other words, a functionalist would say that when you see a banana, you think "banana!". Now, here's the think about functionalism. Like, I said it's too inefficient to constantly think about sensations, feelings, and memories. Functionalism, looked at through the lens of evolutionary psychology, makes more sense than structuralism. Why? Because if a bear is chasing you, you aren't gonna look inwards and think "oh, well, that creature has four legs, lots of claws and fur, looks pretty scary, makes me feel terrified." That takes way too much time and you would be dead in seconds. You have to be able to look at a bear and think "bear". A key component, therefore, of functionalism is that YOUR BRAIN IS CONSTANTLY ADAPTING AND LEARNING FROM YOUR EXPERIENCES. The first couple times you see a bear, it may take some time to realize that it's a bear but eventually you won't have to run down the list of characteristics that a bear has to be able to recognize it's a bear. Looking at this from a biological perspective, functionalism also makes a lot of sense. Why? Because our neurons get stronger and more efficient everytime we perform a task. This is known as long-term potentiation. In other words, everytime you look at a bear and identify it as a bear, those neurons that are constantly firing off get stronger and faster. (This is also why practice makes perfect). What this means is eventually when you look at a bear, the neurons in your brain that recognize animals and objects is firing so well that you're instantly able to think "bear" almost unconsciously. TL;DR: Structuralism can be broken down into sensations, memories, and feelings. Using this approach, structuralists believe that if you look at a teddy bear, you'd think "it's a stuffed animal, really soft, has four legs, I remember having one when I was a little kid...oh! it must be a teddy bear. Functionalism basically states that these conscious processes are too complex to be broken down and structuralism is, therefore, inefficient. When we see a teddy bear, we think "teddy bear". Edit: Thank you for the likes! All your replies are heartwarming and as someone who dreams of being a clinical psychologist, I'm so glad that I could help. For those studying for AP psych exams, you got this - let's get a 5 💪! Edit #2: Hey everyone! I know it's been a couple years since this comment was posted, so a couple updates. I'm currently studying psychology at Columbia University - still hoping to become a clinical psychologist! Because of the amount of people that have commented saying this helped, I've decided to take your advice and make a course/podcast on psychology. (Shameless plug, I know). The podcast is called Acing the Psych Major (by Harun Afza) and you can find it on Spotify - I'll add a link below! It's split into seasons, with the first season being AP/Intro Psychology and other seasons being different courses in psychology (like Abnormal Behaviour or Developmental Psychology). For anyone wondering why it's by Harun Afza, that's because this youtube channel is actually my sibling's account! I sincerely hope this podcast will help anyone who's studying psychology in the future - and no need to worry about subscriptions. It's completely free! Love you guys - let's keep nailing this psych exam! Link to podcast: podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/h-afza

OMG WHY DID IT CUT OFF! NOO I WAS GETTING INTO IT NOOO I NEED. TO. KNOW. THE, REST. FOR. MY. NOTES. 0.0 *Gasp*

These videos are helpful, but they cut off unexpectedly and it's driving me nuts! I'd really like to watch/listen to the concepts in their entirety.

Why does it end abruptly and not cover Functionalism? Is there a second part? Her speaking style sounds ok to me, and I thought she converted the information well. I didn't even notice anything wrong with her hand movements.

Structuralism is the school of thought that consciousness can be broken down into its individual parts. A better understanding of these processes and parts, means we understand the mind better. Functionalist believes the entirety of our consciousness is too complex to break into specific parts. Functionalism is where people are more focused on how the mind adapts, reacts and changes.

please can you help me its very urgent my teacher ask me to discuss this topics 'structuralism is too limited and too ambitious at the same time 'discuss !

this is amazing, really helpful tnku

This was really helpful! Thanks

Is there any second part

Nice video with a few key takeaways. Friendly 'head's up' on the typos in the title.

Nothing is wrong with her hands, She is being expressive. Actually this makes her a really good instructor because if she did not move, you would be bored and studies show that those individuals who speak with their hands are more intelligent.

lol, you just know they had to reshoot the video, and someone told her to "use her hands more" :P

Anyone...do you know effect theory William James of physical

This is not correct. It was Titchener that had a Structuralist approach, not Wundt.

Functionalism: The principle that form follows function (as in evolutionary psychology) rather than function following form (as in learning theory, affective neuroscience), thus arriving at principles that are formal but not functional, and psychological principles that are true to form, dysfunctional. from Dr. Mezmer’s Dictionary of Bad Psychology

So is Introspection part of functionalism or structuralism? Watched it 3 times and did not get it

Why does she look so uncomfortable?

What's wrong with her hands?

The Colors of Affect: or How Wundt was Wight! (with apologies to Elmer Fudd) The colors of the rainbow do not begin to reflect all of the infinite hues of reflected light. However, the myriad colors of the world are not separate things, but are in truth admixtures of three primary colors, red, yellow, and blue. This simple conceptual scheme provided the explanation of color that made the replication of color easy, to the delight no doubt of interior decorators the world over. Deriving complex structure from elemental processes serves all the physical and biological sciences, and like the metaphors of disease and space and time, can encapsulate a world view in a phrase. However, feelings or affective states have not been so tractable, though an early psychologist would demur. He was the late 19th century psychologist Wilhelm Wundt, the founder of experimental psychology. Wundt wanted to know the rudiments of felt experience, or affect, and his aim was to see if affect, like color, can be derived from rudimentary components. Wundt believed that the affective components of the human mind could be determined by rigorously objective introspection. That is, he thought that affect or feelings could be broken down (or reduced) to their basic elements without sacrificing any of the properties of the whole. Wundt’s introspection was not a casual affair, but a highly practiced form of self-examination. He trained his students to make observations that were free from the bias of personal interpretation or previous experience, and used the results to develop a theory of affect which derived from three bi-polar dimensions. According to Wundt: “In this manifold of feelings… it is nevertheless possible to distinguish certain different chief directions, including certain affective opposites of predominant character.” Wundt identified three bipolar dimensions whose permutations comprised moment to moment affective states: (i) pleasurable versus un-pleasurable, (ii) arousing versus subduing, and (iii) strain versus relaxation. An attentive reader would note that strain versus relaxation also reflect unpleasant and pleasant affective states, however these states differ from our workaday pleasures and pains because they are continuously rather than intermittently present. So, with this new perspective, Wundt in effect postulated one discrete and two continuous affective dimensions. For example, a delicious meal or touching a hot pan are pleasurable and un-pleasurable states that occur discretely, however the relative activity of the covert musculature is continuous, as is our moment-to-moment state of alertness, or attentive arousal. What Wundt did not know and could not know at the time due to the rudimentary observational tools then available was the source of arousal and pleasure, which are respectively due to the activity of mid-brain dopaminergic and opioid systems. The neuromodulator dopamine elicits a feeling of alertness and energy, but not pleasure, and is induced through the experience and anticipation of novel positive events. On the other hand, opioids are responsible for pleasure, and are elicited in very small regions or ‘hot spots’ in the brain by exteroceptive (food, drink) and interoceptive stimuli (relaxation). Finally, arousal and pleasure are not just complementary but synergistic. In other words, pleasure stimulates arousal, and arousal stimulates pleasure. This reflects the fact that the neuronal assemblies or nuclei that induce dopaminergic and opioid activity abut each other in the midbrain, and when individually activated can have synergistic effects, or dopamine-opioid interactions. This can explain why high arousal and pleasure, or ecstatic, peak, or ‘flow’ experiences, correspond to novel and ‘meaningful’ experiences during relaxed states. If we map the continuous affective dimensions of Wundt’s proposal to each other, when informed by affective neuroscience, Wundt’s color wheel can bloom, and account for and predict different affective states. The vertical axis would represent dopaminergic activity, from high to low, whereas the horizontal axis would represent the degree of covert neuro-muscular activation, or muscular tension, again from high to low. High arousal would be felt as a sense of energy or alertness, and low arousal would be felt as a sense of lethargy or depression. High tension would be felt as anxiety or nervousness, and low tension would be felt as a pleasurable state of calm or relaxation. Mapping these affective events to their physiological correlates gives us emergent subjective states that match the emotional labels of our affective wheel, or an ‘emotional circumplex’. Thus ‘elation’, or a state of pleasure and arousal would occur when arousal is high and tension is low, ‘frustration’ would reflect high arousal and high tension, ‘worry’ would reflect low arousal and high tension, and ‘relaxation’ would correspond to low arousal and low tension. And so with a little tinkering of Wundt’s proposal, his observations are correct after all, and perhaps as the affective wheel turns can help psychologists arrange the colors of emotion in ways that would do interior decorators of the soul proud. From www.doctormezmer.com/post/the-colors-of-affect

I like this video , but I think if the presenter go slowly it would be great

This did not fully explain the difference between the two ideologies.

but if you expected to hear a sound... *video ends*

too much gesticulation but informative. Thanks

You guys are really cruel in the comments. You take from this what you can eat but spit out what you can't chew guys.

Hahaha! I was expecting a sound: the rest of it!

FIGURE OUT WHAT TO DO WITH YOUR HANDS

Can someone explain why she is dancing the robot?

also cool hands

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-qBe9qjX-Ahg.html full video

correct terms, wrong representation.

You can get her to stop talking if you tie her hands down.

I had to cover up her hands on my screen just to watch the video. She really needs to take a public speaking class!

I actually have to turn away from the screen so that I can process what she's saying, and not get distracted by the flippers.

UGH! I cant concentrate! her hands move to much! onto a different video

I just couldn't watch it - too awkward

What is she doing tho haha

Anyone else feel awkward by her hand movements?

She's so attractive 😮

Misrepresentation of philosophy per the usual