I
In psychology , a broad school of thought that originated in the U.S. in the late 19th century and emphasized the total organism in its endeavours to adjust to the environment.
Reacting against the school of structuralism led by William James , George Herbert Mead , and John Dewey stressed the importance of empirical, rational thought over an experimental trial-and-error philosophy. The movement concerned itself primarily with the practical applications of research (see applied psychology ) and was critical of early forms of behaviourism .
II
In the social sciences, a theory that stresses the interdependence of the patterns and institutions of a society and their interaction in maintaining cultural and social unity.
In sociology, functionalism emerged from the work of {{link=Durkheim, %C3%89mile">Émile Durkheim , who viewed society as a kind of "organism" that carried with it certain "needs" that must be fulfilled. Similar views were adopted in anthropology by A.R. Radcliffe-Brown , who attempted to explain social structures as enduring systems of adaptation, fusion, and integration; and by Bronisław Malinowski , who viewed culture as the expression of the totality of individual and collective achievement, where "every custom, material object, idea, and belief fulfills some vital function." The U.S. sociologist Talcott Parsons analyzed large-scale societies in terms of their social, psychological, and cultural components and focused on problems of social order, integration, and equilibrium. Later writers argued that functionalism was too rigid to account for the breadth, depth, and contingencies of human social life and that it ignored the role of history in shaping society.