Question

What are the similarities and differences between the Chicago and Columbia School of Functionalism?

Subject - History of Psychology and the 2 schools that started Functionalism (Chicago and Columbia School of Functionalism).

Answer 1

Functionalism grew as a response to the 19th century's notions of Structuralism. The former endeavoured to study the motivation behind human thinking while the latter was set on only examining the mind in its simplest definable form, i.e - the contents of consciousness. With that little background let's move in the schools of Functionalism:

Both schools of thought agree that the purpose of studying the human mind is to understand the role behaviour plays in our interactions with the environment as well as interpersonal relationships. They argue the human body and mind cannot be treated as separate entities since they act in unison in a struggle for an organism's survival. Learning is at the core of functionalism since it aid's in how an organism adjusts to the environment, i.e society. Functionalism's elementary insistence was behaviours are a response to sensory stimuli; they are adaptive and driven by motivation. The pioneers of functionalism criticised the beliefs of structuralism and urged the application of functionalism's pragmatism in fields like educational psychology and animal psychology.

Moreover, the nature of data in both schools was subjective and objective, although with time functionalism moved towards an almost purely objective stance. The contributors to the Colombia school of thought took it a step further by rejecting the analytical method of associationists (the theory that grew into classical conditioning) as well as Ebbinghaus' nonsense syllable experiment; herein lies a difference between the two schools.

Keep in mind that almost every theory/school of thought in psychology does not stand in isolation. It stands on the shoulders of notions and theories proposed before it and therefore can be linked while considering the history of psychology.