approach in psychology that developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, primarily in American experimental psychology. According to this approach, it is possible to distinguish separate mental functions in the psyche, which are relatively independent elements. This is a theory according to which mental states are determined not by their internal structure, but by the roles they perform in the system that includes them as an integral part. Functionalism sought to consider all mental manifestations from the point of view of their adaptive, adaptive nature. In contrast to the structuralists, functionalists considered the main subject of psychology to be mental processes, or functions, and not the content of consciousness.