Chicago school
a school of psychology that emerged at the University of Chicago in the early 20th century, associated with psychologists John Dewey, James R. Angell, and Harvey A. Carr. Their approach, called functionalism, was related to the act psychology of Franz Brentano; it was an attempt to modify the subject matter of psychology by introducing the Darwinian idea that mental activities subserve an adaptive biological action function that should be the focus of psychology.