Probabilistic functionalism Brunswik's work in Vienna had culminated in the publication of in 1934. All of his subsequent work was devoted to the extension and elaboration of the fundamental position set forth in this book, namely, that psychology should give as much attention to the properties of the organism's environment as it does to the organism itself. He asserted that the environment with which the organism comes into contact is an uncertain, probabilistic one, however lawful it may be in terms of physical principles. Adaptation to a probabilistic world requires that the organism learn to employ probabilistic means to achieve goals and learn to utilize probabilistic, uncertain evidence (proximal cues) about the world (the
distal object). His probabilistic
functionalism was the first behavioral system founded on
probabilism. It is represented pictorially by his lens model. He also created the term
ecological validity.
History of psychology Brunswik wrote a great deal about the
history of psychology. His historical analysis is remarkable for its development in structural terms rather than in the customary longitudinal recapitulation of names, dates, and places. It consists of a general identification of the kinds of variables that have traditionally been employed in psychological theory and research and a description of the changes in the emphasis of these variables over time. Brunswik's theory stems as much from his analysis of the history of psychology as it does from his research.
Representative design His historical as well as his theoretical analysis also led him to criticize orthodox methods of experimental design, particularly the "rule of one variable" and to suggest methods for avoiding what he believed to be an unfortunate artificiality inherent in classical experimental procedure that do not represent the multiple variables and complexities of the environment. He proposed representative design as an alternative to standard experimental methods.
Other work Brunswik's main field of empirical research was perception, but he also brought his probabilistic approach to bear on problems of interpersonal perception, thinking, learning, and clinical psychology. His research findings were published in
Perception and the Representative Design of Experiments (1947), which also includes Brunswik's methodological innovations and related research by others. A feature of Brunswik's work is its coherence. Each theoretical, historical, and research paper is explicitly and tightly integrated with every other one. Brunswik's cast of mind compelled him to fit together with precision his conceptual framework, his methodology, and his views of the history of psychology. In 1952, he presented an overview of the field of psychology in
The Conceptual Framework of Psychology. ==Reception and legacy==