Complex behavior or higher mental process: Is there a paradigm shift?

Analysis of the basic nature of scientific paradigms during periods of stability and change indicates that no particular set of properties of a scientific viewpoint determines a paradigm. After World War II, major formal and theoretical advances outside psychology gradually gave rise to procedures and ideas applicable to formulations in competition with the behavioristic approaches. Problems within stimulus-response behaviorism which were generally conceived to be empirically resolvable also proved to be intractable. It is concluded that neobehavioristic positions have weakened considerably in the face of competition and that the justification for the domination of psychology by neobehaviorism has eroded. (53 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)