Abstract
The present paper indicates some of the shortcomings in previous conceptual, behavioral analyses of complex "cognitive" phenomena. It then describes the approach of paradigmatic behaviorism in studying such complex phenomena. The method involves a close, interacting mix of developing conceptual analysis and an advancing empirical program. Behavior principles are first tested with samples of parts of the complex behavioral phenomenon. The research moves progressively towards dealing with more and more complex and inclusive samples. Various research methods are involved ranging from single subject reinforcement reversals to group designs and the use of psychometric tests. A central methodology consists of experimental-longitudinal research that involves training subjects in functional repertoires over long periods of time where the learning is stipulated by recording every stimulus, every response, and every reinforcer involved. The conceptual analysis has also been developed from the simple to the complex, introducing concepts such as the basic behavioral repertoire and cumulative-hierarchical learning, recognizing that complex human behavior is learned in a process of first acquiring simple repertoires that form the basis for more complex learning that form the basis for yet more complex learning in repeated steps of acquisition. This methodology and conceptual analysis provide the basis for a theory of intelligence that is behavioristic and experimental and that stipulates what intelligence is, how it is learned, how it functions, how its mesurement is justified behaviorally, and how it can be manipulated in intervention procedures. The theory provides also a basis for establishing a bridge from behavioristic knowledge to traditional knowledge, and in this way provides a model methodology for resolving the radical behaviorist traditional psychology schism.
