Psychological behaviorism (PB) aims to be a comprehensive, overarching, unified theory. The term theory is employed in a systematic sense, with set standards of theory construction. In brief, the theory is derived from a wide assemblage of evidence, which is woven together in a large structure, and that structure calls for various types of new research and evidence. PB has been 45 years in construction, extends to the major fields of psychology, to a wide number of research areas, deals with basic and applied concerns, introduces and utilizes various methods of study, has introduced many developments in psychology, and is projected as a growing, advancing science entity. Psychological behaviorism also includes a philosophy of science that focuses on the unity-disunity character of science, which the philosophy considers of major importance to the understanding of psychology particularly, the social sciences, and science in general.

One of the important concepts in that philosophy of science concerns the construction of overarching, unified theory in psychology. Previous attempts to create scientific theory in psychology have taken physical theory and biological theory (like Darwin’s evolution) as their models. The nature of psychology demands a new type of theory, which PB’s philosophy calls framework theory. Psychological behaviorism is a framework theory which in simple terms means that, because of the breadth of phenomena to be encompassed by a comprehensive psychological theory, it cannot in its early stages of development deal in detail with all of the phenomena. Rather a sampling of phenomena in various major areas must be addressed in detail, others must be treated with less detail, and others not at all. A framework theory is not a complete theory. That is its promise, for that which is not treated completely calls heuristically for additional research. Each successful treatment of a phenomenon within its framework strengthens confidence in the validity of the framework.

Interest in grand overarching theory has been evidenced in psychology before. For example, Freud’s psychoanalytic theory was considered to have very general potentialities. And the second generation behaviorists, such as Clark Hull and B.F. Skinner, were very clear about their aim of establishing grand theories of psychology, following the earlier example of John Watson. But it is clear on analysis that none of these theories were really comprehensive or unifying. The theories of Hull and Skinner, to illustrate, were only detailed in their particular interests in animal learning. Those theories were never extended into areas of human behavior with the heurism of true theory. In the case of Skinner’s theory many areas of psychology were “covered” by rejecting them, e.g,, personality, psychological testing, testing, emotion, without any systematic consideration. This left the theory a special area theory (animal behavior) that was only said to be general to psychology. The PB theory is the first that attempts to be general, to address systematically the major areas of psychology in order to incorporate in a unified manner as widely as possible.

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