SHOULD THE BEHAVIORAL-SCIENCES BECOME MORE PRAGMATIC - THE CASE FOR FUNCTIONAL CONTEXTUALISM IN RESEARCH ON HUMAN-BEHAVIOR

Although societal need for behavioral science research is enormous, cu rrent research practices seem to be inefficient vehicles for producing knowledge that guides practical action. Many of our most popular theo ries provide little direct guidance for application. They focus on the development of models of the relationships among organismic events su ch as attitudes, self-efficacy expectations, and behavior, but pay lit tle or no attention to the contextual influences on behavior. Such res earch is in keeping with a long-standing mechanistic tradition in psyc hology. We propose a version of contextualism as an alternative paradi gm for the behavioral sciences. According to this paradigm, theories a nd research are evaluated in terms of their contribution to the predic tion and influence of behavior. Basic research organized to pursue thi s goal has a direct bearing on how behavioral phenomena can be changed for practical purposes. Conversely, applied research contributes to b asic understanding of the determinants of psychological phenomena.