We have argued that scientific theories and their attendant methodologies are not pristine. Instead, they reflect prevailing views on how natural events operate. In agreement with the common conclusions of different historical analyses (Dewey & Bentley, 1949; Einstein & Infeld, 1938; Handy & Harwood, 1973; Kantor, 1946, 1969), we have suggested that scientific thinking has progressed through three stages, the most recent of which is based on the integrative-field/system construct. Although the biological and behavioral sciences lagged behind physics in progression through the three stages (Kantor, 1946), the field perspective definitely is found in contemporary psychology. And it is indeed this state of affairs that highlights the need for an integration of theory with uniquely suited methodological strategies and tactics such as those reviewed in the present paper.

But what of psychologists' largely unenthusiastic response to field theory throughout the years? Kantor (1941), in fact, reviewed several versions of field theory, including the well-known one of the gestaltists. However, these early attempts to take a field approach to psychology were not sufficiently advanced over earlier mechanical approaches because they contained internal principles and dualisms (Kantor, 1941; 1969). Add to this deficiency their concurrent deviations from conventional mechanism and an impression of vagueness and untestability, and it is understandable that for many years mainstream psychologists were not favorably disposed to field theory. But as the 20th century draws to a close, behavioral science shows numerous signs of the field/system perspective. These include (a) various versions of contextualistic theory and research (Jenkins, 1973; Overton & Reese, 1973; Sarbin, 1977); (b) cognitive scientists' rejection of a pure intellect model in favor of one that includes developmental, biological, social, and cultural factors (Norman, 1981); (c) accounts of conditioning and learning in terms of system constructs (Staddon, 1983; Ray, 1977) and multiple-response research (Henton & Iverson, 1978; Ray & Brown, 1975; 1976; Wruble, Delprato, Whitney, Holmes & Gola, 1985); (d) a system perspective offered to replace all forms of reductionism in psychiatric theory (Marmor, 1983); (e) applications of ecological frameworks in perception (Gibson, 1966), cognitive psychology (Shaw & Bransford, 1977), developmental psychology (Bronfenbrenner, 1977), and family therapy (Wahler, Berland, Coe & Leske, 1977); (f) explorations of a system perspective in developmental psychology (Sameroff, 1983); (g) discussions of behavioral medicine in terms of field/systems frameworks (Delprato & McGlynn, 1986; Schwartz, 1982); (h) social interactional research in which multiple events are tracked as a time-series (Bakeman & Gottman, 1986; Hoffer & St. Clair, 1981); (i) the phenomenological view that human behavior is neither blindly reactive to external stimuli, nor the outcome of a creative mind, but rather a dialectical interchange between humans and their life-fields (Merleau-Ponty, 1962; 1942/1963); (j) a revision of Freudian psychoanalysis in which a field-theoretical orientation replaces the mechanistic one followed by Freud (Schafer, 1976); (k) theory and research in behavioral cybernetics emphasizing, in part, the multidimensional nature of all responses (Smith & Smith, 1985); and (l) increasing rejection of lineal, external-control approaches to management in favor of participative ones emphasizing interdependencies among all members of organizations (Walton, 1985).

No ultimate division between description (observation) and explanation (law) is justifiable from the standpoint of actual investigation. A scientific situation reveals only events on the one hand, activities of the scientist on the other.... [T]he first confrontation with events, when referred to or recorded, involves constructions. Isolating an event in a laboratory setup constitutes constructional behavior. All descriptions and propositions are constructions. Any differentiation, then, between description and explanation can only be made on the basis of convenience. As a rule, explanations constitute elaborate descriptions, typically those relating some event to one or many others. (p. 34)

Indeed, it is the intimate connection between description and theoretical explanation that stimulated us to address the descriptive-phenomenological foundations of behavioral systems research and to attempt a classification of various ways in which observers represent events via symbolic substitutions. Because observers must eventually deal with all natural (including behavioral) systems in representational, or symbolic, forms, it is vital to systematize the tactics of the processes involved. Such tactics are fundamentally both theoretical and methodological, and they combine with the strategies of behavioral systems analysis to provide the descriptions and explanations of primary events.

At the integrated-field/systems stage of science, description is far removed from the subservient "mere description" of the earlier mechanical stage of science. It now appears that our interpretations and very knowledge of nature are inseparable from descriptive modes and categories we use (i.e., tactics), and, of course, from the rules of relation among the categories (i.e., outcomes of strategic maneuvers; see Brown, 1972: Fentress, 1983). Viewed in this light, behavioral systems methodology represents an evolving system-based approach to integrated methodology-and-theory in behavioral science that offers a route to more complete descriptions than those typically provided by conventional methodologies based on the earlier mechanical stage of science.

Altmann, S. A. Sociobiology of rhesus monkeys 11: Stochastics of social communication. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 1965, 8, 490-522.

Atha, J. Current techniques for measuring motion. Applied Ergonomics, 1984, 15, 245-257.

Atwater, A. E. Kinesiology/biomechanics: Perspectives and trends. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 1980, 51, 193-218.

Bramblett, C. A. & Coelho, A. M. Age changes in affinitive behaviors of baboons. American Journal of Primatology, 1985, 9, 259-271.

Bronfenbrenner, U. Toward an experimental ecology of human development. American Psychologist, 1977, 32, 513-531.

Brusca, R. Chronobiological aspects of stereotypy. American Journal of Mental Deficiency, 1985, 650-652.

Coelho, A. M. & Bramblett, C. A. Interobserver agreement on a molecular ethogram of the genus Papio. Animal Behavior, 1981, 29, 443-448.

Delprato, D. J. Response patterns. In H. W. Reese & L. J. Parrott (Eds.), Behavior science: Philosophical, methodological, and empirical advances. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1986, 61-113.

Einstein, A. & Infeld, L. The evolution of physics. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1938.

Ellson, D. G. The application of operational analysis to human motor behavior. Psychological Review, 1949, 56, 9-17.

Frank, P, Foundations of physics. In 0. Neurath, R. Carnap & C. Morris (Eds.), Foundations of the unity of science, Vol. 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955, 423-504.

Grady, C. L. & Ray, R. D. Explorations of spatiotemporal (analog) measurements as alternative to categorical (digital) definitions of behavior. Unpublished manuscript, 1975.

Kantor, J. R. The logic of modern science. Chicago, IL: Principia Press, 1953.

Loeb, J. The mechanistic conception of life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1912.

Overton, W. F. & Reese, H. W. Conceptual prerequisites for an understanding of stability-change and continuity-discontinuity. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 1981, 4, 99123.

Russell, B. On the notion of cause, with applications to the free-will problem. In H. FeigI & M. Brodbeck (Eds.), Readings in the philosophy of science. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1953,387-407.

Ryle, G. Dilemmas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964.

Sameroff, A. J. Developmental systems: contexts and evolution. In W. Kessen (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: History, theory, and methods, Vol. 1. New York: Wiley, 1983, 237-294.

Sandor, B. I. Fundamentals of cyclic stress and strain. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1972.

Sherrington, C. The integrative action of the nervous system. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1906.

Smith, T. J. & Smith, K. U. Cybernetic factors in motor performance and development. In D. Goodman, R. B. Wilberg & I. M. Franks (Eds.), Differing perspectives in motor learning, memory, and control. North Holland: Elsevier Science Publishers B. V., 1985, 239-283.

Staddon, J. E. R. Adaptive behavior and learning. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983.

Stevens, S. S. Mathematics, measurement, and psychophysics. In S. S. Stevens, (Ed.). Handbook of experimental psychology. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1959, 1-49.

Suttie, J. K. A biomechanical comparison between a conventional golf swing/learning technique and
a unique kinesthetic feedback technique. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Middle Tennessee State University, 1983.

Teitelbaum, P. Disturbances in feeding and drinking behavior after hypothalamic lesions. In M. R, Jones (Ed.), Nebraska symposium on motivation. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1961, 39-69.

Thom, R. Structural stability and morphogenesis: An outline of a general theory of models. Reading: Benjamin, 1975.

Toffler, A. Future shock. New York: Bantam, 1971.

Trend, M. G. Coordinated use of qualitative and quantitative methods in field research. In S. H. Cohen & H. W. Reese (Eds.), Life-span developmental psychology: Methodological innovations. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, in press.

Wever, R. A. The circadian system of man: Results of experiments under temporal isolation. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1979.

Woodcock, A. & Davis, M. Catastrophe theory. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1978.

(Manuscript received September 29, 1988.)

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Roger D. Ray ("Behavioral Systems Analysis: Methodological Strategies and Tactics") is Head and Professor of the Department of Psychology at Rollins College. He writes: "[My] primary interest is in methodology development and problems of somatic-autonomic coupling at both molecular and molar levels of movement or behavior analysis. I am especially interested in the temporal organization of these dynamics and the development of psychosomatic problems in cardiovascular functions ... I am also active in US-USSR research collaborations, and have served as an exchange scientist in the Pavlov Department of Physiology at the Institute of Experimental Medicine (Leningrad), and also at the Beritashvili Institute of Physiology, Tbilisi." Articles written or cowritten by Dr. Ray have appeared in the Psychological Record, Reassessment in Psychology: The interbehavioral Alternative, as well as in publications in the USSR. He received the Ph.D. degree in general experimental psychology from the University of Tennessee.