Psychology and behavior analysis: The nature of the controversy

Psychology, during the greater part of its development as an area of knowledge, has concentrated on the study of the “soul,” of the “mind,” and later, of “behavior.” The discussions about the nature of psychology have been broad and all-embracing and have been centered on its subject matter, on the most appropriate methodology to research it, on the problem of the universality vs. contextualism of psychological laws, and recently on the science-profession relationship. These have been the “dilemmas” of psychology (Ardila, 2007).