Psychology in America's bicentennial year.

Has American psychology flourished in substance as it has in popularity during its century of existence? If one uses William James's Talks to Teach- ers as a reference point, one finds that contemporary psychology can be more specific about the boundary conditions within which traditional principles of learning are valid. The increasing dominance of cognitive be- hawrism in the study of learning and memory is paral- leled by cognitive emphases in other areas of psychology so that the various subspecialties of psychology are once again approaching psychology with concepts that offer hope not only of communication and integration of psy- chology, but also of understanding the whole person as a cognitive, conative, affective, biological, and social individual. In essence, psychologists now are coming to share a view of human nature that, as compared with earlier stimulus-response views, is more compatible with that of Jefferson and the founders of our republic.