Traditional accounts of the Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler tend to sentimentalize his system and obscure its functional flavor. Six basic Adlerian positions on human behavior, including Rudolf Dreikurs' "four goals of misbehavior," are interpreted as a primitive statement of operant principles. Applied techniques long used by Individual Psychology practitioners strongly resemble interventions that applied behavior analysts have developed by more systematic means.

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Mainstream developmental psychologists have been intertwining their work again with social psychology and anthropology. They have rediscovered the idea that each person's development is embedded in a socio-cultural mesh. Bruner and Haste's collection of nine essays (1987) strikes this note repeatedly, and Eisenberg and Mussen (1989) give liberal space to socialization and culture. Both texts focus on very early development, drawing heavily on studies of youngsters under 7 or 8, although Roots also refers here and there to older children.