It has become recognized that major health problems are caused, precipitated, exacerbated, or maintained by lifestyle factors such as exercise, diet, and consumption of psychoactive substances. The introduction of complex behavior change into the medical prescription for health promotion and disease prevention has resulted in a large body of research demonstrating that the rates of compliance have been inadequate. Three models of compliance appearing recently in the literature include radical behavioral, cognitive, and cognitive-behavioral models. Although the cognitive-behavioral model is the most comprehensive of the three, it fails to integrate variables related to compliance to other known principles of behavior so that few predictions can be made from this model. However, development of this model into a paradigmatic behavioral theory may permit the generation of more specific hypotheses and thereby encourage the unification of our understanding of the causes of compliance and noncompliance to health care. This paradigmatic behavioral theory approaches the problem of compliance as a function of past learning experiences which have resulted in personality deficits, current antecedents to the compliant behavior, and current consequences, which in turn affect the adequacy of the personality repertoires. (ABL)