Psychology and the Question of Agency

Jack Martin, Jeff Sugarman, Janice Thompson

• Publisher: SUNY Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780791457269, 9780791457252
• eBook ISBN: 9780791486849
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Free Will & Determinism in Philosophy
• Index: Psychology

Looks at the limits of free will in human action.

Disciplinary psychology has failed to achieve a coherent conception of human agency. Instead, it oscillates between two differing conceptions of agency that are equally untenable: a scientistic, reductive approach to choice and action, and an instrumental approach that celebrates a romantic notion of free will. This book examines theoretical, philosophical psychology and argues for a historically and socioculturally situated human capacity for choosing and acting in ways not entirely determined by culture and/or biology. The authors present a detailed developmental theory of how agentic capability emerges from the pre-reflective activity of humans in a real physical and social world. Implications of the theory are considered for psychological research and practice, and for the broader socio-political impact of disciplinary psychology in Western liberal democracies.

Table of contents

• Psychology and the Question of Agency
• Contents
• Preface
• 1. Psychology and the Question of Agency
• 2. Reductionism in Psychology
• 3. Between Hard Determinism and Radical Freedom
• 4. The Underdetermination and Irreducibility of Agency
• 5. A Theory of Situated, Emergent, and Deliberative Agency
• 6. Putting Agency into Psychology
• References
• Index