Psychology and the Question of Agency

By Jack Martin, Jeff Sugarman, and Janice Thompson

Subjects: Psychology
Series: SUNY series, Alternatives in Psychology
Paperback : 9780791457269, 196 pages, May 2003
Hardcover : 9780791457252, 196 pages, May 2003

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Table of contents

Preface

1. PSYCHOLOGY AND THE QUESTION OF AGENCY

Some Relevant Background for What Follows

Psychology's Disavowal of Agency

 

The Basic Error
Method over Substance

 

Aspirations

2. REDUCTIONISM IN PSYCHOLOGY

A Historical Sketch

 

Identity versus Requirement
Omissions
Summary and Implications

 

Research Practices and the Construction of Pseudo-Psychological Kinds

 

Causal Woes
Variability and Its Statistical Treatment
Manufacturing and Generalizing Psychological Entities

 

The Role of Professional Psychology

 

The Example of Self-Concept

 

Another Kind of Reductionism in Psychology

An Antidote in Brief

3. BETWEEN HARD DETERMINISM AND RADICAL FREEDOM

Definitions and Distinctions

A Critical Consideration of Some Notable Attempts at Soft Determinism

 

Philosophical Considerations
Psychological Considerations

 

Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory
Theory of Mind and Intentional Self-Development
Theoretical Psychology of Agency

 

Hermeneutics and Agency

4. THE UNDERDETERMINATION AND IRREDUCIBILITYOF AGENCY

An Argument for the Underdetermination of Agency

 

Structure of the Argument
Against Full Physical-Biological
Determinism
Against Full Sociocultural Determinism
Against Randomness and Unconscious Processes Alone
Agency as the Surviving, Plausible Option

 

Contemporary Programs of Reductionism and the Irreducibility of Agency

 

Central State Materialism
Supervenience and Functionalism
Computational Models of Mind
What Is Missing in Reductive Functionalism and Computationalism?

 

Summary and Links

5. A THEORY OF SITUATED, EMERGENT, AND DELIBERATIVE AGENCY

Levels of Reality

 

Being-in-the-World
Tiered Reality

 

An Existential Starting Point and a Brief Conception of Personhood

The Developmental Emergence of Situated, Deliberative Agency and Psychological Kinds

Understanding and Care within Traditions of Living

Summarizing Our Theory of Agency and Psychological Kinds

Implications for Understanding Psychological Phenomena

A Final Word

6. PUTTING AGENCY INTO PSYCHOLOGY

Re-envisioning Psychological Research: Reinforcement Theory and Beyond

 

Reinforcement Theory Revisited
Beyond Reinforcement Theory

 

Re-envisioning Psychological Practice

 

The Nature of Psychotherapy
The Practice of Psychotherapy
The Education of Psychotherapists

 

The Sociopolitical Consequences of Situated, Emergent, and Deliberative Agency

 

Liberalism and Communitarianism
The Political Disposition of a Situated, Emergent, and Deliberative Agency

 

A Concluding Comment

References

Index

Looks at the limits of free will in human action.

Description

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.

Jack Martin is the Burnaby Mountain Endowed Professor of Education at Simon Fraser University. He is the coeditor (with Lisa Tsoi Hoshmand) of Research as Praxis: Lessons From Programmatic Research in Therapeutic Psychology, and the author of several books including (with Jeff Sugarman) The Psychology of Human Possibility and Constraint, published by SUNY Press. Jeff Sugarman is Assistant Professor of Education and Janice Thompson is Associate Dean of Education at Simon Fraser University.