The psychology of action

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Title:

Author:

Smith, John L., 1945-

ISBN:

9780333754511

9780333754528

9780312230661

Personal Author:

Smith, John L., 1945-

Publication Information:

Basingstoke : Macmillan, 2000.

Physical Description:

xiv, 240 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.

Abstract:

"In this book, John L. Smith restores action to the central stage of the psychological agenda. He explores the way tensions between the concepts of behaviour and action have erupted into conflict within the discipline, especially over the past three decades: the crisis in social psychology of the 1970s, the emergence of discursive psychology in the 1980s and the development of critical psychology in the 1990s."--BOOK JACKET.

Subject Term:

Psychology.

Human behavior.

Copies:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Item Barcode	Shelf Number	Copy	Status
Searching... 1:IIEMSA	1:GEN-BOOK	33168015690197	150 S61P 2000	1	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

This serious, scholarly, yet lively, text, restores the concept of action to the central stage of the psychological agenda in an exploration of the growing tensions and conflicts between action and behaviour. Theories of action are explored through careful consideration of a range of well-established and contemporary issues within psychology, with agentic improvement explored in terms of time management and counselling, and agentic malfunction through human error research. A detailed and imaginative treatment is offered to the problems posed for agentic theory by the realities of masochism, obedience to authority, hypnosis and suicide.

The author takes every opportunity to relate classic studies and approaches, carried out within the discipline of psychology over the past century, to contemporary theoretical and methodological issues. He concludes on an optimistic note by setting out a heuristic framework for research, advocating an eclectic fusion of methods old and new.