Constraints of Agency

Craig Gruber is a social and developmental psychologist who is a lecturer at Northeastern University. He earned his BA from American University, an MS from Johns Hopkins University and his Ph.D. from Clark University. His research and theoretical interests reside in the area of courage, personal agency and educational settings. Another primary area of interest for Craig is his interest in the teaching of psychology, especially in developing curricula and the application of psychological theory in the classroom. In addition his writing interests involve psychology’s history as a resource of ideas for contemporary advancement of the theory and teaching. He is the co-author of Psychology, AP* Edition(PEARSON) with Phillip Zimbardo and founding editor of the Whitman Journal of Psychology, a high school journal of student research and writing. He has also published in Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, Culture and Psychology and Teaching of Psychology.Matthew G. Clark is a behavioral neuroscientist at the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. He received a B.A. in Psychology from Coe College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and a Ph.D. in Behavioral and Neural Sciences from Rutgers University in 2000. As a behavioral neuroscientist he conducted research on developmental language disorders, learning, motivation, psychopharmacology, and medical countermeasures against chemical warfare nerve agents. In 2002, his research was recognized as the top research at the Singapore International Symposium on Protection Against Toxic Substances (SISPAT). He worked urgent medical and military science and technology issues at various locations around the world, including in a theater of combat. He has published six book chapters across these various areas, including contributions to the “Textbook of Military Medicine, Medical Aspects of Chemical Warfare”, “The 71F Advantage: Applying Army Research Psychology for Health and Performance Gains” and “Pharmacological Perspectives of Toxic Chemicals and Their Antidotes.” He also has over 25 refereed publications and professional reports.Sven Hroar Klempe is associate Professor in Psychology at the Department of Psychology, NTNU, Trondheim, but he has also a background as full Professor in Musicology, Ass. Prof. in Media Studies, teacher, journalist and music critic. His educational background is diverse and primarily from Norway, but also from France. His research is cross-disciplinary with an emphasis on theory of science, communication and the history of psychology.Jaan Valsiner is the Niels Bohr Professor of Cultural Psychology at Aalborg University in Denmark. He is the founding editor (1995) of the Sage journal Culture & Psychology and Editor-in-Chief of Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Sciences (Springer, 2007). In 1995 he was awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Prize for his interdisciplinary work on human development.

Introduction.- Part 1. Historical backgrounds on agency.- Chapter 1: Agency: a historical perspective.- Chapter 2: The providence of associated minds: Agency in the thought of Giambattista Vico and the origins of social and cultural psychology.- Chapter 3: Editorial synthesis: Historical leads for theory construction in psychology.- Part 2: Neurosciences look at Agency.- Chapter 4: Neurobiological perspectives on agency: Ten axioms and ten propositions.-Chapter 5: Agency in life.- Chapter 6: A grand synthesis-aided by considering Systems 1 and 2 and incentive motivation.- Chapter 7: The neuroscience of agency and free will.- Chapter 8: Strategies for agency research.- Chapter 9: Editorial synthesis: Neurobiology of Agency: "Conatograms" and the Ghost in the Machine?.- Part 3: Looking at agency from the top.- Chapter 10: The Relational Basis of Agency: An Integrated Psychological/Theological Approach.- Chapter 11: Agency and Self Experience: The Religious Function of the Psyche.- Chapter 12: Editorial synthesis: Psychology's Purgatory: Situating the theoretical construction of agency.- Part 4: Socio-ecological perspectives on agency.- Chapter 13: Agency of the Psyche: A transdisciplinary philosophy-of-science paradigm.- Chapter 14: Agency and creativity in the midst of social change.- Chapter 15: From individual agency to co-agency.- Chapter 16: Editorial synthesis: The explanatory power of agency.