The Psychology of Personhood: Philosophical, Historical, Social-Developmental, and Narrative Perspectives

Cambridge University Press
Edition: First Edition, 11/29/2012
EAN 9781107018082, ISBN10: 1107018080

Hardcover, 276 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm
Language: English

What is a person? Surprisingly little attention is given to this question in psychology. For much of the past century, psychology has tended to focus on the systematic study of processes rather than on the persons who enact and embody them. In contrast to the reductionist picture of much mainstream theorising, which construes persons as their mental lives, behaviours or neurophysiological particulars, The Psychology of Personhood presents persons as irreducibly embodied and socially situated beings. Placing the study of persons at the centre of psychology, this book presents novel insights on the typical, everyday actions and experiences of persons in relation to each other and to the broader society and culture. Leading scholars from diverse academic disciplines paint an integrative portrait of the psychological person within evolutionary, historical, cultural, developmental and everyday contexts.

1. Introducing persons and the psychology of personhood Jack Martin and Mark H. Bickhard
Part I. Philosophical, Conceptual Perspectives
2. The person concept and the ontology of persons Michael A. Tissaw
3. Achieving personhood
the perspective of hermeneutic phenomenology Charles Guignon
Part II. Historical Perspectives
4. Historical psychology of persons
categories and practice Kurt Danziger
5. Persons and historical ontology Jeff Sugarman
6. Critical personalism
on its tenets, its historical obscurity, and its future prospects James T. Lamiell
Part III. Social-Developmental Perspectives
7. Conceiving of self and others as persons
evolution and development John Barresi, Chris Moore and Raymond Martin
8. Position exchange theory and personhood
moving between positions and perspectives within physical, socio-cultural and psychological space and time Jack Martin and Alex Gillespie
9. The emergent ontology of persons Mark H. Bickhard
10. Theorizing personhood for the world in transition and change
reflections from a transformative activist stance on human development Anna Stetsenko
Part IV. Narrative Perspectives
11. Identity and narrative as root metaphors of personhood Amia Lieblich and Ruthellen Josselson
12. Storied persons
the double triad of narrative identity Mark Freeman.

Advance praise: 'What does it mean to be a person? In this wide-ranging collection, Jack Martin and Mark Bickhard bring together some of the most provocative and probing essays you will ever read on the nature of human personhood, written by eminent scholars from many different disciplines. Drawing insights from philosophy, history, social and developmental psychology, cultural studies, discursive psychology, and the narrative study of lives, the authors raise deep questions about persons that most persons have never thought to ask. And they propose tentative answers and integrative frameworks that will surely challenge even the most thoughtful and well-informed readers, those rare persons out there who refuse to take personhood for granted.' Dan P. McAdams, Henry Wade Rogers Professor of Psychology, Northwestern University and author of The Redemptive Self