The Psychology of Human Freedom: A Human Science Perspective and Critique

ISBN-13: 9780387968094 / Angielski / Miękka / 1988 / 227 str.

Malcolm R. Westcott

Opis

In this book I pursue three goals. The first is to describe what has been learned about human freedom through psychological research. The second is to provide a conceptual and methodological critique of the large body of that research which has been conducted within the framework of a positivist natural science ex perimental social psychology. My third goal is to offer a contrasting human science approach to the study of human freedom and to illustrate its use in empirical study. For more than twenty years psychologists have inves tigated the conditions under which people are seen to be free, the conditions under which they report feeling free, the psychological consequences of interference with be havioural freedoms, and to a lesser extent, how it feels to feel free. Empirical fmdings on each of these facets of human freedom have arisen in quite separate research traditions, and they are brought together here for the first time. During the same twenty years, a general critique of the dominant positivist natural science approach to complex human phenomena has been growing. Although it has escalated recently, this critique has fIrm roots that go back to the turn of the century. I review this general critique and apply it specifically to the study of human freedom - surely a complex human phenomenon, more complex, ambiguous, and paradoxical than most of us im agine."

Spis treści

I: Context.- 1 A Philosophical Foray.- The plan.- Conceptual issues.- Assumptions.- Some basic concepts.- An exploration of free will.- Return to human freedom.- Some additional ideas.- A more radical view.- A folk observation.- Retrospect and prospect.- 2 Views from a Bridge.- The plan.- Some continuities and discontinuities.- The necessity of constraints.- Some consequences of freedom and constraint.- Freedom and constraint for the individual.- Some personal observations.- Some generalizations from anthropology.- Summary of the anthropologists’ morass.- Some psychological universals.- Some literary observations.- Retrospect and prospect.- II: Psychological Studies: The Nat Sci Variations.- 3 Reacting to Reactance.- The plan.- Concept and theory: clarity and confusion.- The principal consequences of reactance.- Some illustrative studies.- Reactance in the marketplace.- Self-generated reactance.- Overview.- 4 Attributed or Perceived Freedom, Choice and Self-control.- The plan.- General issues.- Perceived freedom.- Some implications.- Attribution of freedom to the self.- A second review.- Other selected studies.- Choice, decision, and freedom.- A further review.- Some brushes with experience: the subject as person.- Summary: reactance and attribution.- Overview.- Prospect.- III: Metaconsiderations.- 5 Criticisms and Transitions.- The plan.- Crisis and alternatives.- Unhappiness.- Ethogeny.- Phenomenology.- Teleology.- Contextualism.- The matter of volition in psychology.- IV: Psychological Studies: The Hum Sci Variations.- 6 Systematic personal reports of freedom.- The plan.- The concerns of human science.- Systematic autobiographical phenomenology.- Systematic solicited reports.- Summary.- 7 Systematic Surveys of Experienced Freedom.- The Plan.- Systematic survey research.- Development of a questionnaire.- Utility of the questionnaire.- Basic quantitative features: how free do you feel?.- Quantitative differences among clusters.- Intercorrelations of clusters.- Sex differences.- Relationships to other findings.- Qualitative features of experienced freedom.- The variety of opposites to “free”.- The distribution of opposites.- The clusters considered collectively.- Clusters which are qualitatively similar and quantitatively different.- Clusters which are quantitatively similar and qualitatively different.- Comparisons of attributed and experienced freedom: the difference between being free and feeling free.- Being free and liking it.- A glance back at the bridge: some cross-cultural observations.- Retrospect and prospect.- 8 Further Direct Inquiry.- The plan.- The rationale.- Respondents.- Coding.- Circumstantial Freedom.- Acquired Freedom.- Natural Freedom.- Results.- The major categories.- The subsidiary categories.- The minor categories.- Discussion.- Some protocols to illuminate the discussion further.- Conclusions.- V: Further Facets of Human Freedom.- 9 Loose Ends, Missed Opportunities, and Possible Futures.- The plan.- Consciousness raised.- On freedom, privacy, and technology.- On freedom and psychological well-being.- Freedom’s just another word.- On extreme conditions.- On paradoxes.- On the practice of human freedom.- Finally.- References.- Index of Names.- Index of Subjects.