A Neo-Meadian Approach to Human Agency: Relating the Social and the Psychological in the Ontogenesis of Perspective-Coordinating Persons

Abstract

We conclude by situating our work in relation to other developmental accounts and the larger project of theorizing and empirically supporting a compatibilist rendering of human agency as the "determined" self-determination of persons.

Position Exchange Theory: A socio-material basis for discursive and psychological positioning

“…It is a developmental principle fostering decentration and self-regulation across the human lifespan (Martin & Gillespie, 2010). The unique strengths of PET lie in its emphasis on concrete social positions, and its explicit articulation of a clear developmental trajectory that moves from specific physical and social interactivity to more abstracted (although still sociallysupported) discursive and psychological dialogicality.…”

“…Position exchange, we suggest, is a general developmental principle operating across the lifespan (Martin & Gillespie, 2010). Infants are moved from one context of interaction to the next.…”

“…Descriptive studies of children's games draw attention to this reversal role structure, and how ubiquitous exchanging positions is within children's games (Ratner & Bruner, 1978). According to PET, this exchange is the developmental motor through which children cultivate the perspectives of others (Martin & Gillespie, 2010).…”

Agreement as the convergence of will: A consensualistic approach to negotiation

“…Such ought requirements transcend incidental situational factors and are accepted intersubjectively (Heider, 1958). For negotiators to agree on the terms of their interaction, they should be able to achieve psychological distance from immediate circumstances and subjective states and engage in imaginatively coordinating and generalizing perspectives as well as in rational and moral considerations (Martin & Gillespie, 2010). In this way they can invent or re-invent practice rules for their interaction.…”

A polylogue? Where and how to move with and in dialogue?

“…That is to say that the way in which people are positioned in the social world, over the course of their life trajectory, constitutes the Ipositions which comprise the personality. Like Tania Zittoun, we do not see these approaches as oppositional, but, our recent work on position exchange theory has been to emphasise the latter (Martin & Gillespie, 2010).…”