The Palgrave Encyclopedia of the Possible

The Palgrave Encyclopedia of the Possible represents a comprehensive resource for researchers and practitioners interested in an emerging multidisciplinary area within psychology and the social sciences: the study of how we engage with and cultivate the possible within self, society and culture.

Far from being opposed either to the actual or the real, the possible engages with concrete facts and experiences, with the result of transforming them. This encyclopedia examines the notion of the possible and the concepts and themes associated with it from standpoints within psychology, philosophy, sociology, neuroscience and logic, as well as multidisciplinary fields of research including anticipation studies, future studies, complexity theory and creativity research.

Presenting multiple perspectives on the possible, the authors consider the distinct social, cultural and psychological processes - e.g., imagination, counterfactual thinking, wonder, play, inspiration, and many others - that define our engagement with new possibilities in domains as diverse as the arts, architecture, design, education and business.

Advisory Board:

Alessandro Antonietti, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, Italy
Arjun Appadurai, New York University, USA
Baptiste Barbot, Pace University, USA
Ronald A. Beghetto, University of Connecticut, USA
Kerry Chappell, University of Exeter, UK
Edward Clapp, Harvard University, USAGiovanni Corazza, Bologna University, Italy
Andrea Gaggioli, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, Italy
Alex Gillespie, London School of Economics, UKMichael Hanchett Hanson, Columbia University, USA
Pernille Hviid, Copenhagen University, Denmark
Sandra Jovchelovitch, London School of Economics, UK
Maciej Karwowski, University of Wrocław, Poland
James C. Kaufman, University of Connecticut, USA
Todd Lubart, Paris Descartes University, France
Paul March, Oxford University, UK
Luis de Miranda, Uppsala University, Sweden
Alfonso Montuori, California Institute of Integral Studies, USA
Takeshi Okada, University of Tokyo, Japan
Jonathan Plucker, Johns Hopkins University, USA
Roberto Poli, University of Trento, Italy
Roni Reiter-Palmon, University of Nebraska Omaha, USA
Mark Runco, University of Georgia, USA
Joel Schmidt, University of Applied Management, Germany
Zayda Sierra, University of Antioquia, Colombia
Dean Keith Simonton, University of California, Davis, USA
Robert Sternberg, Cornell University, USA
Marie Taillard, ESCP Europe, UK
Min Tang, University of Applied Management, Germany
Frederic Vallee Tourangeau, Kingston University, UK
Jaan Valsiner, Aalborg University, Denmark
Jakob Waag Villadsen,  University of Copenhagen
Brady Wagoner, Aalborg University, DenmarkChristian Werner, Privatuniversität Schloss Seeburg, Austria
Tania Zittoun, University of Neuchatel, Switzerland

Senior Editors:

Sergio Agnoli, University of Bologna, Italy

Samira Bourgeois-Bougrine, Paris Descartes University, France

Martina Cabra, University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland

Alice Chirico, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy

Gabriel Fortes Cavalcanti de Macêdo, Faculdade de Tecnologia de Alagoas, Brazil

Hana Hawlina, University of Neuchatel, Switzerland

Serena Mastria, University of Bologna, Italy

Ingunn Johanne Ness, University of Bergen, Norway

Cathy Nicholson, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK

Richard Randell, Webster University Geneva, Switzerland

Wendy Ross, Kingston University, UK

Ramiro Tau, University of Geneva, Switzerland

Vlad P. Glăveanu, PhD, is Full Professor of psychology in the School of Psychology, Dublin City University, and Professor II at the Centre for the Science of Learning and Technology, University of Bergen. He is the founder and president of the Possibility Studies Network (PSN). His work focuses on creativity, imagination, culture, collaboration, wonder, possibility, and societal challenges. He edited the Palgrave Handbook of Creativity and Culture (2016) and the Oxford Creativity Reader (2018), co-edited the Cambridge Handbook of Creativity Across Domains (2017) and the Oxford Handbook of Imagination and Culture (2017), authored The Possible: A Sociocultural Theory (Oxford University Press, 2020), Creativity: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2021),  and Wonder: The Extraordinary Power of an Ordinary Experience (Bloomsbury, 2020), and authored or co-authored more than 200 articles and book chapters in these areas. Dr. Glăveanu co-edits the book series Palgrave Studies in Creativity and Culture with Palgrave and the Cambridge Series on Possibility Studies with Cambridge University Press. He is editor of Europe’s Journal of Psychology (EJOP), an open-access peer-reviewed journal published by PsychOpen (Germany) as well as Possibility Studies and Society, launched by Sage in 2022. In 2018, he received the Berlyne Award from the APA Division 10 for outstanding early career contributions to the field of aesthetics, creativity, and the arts.