Abstract
As the science that studies the mental functioning, behavioral expression and contextual embeddedness of human beings, psychology is well equipped to deal with questions related to the possible and, more specifically, to human possibility (and impossibility). This entry examines seven main branches – general psychology, developmental psychology, individual differences, social psychology, clinical psychology, organizational psychology, and educational psychology – and focuses on: a) how the notion of the possible and associated concepts are employed by key theories; b) what the consequences of focusing on human possibility – and its inter-play with impossibility – are for our understanding of psychology’s sub-disciplines; and c) what new questions we could raise and studies we could conduct that would place psychology at the heart of the emerging field of possibility studies. The aim is to offer a prospective look at old psychological questions, one that integrates agency, indeterminacy, multiplicity, and the future into our concerns, research, and practice.
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Glăveanu, V.P. (2021). The Possible in Psychology. In: The Palgrave Encyclopedia of the Possible. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98390-5_168-1
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Possible in Psychology- Published:
- 13 September 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98390-5_168-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98390-5_168-1