The psychology of action

Abstract

Actions are part of the way that the mind controls the body. Two fundamental psychological questions about actions Where ‘are do they come from?’ and ‘How does the mind produce them?’ These may be called the ‘internal generation problem’ and the ‘information expansion problem’ respectively. The importance of these questions was appreciated at the birth of the British Psychological Society (BPS) a century ago, though the experimental methods to study them were lacking. This article falls into two halves. The first half discusses some of the major epochs in the psychology of action over the last 100 years; the second half outlines some currently prominent research questions, and considers their historical antecedents. Finally, I offer some speculations regarding where future contributions to the psychology of action will be most fruitful.