The driving force of action and the psychology of doing nothing

Abstract

Abstract My article discusses the psychological factors determining the driving force of human activity as well as the driving force of doing nothing. The discussion is related to the personal resources characteristics (personality, the type of mind, operational style), personal coping strategies with the pressures of time (procrastination, indecisiveness), an autonomous vs. non-autonomous reality creating style (passion, passivity), and anticipatory identity capital modelling by capitalizing on one’s own advantages and proactivity. The driving force of human activity and doing nothing presented in the article is discussed from a psychological perspective as a multidimensional phenomenon. Firstly, it is discussed as a preconditioned personality trait, secondly as a contextually determined search for exiting from a difficult situation by delaying a decision, thirdly as an agentural creation of energy program of action (passion, apathy), and at the end as an agentural production of the self-advantages through proactivity. My article also reviews basic types of discontinuity and personality types related to them. These five discontinuity types are: 1 – place discontinuity, 2 – situation discontinuity, 3 – meanings and values discontinuity, 4 – context discontinuity, 5 – projective discontinuity.