Origination, Self-Determination, and Psychology

Abstract

This article proposes that human causativity should be much higher than it is on the psychological research agenda. Causativity is exemplified by processes that can be designated by words such as creating, authoring, planning, intending, transforning, and originating. The history of the belief in mechanical determinism in science, which obscures human causativity, is traced in a line of thought that includes Augustine, Galileo, Hobbes, Laplace, Watson, and Skinner. Cattell's research suggests a unique human 'third factor" of causativity in addition to heredity and environment that must be taken into account in the study of human nature and behavior. This factor can be traced in Pico della Mirandola's (1992) Oration on the Dignity of Man on through Rogers.