2009-2010 Annual Theme
Behaving Ourselves: Motivation and Agency Across the Disciplines
The 2009-2010 theme is designed to raise broad and fundamental questions about the sources of our behavior and the autonomy of our choices. In recent decades, evolutionary biologists and behavioral psychologists and economists have transformed our understanding of the motives that inspire human action, raising urgent questions about our capacity to make deliberate and rational decisions. Meanwhile, neuroscientists have gained an increased understanding of the neuronal substrates of decision-making; literary and media theorists have reconceived agency in relation to the subject positions of authors, filmmakers, and audiences; philosophers of mind have wrestled with the link between intentions and actions; historians have moved toward an increasing reliance on the power of narrative and memory to determine human behavior; and social scientists have mapped the interactional foundations of human action, motivation, and decision-making.
Relevant questions to be addressed by fellows may include the following: What remains of the unitary, free willing individual in our various disciplinary understandings of the human condition? And, in particular, what room remains for autonomous choice and individual agency? Are humans reasonable creatures? To what extent should they be treated as if they were? Are their choices the product of unified minds, unconscious desires, fixed habits, social constructions, chemical processes, or networks of neurons? Do we have any reliable measures for predicting human behavior? What motivates individuals to act—and, in particular, what motivates them to behave well or badly, selfishly or altruistically? To what extent can individuals be “nudged” toward certain decisions through the nominal exertion of government power or advertising? What are the social, political, and ethical implications of marketing strategies, management policies, health care initiatives, and government programs that presume people need such guidance?
These and related questions may be posed by postdoctoral applicants who will be expected to demonstrate a capacity for interdisciplinary work, a sustained interest in the subject of motivation and human agency, and the potential for producing scholarship that will make a significant contribution to one or more academic fields.
