Psychology and ‘Human Nature’

The book opens by problematizing psychology’s customary assumptions concerning the psyche and human nature. It then presents a comparative survey of major approaches, beginning with evolutionary theory and psychoanalysis, both of which locate the ultimate foundations of human motivation in biology. Subsequent chapters examine cognitive psychology, B. F. Skinner’s radical behaviourism, Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialism, symbolic interactionism, Erving Goffman’s social theory, discourse analysis, and postmodern critiques of essential human nature. Homosexuality is used repeatedly as a comparative case through which the explanatory strengths and limitations of the different perspectives are assessed. Each theoretical position is evaluated according to five recurring dimensions: consciousness, the self, the body, other people, and the physical world.