The psychology of action

Actions are part of the way that the mind controls the body. Two fundamenta l psychological questions about actions are 'Where do they come from?' and 'How does the mind produce them?' These may be called the 'internal generat ion problem' and the 'information expansion problem' respectively The impor tance of these questions was appreciated at the birth of the British Psycho logical Society (BPS) a century ago, though the experimental methods to stu dy them were lacking. This article falls into two halves. The first half di scusses some of the major epochs in the psychology of action over the last 100 years; the second half outlines some currently prominent research quest ions, and considers their historical antecedents. Finally, I offer some spe culations regarding where future contributions to the psychology of action will be most fruitful.