Delta Theory and Psychosocial Systems

Roland Tharp is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the Universities of Hawaii, Manoa and California, Santa Cruz. He has also taught at the University of Arizona, Stanford University and the University of Greenland. Tharp is the director of the national Center for Research on Education, Diversity, and Excellence. He has done extensive fieldwork with indigenous people, including Mayan, Polynesian, Navajo, Zuni and Inuit. Tharp is the author or co-author of the books Behavior Modification in the Natural Environment, Rousing Minds to Life, Teaching Transformed and Self-Directed Behavior. His articles have appeared in such journals as American Psychologist, American Anthropologist and Psychological Bulletin, among others. He is the laureate of the Grawemeyer Prize in Education, the Hopwood Award (Major, in Poetry), the University of Michigan and has held the Frost Fellowship of the Bread Loaf School of English, Middlebury College.

“A psychologist by training and a poet in spirit, Tharp reaches across multiple disciplines and applications to weave a compelling theory of behavior influence and change. Delta Theory answers critics who dismiss modern behavioral and social science as a bundle of facts in search of conceptualization. Tharp has delivered what many have called for: a grand and testable theory. A generation of researchers and graduate students will find hypotheses aplenty to quarrel over and put to the test. Let the disputation and testing begin!” –Ronald Gallimore, University of California, Los Angeles

• Part I. The Theory of Influence and Change: 1. Introduction and overview; 2. Psychosocial systems and the exercise of influence; 3. The zone of proximal development, activity, and semiotics; 4. The means of influence; 5. The organization of activity; 6. Unifying the study of culture and psychology: philosophical and scientific Issues; Part II. The Practice of Influence and Change: 7. Influencing and change: delta theory of practice; 8. A natural history museum of influence and change: dioramas; 9. Who influences? The triadic model of influence and change; 10. Basic tactics and strategy in designing influence; 11. Cultural patterns in the practice of influence; 12. Challenges, research, and future development.