An agentive model of person-environment relations

Three fundamentally different positions regarding the conceptualization of person-environment relations are briefly discussed. An argument is made for the transactional-constructivist position which regards the nature of what we take to be the environment as that which is only apprehended through the minds and actions of persons. The transformational process of this view of person-environment relations, that of environmental knowing-action, is elaborated upon in some detail. The transactional-constructivist position, however, is transformed into an agentive one by adopting from the three basic images of persons that have been identified that of a person as agent. Consequently in the agentive process of environmental knowing-action a person is considered to be free to choose goals and a structure of meaning for actions in his or her behavioural environment.