Agency (Psychology)

Disruption of the sense of being effective and causally determinant in performing an action was explored in the present research by inducing an erroneous external spatial feedback in response to the subject's behaviour. ERPs were recorded from fifteen subjects when they were receiving mismatching/matching feedback information on direction. In addition, subjective sensitivity to the external cues was monitored by Behavioural Inhibition System (BIS) and Behavioural Activation System (BAS) measures, as well as Behaviour Identification process was tested by Behavior Identification Form (BIF). One negative ERP deflections of higher amplitude was revealed in concomitance to false feedback, peaking at about 210 ms post-stimulus, more central-posteriorly localized. We supposed that it may represent feedback-error system of which activity might be reflected in FRN, deputed to monitor the unattended feedback furnished by an external system. Moreover, a P3b effect was also observed in great measure for false spatial feedback, more posteriorly (Pz) distributed. According to the context-updating hypothesis, the P3b may reflect the revision of the mental model of the context. BIS showed to be more sensitive to both veridical and false feedback that increased FRN, whereas higher-BAS and BAS-Reward measures revealed an increased proactive attitude to external feedback (higher P3b). Finally, low-level of action representation explained FRN amplitude more than high-level one.

In this article, I argue that material locations (spaces) are not simply peripheral to acts of remembering but central to how the ongoing flow of memory and agency is constituted and experienced by individuals in their practice of memorial self-interpretation. This argument, however, can only be accepted when selfhood is treated as a form, a process, as opposed to a determinate substance. Examples from autobiography, psychological research, fiction and film on the topic of child sexual abuse will be used to render visible the ways in which agency within memory is played out across a variety of material locations that leave their mark on memory in particular ways. Furthermore, it is argued that such material locations are always already deeply embedded in a variety of political systems that in turn render subjectivity and agency diverse and multiple.

Shaun Gallagher has actively looked into the possibility that psychopathologies involving “thought insertion” might supply a counterexample to the Cartesian principle according to which one can always recognize one’s own thoughts as one’s own. Animated by a general distrust of a priori demonstrations, Gallagher is convinced that pitting clinical cases against philosophical arguments is a worthwhile endeavor. There is no doubt that, if true, a falsification of the immunity to error through misidentification would entail drastic revisions in how we conceive the boundary between self and other. However, I argue that (1) the idea of unearthing an exception to the Cartesian thesis is, on further reflection, not a realistic prospect and that (2) this casts doubt on the attempt to conjoin first-person phenomenology and third-person cognitive science in the service of philosophical debates.

Recollection of child sexual abuse involves complex issues of agency-both in the past and in the present. Adult women survivors face the further obstacle of ingrained cultural tendencies to question women's testimony. Ambiguity and ambivalence are found in adult women's accounts of their past abuse and present particular dilemmas. Drawing on social remembering approaches developed in memory studies, it is argued that recollections have to negotiate issues of incidence and intentionality in the past as well as the potential contribution made by non-human participants (e.g. objects, spaces, bodies). Using examples from interviews with survivors of child sexual abuse, we illustrate how objects (largely domestic objects and spaces) emerge in the memories as a way of posing and subsequently disposing ambiguity. Objects, as well as humans, 'modify the state of affairs' and serve as the means to punctualize recollected episodes. An analytic approach sensitive to the role of objects in recollection, which is grounded in material-semiotics, is offered.

Brain correlates of the sense of agency have recently received increased attention. However, the explorations remain largely restricted to the study of brains in isolation. The prototypical paradigm used so far consists of manipulating visual perception of own action while asking the subject to draw a distinction between self- versus externally caused action. However, the recent definition of agency as a multifactorial phenomenon combining bottom-up and top-down processes suggests the exploration of more complex situations. Notably there is a need of accounting for the dynamics of agency in a two-body context where we often experience the double faceted question of who is at the origin of what in an ongoing interaction. In a dyadic context of role switching indeed, each partner can feel body ownership, share a sense of agency and altogether alternate an ascription of the primacy of action to self and to other. To explore the brain correlates of these different aspects of agency, we recorded with dual EEG and video set-ups 22 subjects interacting via spontaneous versus induced imitation (II) of hand movements. The differences between the two conditions lie in the fact that the roles are either externally attributed (induced condition) or result from a negotiation between subjects (spontaneous condition). Results demonstrate dissociations between self- and other-ascription of action primacy in delta, alpha and beta frequency bands during the condition of II. By contrast a similar increase in the low gamma frequency band (38–47 Hz) was observed over the centro-parietal regions for the two roles in spontaneous imitation (SI). Taken together, the results highlight the different brain correlates of agency at play during live interactions.

A weakness of contemporary 'forensic' models of memory is their reliance on the belief that 'a chain of successive memories' creates a sense of continuity and stability in the self. This literal presentation of memory forecloses an attending to its practical use (in specific contexts and moments in time) and the subsequent ambivalences individuals experience when trying to make sense of past episodes of child sexual abuse. Drawing variously on Haaken, Campbell and Bergson, we use these approaches to call for a reworking of memory by inviting an engagement with its relational, practical and collective qualities. This paper examines these reworkings of the concept of memory and explores issues of social space, the localized contexts of remembering and the manner through which memories transform understandings of agency and action, with specific attention to how the past and present intertwine in regard to managing adult survivor identities.

This paper argues for a distinction between possession of a unified consciousness and possession of a single stream of consciousness. Although the distinction has widespread applicability in discussions of the structure of consciousness and of pathologies of conscious experience, I will illustrate its importance primarily using the debate about consciousness in split-brain subjects, suggesting that those who have argued that split-brain subjects have two streams of consciousness apiece and those who have argued that they have a unified consciousness may both be right. European Journal of Philosophy ]]]:]] ISSN 0966-8373 pp. 1-22 r

This article examines the ways in which romantic love was experienced, discussed, and written about by Nepali villagers in the 1990s. Love letters written by young village residents illustrate how love came to be reconceptualized during this time period as a desirable rather than an embarrassing emotion, one linked up with other achievements perceived as admirable, such as education, development and success. Because love letter correspondences were only made possible by increased female literacy rates in the village, the article also explores some of the socioculturally and historically specific impacts of the acquisition of literacy skills on gender hierarchies and intimate relationships. #

We habitually think of our Self as a conscious agent operating largely in terms of how we consciously experience those operations. However, psychological and neuroscientific findings suggest that mental operations that seem to be initiated by the conscious Self are largely preconscious or unconscious.  In this paper I examine how these aspects of the Self and its operations combine in the exercise of free will—and suggest that the conscious wishes, choices and decisions that we normally associate with “conscious free will” result from preconscious processes that provide a form of “preconscious free will”.  The conscious experiences associated with other so-called “conscious processing” in complex tasks such as speech perception and production, reading and thinking, also result from preconscious processing—which  requires a more nuanced analysis of how conscious experiences relate to the processes with which they are most closely associated. We need to distinguish processes that are conscious a) in the sense that we are conscious of them, b) in the sense that they result in a conscious experience, and c) in the sense that consciousness plays a causal role in those processes.  We also examine how consciousness enables real-ization: it is only when one experiences something for oneself that it becomes subjectively real. Together, these findings suggest that Self has a deeper architecture.  Although the real-ized aspects of the Self are the consciously experienced aspects, these are just the visible “tip” of a far more complex, embedding preconscious/unconscious ground.

This selection of papers deals, broadly speaking, with the role of social change in human development. Put in other words, these papers investigate the impact of contextual dynamics on human adaptation, a prime topic of all life-span psychology. They were written by two psychologists and two sociologists-by training, we should add, as readers will easily find out that the approaches and methods taken are interdisciplinary in nature.

We present evidence that although inequality is increasing in some circumstances, the entire human power hierarchy has shifted upwards, such that even many subordinated groups are sufficiently empowered, in absolute terms, to advocate for a converging ideal of empowering participatory governance in ways they previously could not. We then assess how well governments meet this heightened popular standard. We conclude that the combination of the empowerment of the lower rungs of many states’ social hierarchies and the normalization of the ideals of empowerment by government, and overall failure of governments to meet this demand, produces a measure of distrust in authority, particularly among the disadvantaged. Disadvantaged people and groups, given their current and past experiences, may have very good reasons to distrust authority. It would be a mistake to pathologize distrust without taking such considerations into account. What the effects of this distrust are on democracy and social progress overall is a more difficult question than one might expect.

In this chapter I discuss the link between dreaming and "disavowed volition" among the Tzotzil Maya of highland Chiapas, Mexico. Through a close examination of the psychological and social dynamics of "dream investiture" (in which individuals are divinely appointed to specialized vocational and religious responsibilities), I illustrate the ways in which basic epistemological and ontological assumptions toward dream experience yield a culturally distinct approach to willfulness and self-assertion; one in which the most experientially "willful" component of the person—the waking self of daily life—is also viewed as only partially agentic, subject to the intentions, desires, and wills of other agents, located both internally and externally. In the case of investiture dreams, the resulting social and psychological transformations are not seen as mediated by individual desire or will; rather, they represent submission to a divine mandate that reveals both the will of the deities as well as the previously unknown potencies of the dreamer's essential self.

Jeżeli zajmujemy się swoją osobą, badamy własne pragnienia, decyzje, przeżycia, uczucia itd., to wchodzimy w obszar psychologiczny. Pojawia się tutaj wymóg specjalnej przyczynowości psychicznej"pisał żyjący na przełomie XIX i XX wieku Władysław Heinrich, jeden z twórców polskiej szkoły "psychologii obiektywnej" [Heinrich, 1988: 39]. Chociaż "psychologia obiektywna", podkreślając metafizyczny charakter tradycyjnych pojęć psychologicznych, już od swego początku podważała istnienie determinizmu psychicznego jako odrębnej formy przyczynowości, niedostatki ówczesnej metodologii nie pozwalały na wyjaśnienie uwarunkowań subiektywnego doświadczenia sprawczości. Współczesne zaawansowanie prac eksperymentalnych, argumentuje Daniel Wegner, autor książki pt. The Illusion of Conscious Will, rodzi obietnicę wypełnienia tej luki poznawczej [Wegner, 2002]. Badania Wegnera oraz innych psychologów rzucają snop światła na podmiotowe źródła idei przyczynowości psychicznej.

This paper (in German) presents agency analysis as a research strategy in qualitative social science research on China. The way agency is constructed differs from a Western context, but as the paper demonstrates agency can be reconstructed from, for instance, interview transcripts, if language, socio-political and cultural particularities are taken into account. Thus, agency analysis provides a meaningful avenue to explore subjective views of social actors in contemporary China.

Sense of agency refers to the sense of authorship that the person has generated a given action. While the phenomenon seems too obvious to demand further investigation, pathological conditions such as delusions of control suggest the requirement of further investigation into the phenomenon of sense of agency. The traditional view point regarding the role of intention in sense of agency is complemented by computational models of motor control. Accordingly, we hypothesized and tested the role of error monitoring mechanisms in the sense of agency by manipulating the feedback given independent of the responses of the participant while performing a Flanker task. The results point out the potential role of error monitoring mechanisms by modulating the forward model predictions to experience a sense of agency for unintended actions.