Level of agency in sub-clinical checking

This study examined cognitive representations of routine action, through the assessment of level of agency, in individuals with sub-clinical checking. The level of agency stems from Action Identification Theory [Vallacher, R. R., Wegner, D. M. (1989). Levels of personal agency: Individual variation in action identification. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 57, 660-671], which states that how actions are usually identified (based on instrumental aspects or purpose) reflects the predominant accessibility of internal representation (movements executed vs. goal pursued). Furthermore, this framework proposed that altered action regulation is related to low-level of agency (i.e., action identification at an instrumental level). In the current study, the main result indicated that checking symptoms were related to a low-level of agency, that is, individuals with sub-clinical checking identified habitual actions on the basis of instrumental aspects. This seems to indicate that checkers may act with a lack of goal representations. The results are discussed in terms of the role of low-level of agency in checking phenomena and related cognitive dysfunction.     

A Psychoneurotic Inventory of Penitentiary Inmates

ABSTRACT

Identity fusion theory suggests that merging groups into one’s personal identity should result in heightened levels of group agency. Research on the self-expansion model complementarily indicates that including others into the self is linked to a greater feeling of self-efficacy. Across three correlational studies, we examined whether personal and group identity fusion is associated with stronger feelings of personal agency, and we propose that relatively stable feelings of clarity of self-concept would mediate this association. Individuals strongly fused with a country (Studies 1–3) and family (Study 2) exhibited greater feelings of agency and goal-adherence, and self-concept clarity emerged as a significant mediator of this association when controlling for group identification measures.     

Professors’ Behaviors and Attributes that Promote U.S. Women’s Success in Male-Dominated Academic Majors: Results from a Mixed Methods Study

High rates of attrition of women from male-dominated academic majors may stem from both individual-level personal attributes (e.g., lower confidence in skills; Sax et al. 2015) and non-supportive environmental factors (e.g., chilly climate; Blickenstaff 2005; Hill et al. 2010). Grounded in social cognitive career theory (Lent et al. 1994), the present study utilized a mixed methods approach to identify faculty behaviors and attributes that support women in male-dominated majors and help to prevent attrition. In Study 1, data from eight focus groups involving 23 senior women in male-dominated majors at a mid-sized U.S. Midwestern university were coded to identify common themes exploring why certain professors’ behaviors/attributes are useful to women in male-dominated majors. Results indicated that professors’ behaviors led to learning experiences that helped women create personal connections within departments and provided them with department or career-related information as well as opportunities to gauge/demonstrate their skills to combat the idea that they fit the incompetent-woman stereotype. In Study 2, survey data (n = 65) examined professors’ support, academic advising time, and percentage of female faculty within a department as buffers against the negative effects of sexism on women’s academic achievement, physical health, and social belongingness. Sexist events in the department were associated with women’s reduced sense of belonging, but academic advising time served as a buffer of this association. Overall, our results indicated that proximal environments are important and that professors’ behaviors that support women without singling them out were most helpful.     

Electing to Take Control: Political Identification and Personal Control

Engaging in the political process is one way that individuals can exert control over society in general. Yet, emerging research suggests that engaging with political groups also helps people feel more in control of the course of their own lives. The present research examined whether this is always the case, using the natural experiment afforded by political events to probe the psychological mechanisms underpinning the relationship between group identification and personal control. Two cross-sectional studies conducted immediately after the 2016 Presidential election (total N = 752) and one longitudinal study conducted immediately before and after the 2020 Presidential election (N = 743) investigated the relationship between political group identification and personal control. Together, the studies tested whether this relationship is weakened under conditions of low agency (i.e., in a group that lost the election) and low predictability (i.e., immediately following a surprise election outcome). The results suggest that the relationship between political identification and personal control is robust except in the case of low agency and low predictability. The studies contribute to understanding the processes that link group-level political factors with individual-level psychological outcomes.     

Parental Identification and Educational Dissatisfaction in Troubled College Students

Summary

The hypothesis was tested that the greater development of career interests associated with a masculine-parent identification would contribute to the educational problems of the troubled liberal arts college student. This was ased upon the anticipated frustrative effects of low career relevance of liberal arts curricula upon students with clearer career interests. Eighty liberal arts students (45 males and 35 females), clients at a college counseling agency, were subdivided into groups based upon primary parental identification (father versus mother) and masculinity-femininity of the identification model. Masculine-identified males (but not females) more frequently demonstrated less satisfaction with their majors relative to their feminineidentified counterparts when subjective ratings of certainty, relevance, and general satisfaction were considered. A higher incidence of choice problems (no chosen major or one or more changes of major) was found for masculineparent identified Ss of both sexes.     

My partner’s stories: relationships between personal and vicarious life stories within romantic couples

In this paper, we examined relationships and differences between personal and vicarious life stories, i.e., the life stories one knows of others. Personal and vicarious life stories of both members of 51 young couples (102 participants), based on McAdams’ Life Story Interview (2008), were collected. We found significant positive relationships between participants’ personal and vicarious life stories on agency and communion themes and redemption sequences. We also found significant positive relationships between participants’ vicarious life stories about their partners and those partners’ personal life stories on agency and communion, but not redemption. Furthermore, these relationships were not explained by similarity between couples’ two personal life stories, as no associations were found between couples’ personal stories on agency, communion and redemption. These results suggest that the way we construct the vicarious life stories of close others may reflect how we construct our personal life stories.     

Between- and within-person level motivational precursors associated with career exploration

Career exploration is a critical process for child and adolescent development leading people toward suitable work and developing a vocational identity. The present study examined the role of motivational precursors, namely work valences and personal agency beliefs, in explaining in-breadth and in-depth career exploration. Given the dynamic nature of motivation, we teased apart the between-person differences and within-person variabilities in motivational precursors to examine how they are independently associated with career exploration. Two hundred one high school students comprised the sample and were surveyed three consecutive years. Results revealed that work valences and agency beliefs were associated with career exploration at both the between- and within-person level. Further, when individuals exhibited greater level of agency beliefs and positive valences, they were more likely to exhibit more in-depth exploration one year later. Implications for career guidance are discussed.     

Social Cognitive Theory: An Agentic Perspective

This article presents the basic tenets of social cognitive theory. It is founded on a causal model of triadic reciprocal causation in which personal factors in the form of cognitive, affective and biological events, behavioral patterns, and environmental events all operate as interacting determinants that influence one another bidirectionally. Within this theory, human agency is embedded in a self theory encompassing self-organizing, proactive, self-reflective and self-regulative mechanisms. Human agency can be exercised through direct personal agency; through proxy agency relying on the efforts of intermediaries; and by collective agency operating through shared beliefs of efficacy, pooled understandings, group aspirations and incentive systems, and collective action. Personal agency operates within a broad network of sociostructural influences. In these agentic transactions, people are producers as well as products of social systems. Growing transnational imbeddedness and interdependence of societies are creating new social realities in which global forces increasingly interact with national ones to shape the nature of cultural life.     

The Effects of Personal Agency on Regret

In this paper, we examine the role of personal agency as a key antecedent of regret that individuals experience when the outcome of their decision is unfavorable. In contrast to previous research that documents its exacerbating role, we find that personal agency mitigates regret under certain circumstances. A series of experimental studies show that personal responsibility for the decision may attenuate subjective perceptions of the extent of failure and mitigate regret. However, when the superior outcome of the foregone option is known and the failure of the chosen option is irreversible, personal agency may amplify regret. We also find that subjective failure perceptions mediate the relationship between personal agency and regret levels. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Exploring the Relationship between Adolescent Activities and Choice of Graduate School Discipline: Implications for Creativity Development

The relationship between adolescent extra‐curricular activities and choice of graduate‐education field was examined among students from three fields of study, science (n = 12), art (n = 12), and education (n = 14), using qualitative and quantitative methods. Results of profile analysis indicated that the different majors participated in stereotypically varying activities when they were adolescents. Science majors generally participated in mathematics and science activities during adolescence. Art majors generally participated in theater and music activities, and education majors tended to have participated in social leadership and educational activities. Interviews with the participants supported these findings and provided a more comprehensive discussion of these tendencies. While in high school, the participants had many influences when determining a field of study. Using personal happiness as a guide, the participants chose activities and ultimately graduate‐level majors that reflected their interests. It was concluded that adolescent extra‐curricular activities are important in the development of interest in creatively talented individuals and may lead to graduate field selection.     

Moral Agency and the Paradox of Self-Interested Concern for the Future in Vasubandhu’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Abhidharmakośabhāṣya</Emphasis>

It is a common view in modern scholarship on Buddhist ethics that attachment to the self constitutes a hindrance to ethics, whereas rejecting this type of attachment is a necessary condition for acting morally. The present article argues that in Vasubandhu’s theory of agency, as formulated in the Abhidharmako?abhā?ya (Treasury of Metaphysics with Self-Commentary), a cognitive and psychological identification with a conventional, persisting self is a requisite for exercising moral agency. As such, this identification is essential for embracing the ethics of Buddhism and its way of life. The article delineates the method that Vasubandhu employs to account for the notion of a selfless moral agent, with particular emphasis on his strategies for dealing with one central aspect of agency, self-interested concern for the future.     

Unmitigated agency and unmitigated communion: An analysis of the negative components of masculinity and femininity

The negative components of masculinity and femininity, conceptualized by Spence and her colleagues (1979) as unmitigated agency and unmitigated communion, were explored by examining dominant and submissive acts used in their expression. In three separate sessions, subjects (N=129) completed scales designed to measure these constructs, a Dominance Act Report, and a Submissiveness Act Report. Dominant acts used in the expression of unmitigated agency involved the formation of separations (e.g., making decisions without consulting the others involved in them), narcissistic self-assertion (e.g., telling others to perform one's menial tasks), and self-protection (e.g., bluffing one's way out of an embarrassing situation). Submissive acts used in the expression of unmitigated communion involved failing to make normatively appropriate agentic responses (e.g., walking out of a store knowing that one had been short-changed) and subjugating personal desires to group wishes (e.g., giving up vacation plans in deference to the preferences of others). Discussion focuses on elaborating the concepts of unmitigated agency and unmitigated communion.     

International Doctoral Students in Counselor Education: Coping Strategies in Supervision Training

This study explores 8 international doctoral students' perceptions of coping strategies used in supervision training in counselor education programs. Using human agency as a conceptual framework, the authors found 3 categories: (a) personal and professional self‐directed strategies as personal agency, (b) support and care from mentors as proxy agency, and (c) networking among international doctoral students and/or graduates as collective agency. Implications for counselor educators are discussed. Este estudio explora las percepciones de 8 estudiantes internacionales de doctorado sobre las estrategias de afrontamiento usadas en la capacitación de supervisión en programas de educación para consejeros. Usando la agencia humana como marco conceptual, se hallaron 3 categorías: (a) estrategias autodirigidas personales y profesionales como agencia personal, (b) apoyo y cuidados recibidos de mentores como agencia delegada y (c) creación de redes de contactos entre estudiantes internacionales de doctorado y/o doctores como agencia colectiva. Se discuten las implicaciones para educadores de consejeros.     

Voluntary settlement and the spirit of independence: evidence from Japan's "Northern frontier"

The authors hypothesized that economically motivated voluntary settlement in the frontier fosters independent agency. While illuminating the historical origin of American individualism, this hypothesis can be most powerfully tested in a region that is embedded in a broader culture of interdependence and yet has undergone a recent history of such settlement. The authors therefore examined residents of Japan's northern island (Hokkaido). Hokkaido was extensively settled by ethnic Japanese beginning in the 1870s and for several decades thereafter. Many of the current residents of Hokkaido are the descendents of the original settlers from this period. As predicted, Japanese socialized and/or immersed in Hokkaido were nearly as likely as European Americans in North America to associate happiness with personal achievement (Study 1), to show a personal dissonance effect wherein self-justification is motivated by a threat to personal self-images (Study 2), and to commit a dispositional bias in causal attribution (Study 3). In contrast, these marker effects of independent agency were largely absent for non-Hokkaido residents in Japan. Implications for theories of cultural change and persistence are discussed.     

On the nature of identity fusion: insights into the construct and a new measure

Previous research has documented the consequences of feeling fused with a group; here we examine the nature of identity fusion. Specifically, we sought to determine what fusion is and the mediating mechanisms that lead fused individuals to make extraordinary sacrifices for their group. Guided by the assumption that fusion emphasizes the extent to which people develop relational ties to the group, we developed a measure designed to capture feelings of connectedness and reciprocal strength with the group. In 10 studies, the newly developed scale displayed predicted relationships with related measures, including an earlier (pictorial) measure of fusion and a measure of group identification. Also as expected, fusion scores were independent of several measures of personality and identity. Moreover, the scale predicted endorsement of extreme progroup behaviors with greater fidelity than did an earlier pictorial measure of identity fusion, which was, in turn, superior to a measure of group identification. Earlier evidence that the personal and social selves of fused persons are functionally equivalent was replicated, and it was shown that feelings of agency and invulnerability mediated the effects of fusion on extreme behavior. Finally, Spanish- and English-language versions of the verbal fusion scale showed similar factor structure as well as evidence of convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity in samples of Spaniards and Americans, as well as immigrants from 22 different countries. This work advances a new perspective on the interplay between social and personal identity.     

大学生专业承诺、学习倦怠的状况及其关系

为了了解当前大学生积极和消极的学习心理状况,采用量表法对672名不同性别、年级、学科和院校的大学生进行了专业承诺和学习倦怠的研究。结果表明:当前大学生的专业承诺水平不高,学习倦怠的水平较高。在性别上,男生在理想承诺和成就感低上好于女生,男生的情绪低落高于女生;在年级上,大一、大四学生的情感承诺高于大二、大三学生,大二、大三学生在成就感低、行为不当和总倦怠上高于大一学生,大四学生的成就感好于大一、大二、大三学生;在学科上,文、理科学生的专业承诺水平低于医科、工科和术科学生,文、理科学生的总倦怠水平高于医科和工科学生;在院校类型上,师范院校学生专业承诺水平最低,且学习倦怠水平最高。情感承诺是当前大学生学习倦怠的最重要的预测变量。     

Concepts of bounded agency in education,work, and the personal lives of young adults

This paper traces the development of a series of Anglo‐German studies on how young adults experience control and exercise personal agency as they pass through periods of transition in education and training, work, unemployment, and in their personal lives. The overarching aim has been to develop an extended dialogue between ideas and evidence to explore the beliefs and actions associated with life‐chances under differing structural and cultural conditions. What kinds of beliefs and perspectives do people have on their future possibilities? How far do they feel in control of their lives? How does people's belief in what is possible for them (their personal horizons developed within cultural and structural influences) determine their behaviours and what they perceive to be “choices”? This research contributes to the re‐conceptualization of agency as a process in which past habits and routines are contextualized and future possibilities envisaged in the contingencies of the present moment. The paper concludes by explaining the concept of “bounded agency” as an alternative to “structured individualization” as a way of understanding the experiences of people in changing social landscapes.     

Identification with community‐based HIV agencies as a correlate of turnover intentions and general self‐efficacy

Research (e.g. French, Power, & Mitchell, 2000 ; Harris, 2006 ; Harris & Alderson, 2006 , 2007 ; Roy & Cain, 2001 ) has highlighted important benefits for people living with HIV/AIDS to become connected with HIV community‐based (CB) agencies (e.g. reduction of isolation, educational opportunities, empowerment). However, CB HIV organizations sometimes experience challenges in recruiting and retaining people living with HIV/AIDS. In a sample of 68 respondents associated with a Canadian HIV/AIDS CB agency, facets of agency identification were examined as correlates of (a) turnover intentions with the agency and (b) aspects of psychological adjustment (hope and general self‐efficacy). Results indicated one dimension of social identification, in‐group affect, as a significant correlate of turnover intentions (such that members with more positive agency‐derived feelings were more likely to say they would stay at the agency), and another emotionally‐relevant aspect of identification, in‐group ties, as a significant correlate of general self‐efficacy. Hope was unrelated to social identification. Several implications for HIV CB agencies are discussed. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.