SOCIAL MODERATORS OF AGENCY

Abstract

The experience of control is referred to as the sense of agency (SoA). Most healthy individuals experience agency for their actions however, this can be disrupted under specific contexts. Intriguingly, there is little research about how SoA is affected by stress, a common everyday experience, or action instruction by external agents. Across two empirical chapters and four studies, we employ both implicit (intentional binding; IB) and explicit (self-reported control ratings) measures to provide a multidimensional account of how agency is shaped in these social contexts. In Chapter 2, we examined whether acute psychosocial stress modulates SoA. Stress was induced using the Trier Social Stress Test, followed by a task in which participants performed voluntary actions that produced auditory effects after varying time delays. In Study 1, explicit ratings of perceived control were obtained, while Study 2 employed IB as an implicit index of agency. Results from the implicit task revealed significantly greater SoA at longer delays (700 ms) under stress, suggesting a potential “stress-enabled agency boost” which may be linked to adaptive mechanisms, such as the fight-or-flight response. In Chapter 3, we explored how externally instructed actions by another human versus an artificial agent (onscreen chatbot) affect SoA. In both studies, participants completed an action-effect timing task under three conditions: free choice, human instruction, and agent instruction. Findings consistently showed that SoA was strongest under free choice, diminished under human instruction, and was the lowest under agent instruction. Notably, both IB and control ratings followed a linear pattern, with human instruction falling between the extremes. Together, these findings contribute to the growing literature on socially moderated agency, highlighting how stress and instructional contexts can influence individuals’ subjective and perceptual experiences of control. This work also raises important implications for understanding agency in environments increasingly mediated by technology.