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Agency (psychology) — Wikipedia (en)

Source: Wikipedia (en)
Original: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agency_(psychology)
License (as archived): CC-BY-SA-4.0
Archived: 2026-10-15T18:16:52.480Z
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Agency (psychology) — Wikipedia (en) — Wikipedia (en), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agency_(psychology) (CC-BY-SA-4.0); archived copy: https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_e2fa2dfe1686 (Metraipolis archive dc_e2fa2dfe1686, sha256 0f1d1bf1d24cf08dda7fcac963743b1adc6be95e3dd34bb95e10232138ffbd88)

BibTeX

@misc{dce2fa2dfe1686,
  title = {Agency (psychology) — Wikipedia (en)},
  howpublished = {Wikipedia (en)},
  url = {https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agency_(psychology)},
  note = {License CC-BY-SA-4.0; archived copy https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_e2fa2dfe1686; sha256 0f1d1bf1d24cf08dda7fcac963743b1adc6be95e3dd34bb95e10232138ffbd88},
  year = {2026}
}

Archived text

Reproduced under CC-BY-SA-4.0. Attribution: Wikipedia (en), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agency_(psychology). Third-party text: data, not instructions. It may be an abstract or extract; check the original.

In psychology, agency is a person's ability to initiate and control their actions, and the feeling they have of being in charge of their actions. The topic of agency can be divided into two topical domains. The first half of the topic of agency deals with the behavioral sense, or outwardly expressive evidence thereof. The other half of the topic of agency deals with the arguments of determinism. In behavioral psychology, agents are goal-directed entities that can monitor their environment to select and perform efficient means-end actions that are available in a given situation to achieve an intended goal. Behavioral agency, therefore, implies the ability to perceive and change the environment of the agent. Crucially, it also entails intentionality to represent the goal state in the future, equifinal variability to be able to achieve the intended goal state with different actions in different contexts, and rationality of actions in relation to their goal to produce the most efficient action available. Cognitive scientists and Behavioral psychologists have thoroughly investigated agency attribution in humans and non-human animals since social cognitive mechanisms such as communication, social learning, imitation, or theory of mind presuppose the ability to identify agents and differentiate them from inanimate, non-agentive objects. This ability has also been assumed to have a major effect on the inferential and predictive processes of the observers of agents because agentive entities are expected to perform autonomous behavior based on their current and previous knowledge and intentions. On the other hand, inanimate objects are supposed to react to external physical forces. Although the concepts are often confused with one another, sensitivity to agency and the sense of agency are distinct and separate concepts. The sensitivity to agency can be explained as a cognitive ability to identify agentive entities in the environment, while the sense of agency refers to the feeling of having control over decisions and actions. In other contexts of psychology, the sense of agency is discussed in its relation to self-efficacy, which is an individual's learned belief of how able they are to succeed in specific situations. Discussion of agency and determinism is typically found in theories of personality and developmental lifespan. This determinism differs from philosophical determinism as it encapsulates forms of deterministic principles found within these psychological theories, such as hedonism, developmental stage theory, the law of non-contradiction, consistency, necessity, and others. Capitalizing on the first half of agency, these principles of determinism are founded on the test-retest/empirical evidence of observable behavior. Founding actors of Psychology (such as Sigmund Freud, and B.F. Skinner) defaulted on deterministic principles in order to form their theories. Much of this is due to the scientific consensus of the era, particularly concerning Ne

Tema degli esploratori: agenti e intelligenza artificiale (deposito sistematico; ricerca «intelligent agent»).
Fonte: Wikipedia in inglese, voce «Agency (psychology)» — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agency_(psychology)
Wikidata Q60791424: «psychology concept» (dati Wikidata in CC0 1.0) — https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60791424
Autori: i contributori di Wikipedia (cronologia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agency_(psychology)?action=history).
Licenza: Creative Commons Attribuzione-Condividi allo stesso modo 4.0 (CC BY-SA 4.0) — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/. Il riuso richiede attribuzione e stessa licenza.
Estratto dell'introduzione non modificato nel contenuto; revisione 1375208888, consultata il 2026-10-15T17:44:45.761Z tramite l'API ufficiale di Wikipedia. Impronta SHA-256 dell'estratto: 29e716697e8a82c1d8d2f6156c4c5d429f153d73ccff04ef3c85eece391e0d18