On The Nature of Experiencing Self-Agency: The Role of Goals and Primes in Inferring Oneself as the Cause of Behavior

Action prediction modulates self-other integration in joint action

People often coordinate actions with others, requiring an adjustable amount of self-other integration between actor's and co-actor's actions. Previous research suggests that such self-other integration (indexed by the joint Simon effect) is enhanced by agent similarity of the co-actor (e.g., high in intentionality). In this study, we aimed to extend this line of research by testing whether experiencing agency over a co-actor's actions (vicarious agency) and/or action prediction strengthens the joint Simon effect. For this purpose, we manipulated experienced agency by varying the experienced control over a co-actor's actions (Experiment 1), and action prediction regarding the co-actor's actions (Experiment 2). Vicarious agency could effectively be induced, but did not modulate the size of the joint Simon effect. The joint Simon effect was decreased when the co-actor's actions were unpredictable (vs. predictable) during joint task performance. These findings suggest social agency can be induced and effectively measured in joint action. Action prediction can act as an effective agency cue modulating the amount of self-other integration in joint action.

On the course of goal pursuit: The influence of goal progress on explicit judgments of self-agency

The experience of causing our own actions and resulting outcomes (i.e., self-agency) is essential for the regulation of our actions during goal pursuit. In two experiments, participants indicated experienced self-agency over presented outcomes, which varied in distance to their goal in an agency-ambiguous task. In Study 1, progress was manipulated at trial level (i.e., stimuli moved randomly or sequentially towards the goal). In Study 2, progress was constant at trial level (sequential), but varied at task level (i.e., goal discrepancy of the outcomes was random or decreased over trials). Study 1 showed that self-agency gradually increased in the progress condition as unsuccessful outcomes were objectively closer to the goal, while self-agency increased exponentially upon full goal attainment in the absence of progress. The gradual pattern for the progress condition was replicated in Study 2. These studies indicate that explicit judgments of self-agency are more flexible when there is goal progress.

Environmentally Sustainable Food Consumption: A Review and Research Agenda From a Goal-Directed Perspective

The challenge of convincing people to change their eating habits toward more environmentally sustainable food consumption (ESFC) patterns is becoming increasingly pressing. Food preferences, choices and eating habits are notoriously hard to change as they are a central aspect of people's lifestyles and their socio-cultural environment. Many people already hold positive attitudes toward sustainable food, but the notable gap between favorable attitudes and actual purchase and consumption of more sustainable food products remains to be bridged. The current work aims to (1) present a comprehensive theoretical framework for future research on ESFC, and (2) highlight behavioral solutions for environmental challenges in the food domain from an interdisciplinary perspective. First, starting from the premise that food consumption is deliberately or unintentionally directed at attaining goals, a goal-directed framework for understanding and influencing ESFC is built. To engage in goal-directed behavior, people typically go through a series of sequential steps. The proposed theoretical framework makes explicit the sequential steps or hurdles that need to be taken for consumers to engage in ESFC. Consumers need to positively value the environment, discern a discrepancy between the desired versus the actual state of the environment, opt for action to reduce the experienced discrepancy, intend to engage in behavior that is expected to bring them closer to the desired end state, and act in accordance with their intention. Second, a critical review of the literature on mechanisms that underlie and explain ESFC (or the lack thereof) in high-income countries is presented and integrated into the goal-directed framework. This contribution thus combines a top-down conceptualization with a bottom-up literature review; it identifies and discusses factors that might hold people back from ESFC and interventions that might promote ESFC; and it reveals knowledge gaps as well as insights on how to encourage both short- and long-term ESFC by confronting extant literature with the theoretical framework. Altogether, the analysis yields a set of 33 future research questions in the interdisciplinary food domain that deserve to be addressed with the aim of fostering ESFC in the short and long term.

A matter of you versus me? Experiences of control in a joint go/no-go task

When interacting with others, people represent their own as well as their interaction partners' actions. Such joint action representation is essential for action coordination, but may also interfere with action control. We investigated how joint action representations affect experienced control over people's own actions and their interaction partners' actions. Participants performed a joint go/no-go task, which is commonly used to measure to what extent people represent their own actions in spatial reference to their interaction partner (e.g., as 'left' vs. 'right'). After each second trial, participants indicated experienced control over their own action, their interaction partner's action, or over action inhibition. Despite this frequent interruption of the go/no-go task, we found strong evidence for the spatial representation of joint actions. However, this joint action representation did not affect experiences of control. Possible explanations and implications of these findings are discussed.

Impaired self-agency inferences in schizophrenia: The role of cognitive capacity and causal reasoning style

BACKGROUND

The sense of self-agency, i.e., experiencing oneself as the cause of one's own actions, is impaired in patients with schizophrenia. Normally, inferences of self-agency are enhanced when actual outcomes match with pre-activated outcome information, where this pre-activation can result from explicitly set goals (i.e., goal-based route) or implicitly primed outcome information (i.e., prime-based route). Previous research suggests that patients show specific impairments in the prime-based route, implicating that they do not rely on matches between implicitly available outcome information and actual action-outcomes when inferring self-agency. The question remains: Why? Here, we examine whether neurocognitive functioning and self-serving bias (SSB) may explain abnormalities in patients' agency inferences.

METHODS

Thirty-six patients and 36 healthy controls performed a commonly used agency inference task to measure goal- and prime-based self-agency inferences. Neurocognitive functioning was assessed with the Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia (BACS) and the SSB was assessed with the Internal Personal and Situational Attributions Questionnaire.

RESULTS

Results showed a substantial smaller effect of primed outcome information on agency experiences in patients compared with healthy controls. Whereas patients and controls differed on BACS and marginally on SSB scores, these differences were not related to patients' impairments in prime-based agency inferences.

CONCLUSIONS

Patients showed impairments in prime-based agency inferences, thereby replicating previous studies. This finding could not be explained by cognitive dysfunction or SSB. Results are discussed in the context of the recent surge to understand and examine deficits in agency experiences in schizophrenia.

Abnormal agency experiences in schizophrenia patients: Examining the role of psychotic symptoms and familial risk

Experiencing self-agency over one's own action outcomes is essential for social functioning. Recent research revealed that patients with schizophrenia do not use implicitly available information about their action-outcomes (i.e., prime-based agency inference) to arrive at self-agency experiences. Here, we examined whether this is related to symptoms and/or familial risk to develop the disease. Fifty-four patients, 54 controls, and 19 unaffected (and unrelated) siblings performed an agency inference task, in which experienced agency was measured over action-outcomes that matched or mismatched outcome-primes that were presented before action performance. The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) and Comprehensive Assessment of Symptoms and History (CASH) were administered to assess psychopathology. Impairments in prime-based inferences did not differ between patients with symptoms of over- and underattribution. However, patients with agency underattribution symptoms reported significantly lower overall self-agency experiences. Siblings displayed stronger prime-based agency inferences than patients, but weaker prime-based inferences than healthy controls. However, these differences were not statistically significant. Findings suggest that impairments in prime-based agency inferences may be a trait characteristic of schizophrenia. Moreover, this study may stimulate further research on the familial basis and the clinical relevance of impairments in implicit agency inferences.

Impaired frontal processing during agency inferences in schizophrenia

People generally experience themselves as the cause of outcomes following from their own actions. Such agency inferences occur fluently and are essential to social interaction. However, schizophrenia patients often experience difficulties in distinguishing their own actions from those of others. Building on recent research into the neural substrates underlying agency inferences in healthy individuals, the present study investigates how these inferences are represented on a neural level in patients with schizophrenia. Thirty-one schizophrenia patients and 31 healthy controls performed an agency inference task while functional magnetic resonance images were obtained. Participants were presented with a task wherein the relationship between their actions and the subsequent outcomes was ambiguous. They received instructions to cause specific outcomes to occur by pressing a key, but the task was designed to match or mismatch the color outcome with the participants' goal. Both groups experienced stronger agency when their goal matched (vs. mismatched) the outcome. However, region of interest analyses revealed that only controls showed the expected involvement of the medial prefrontal cortex and superior frontal gyrus, whereas in patients the agency experience was not related to brain activation. These findings are discussed in light of a hypofrontality model of schizophrenia.

Abnormalities in the experience of self-agency in schizophrenia: A replication study

People usually experience agency over their actions and subsequent outcomes. These agency inferences over action-outcomes are essential to social interaction, and occur when an actual outcome corresponds with either a specific goal (goal-based), and matches with action-outcome information that is subtly pre-activated in the situation at hand (prime-based). Recent research showed that schizophrenia patients exhibit goal-based inferences, but not prime-based inferences. Intrigued by these findings, and underscoring their potential role in explaining poor social functioning, we replicate patients' deficit in prime-based agency inferences. Additionally, we exclude the account that patients are unable to visually process and attend to primed information.

Priming determinist beliefs diminishes implicit (but not explicit) components of self-agency

Weakening belief in the concept of free will yields pronounced effects upon social behavior, typically promoting selfish and aggressive over pro-social and helping tendencies. Belief manipulations have furthermore been shown to modulate basic and unconscious processes involved in motor control and self-regulation. Yet, to date, it remains unclear how high-level beliefs can impact such a wide range of behaviors. Here, we tested the hypothesis that priming disbelief in free will diminishes the sense of agency, i.e., the intrinsic sensation of being in control of one’s own actions. To this end, we measured participants’ implicit and explicit self-agency under both anti-free will and control conditions. Priming disbelief in free will reduced implicit but not explicit components of agency. These findings suggest that free will beliefs have a causal impact on the pre-reflective feeling of being in control of one’s actions, and solidify previous proposals that implicit and explicit agency components tap into distinct facets of action awareness.