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Self-agency, also known as the phenomenal will, is the sense that actions are self-generated. Scientist Benjamin Libet was the first to study it, concluding that brain activity predicts the action before one even has conscious awareness of his or her intention to act upon that action (see Neuroscience of free will ).
Agency has also been defined in the American Journal of Sociology as a temporally embedded process that encompasses three different constitutive elements: iteration, projectivity and practical evaluation. [3] Each of these elements is a component of agency as a whole.
In the social sciences there is a standing debate over the primacy of structure or agency in shaping human behaviour. Structure is the recurrent patterned arrangements which influence or limit the choices and opportunities available. [1] Agency is the capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices. [1]
The concept of agency implies an active organism, one who desires, makes plans, and carries out actions. [5] The sense of agency plays a pivotal role in cognitive development, including the first stage of self-awareness (or pre-theoretical experience of one's own mentality), which scaffolds theory of mind capacities.
In psychology, agency signifies the concept of 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 outward expressive evidence thereof.
It can be used to model the relationship between an agency and its environment(s), and these may include other interactive agencies. The nature of that interaction is determined by both the agency's external and internal attributes and constraints. Internal attributes may include immanent dynamic "self" processes that drive agency change.
Wider societal terms that do not have a specific sociological nature about them should be added to social concepts in keeping with the WikiProject Sociology scope for the subject. Contents Top
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the discipline of sociology: . Sociology – the study of society [1] using various methods of empirical investigation [2] and critical analysis [3] to understand human social activity, from the micro level of individual agency and interaction to the macro level of systems and social structure.