Synonyms
Definition
Agency (derived from Latin: agens – acting or making something) has several basic meanings in psychology: (1) the feeling that somebody is able to act on or influence something, like other individual, situation, or object (a sense of agency); (2) human orientation focused on achieving goals; and (3) a specific relationship between the individual and his or her social environment, assuming both sense of agency (i.e., conviction that the individual is able to influence the environment), and actual activity, which is manifested during goal achievement. Agency assumes volitional activity and focus on individual’s goals. Agency can be treated as an individual difference.
Introduction
Agency is one of the most complex and multi-meaning terms in psychology. Agency typically refers to activity and action. Therefore, it refers both to intentionality and volition. As introduced by David Bakan (1966), it served as a description of a style of the...
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Żemojtel-Piotrowska, M., Piotrowski, J., Clinton, A. (2020). Agency. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24612-3_1199
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