Agentic and Communal Social Motives

Abstract

People chart and navigate their social lives along two cardinal axes -agency and communion. The motives to approach communion (e.g., enhance closeness and cooperation), approach agency (e.g., gain status and control), avoid communion (e.g., limit vulnerabilities and obligations), and avoid agency (e.g., limit resentments and rivalries) can each be adaptive, depending on the person and situation. After reviewing common implicit and explicit measures of agentic and communal motives, I describe how these motives together shape (and are shaped by) diverse phenomena, such as individuals' involvements in mating and parenting and, concurrently, their testosterone and oxytocin levels. I also detail how normative models of development and maturation depict a shifting dynamic between communal and agentic motives over the lifespan: In childhood, secure attachments provide foundations for developing agency; in adulthood, the challenge becomes yoking agency (one's accumulated mental, physical, and social resources) to communal aims (nurturing others and prosocial endeavors).

Beyond Screen Time: Identity Development in the Digital Age

“…Agency is the need to assert oneself and make decisions based on personal interests and values (Locke, 2015). After the early-adolescence stage of conformity (e.g.…”

“…Communion goals drive one to belong to a social group and share a common purpose and values with others. However, a further, essential challenge of adolescent identity development is to balance the two needs, that is, to pursue what one finds personally meaningful and to also feel accepted and supported by peers and society more broadly (Adams & Marshall, 1996;Erikson, 1950Erikson, , 1968Bosma & Kunnen, 2001;Locke, 2015). Balancing agency and communion needs is particularly challenging during adolescence (e.g.…”

The Effect of Outcome Severity on Moral Judgment and Interpersonal Goals of Perpetrators, Victims, and Bystanders

“…Drawing on the needs-based model of reconciliation (Shnabel & Nadler, 2015), we further hypothesize that the difference in judgments across the perpetrator and victim roles extends to their interpersonal goals. Human interaction can be parsimoniously described in terms of the broad dimensions of agency and communion (Abele & Wojciszke, 2014;Bakan, 1966;Fiske et al, 2002;Locke, 2015;Reeder & Brewer, 1979;Wiggins, 1979Wiggins, , 1991. Agentic goals include seeking control, dominance, and power, whereas communal goals include caring for, cooperating with, and being connected with others.…”

“…However, the literature on outcome effects does not offer much guidance on the goals that people in different social roles are likely to pursue. We draw on the needs-based model (Shnabel & Nadler, 2008, 2015 to understand how interpersonal goals emerge after moral transgressions. According to this model, transgressions threaten victims' and perpetrators' identities in different ways, and activate different needs.…”

Interpersonal Circumplex Profiles Of Persistent Depression: Goals, Self‐Efficacy, Problems, And Effects Of Group Therapy

“…The IPC, a popular model for organizing and assessing interpersonal dispositions, is defined by a vertical axis of dominance, assertiveness, decisiveness, or (most broadly) agency , and a horizontal axis of friendliness, sincerity, warmth, or (most broadly) communion (Wiggins, ). Hundreds of studies support the centrality of agency and communion in understanding social cognition, motivation, and behavior (Locke, ). As Figure shows, the IPC is typically divided into eight octants.…”