The interpersonal development of an embodied sense of agency.

Abstract

We argue that a sense of agency has interpersonal origins and arises from a contingent coupling of the self and the social and material world. This perspective has implications for the assessment and conceptualization of a sense of agency in the empirical literature. We explore the development of a sense of agency as, in part, an implicit, embodied assumption that arises through the child's experience of "good-enough" contingent responsiveness from caregivers. We contend that a caregiver's capacity for audience uptake and access to a full range of feelings, coupled with the scaffolding of an infant's attempts at creating contingency in his or her environment, will affect the development of a sense of agency. Presenting the experience of infants in neonatal intensive care as an example, we raise a series of questions about the development of a sense of agency in an atypical early environment in which opportunities for interpersonal contingency may be limited.

Performing Illness: A Dialogue About an Invisibly Disabled Dancing Body

“…We focus on Pini's re-enactment of illness through her video dance performances, to emphasise how performative practises can offer original perspectives that contribute to questioning and reframing established notions of subjectivity and different forms of agency. By relating to current notions of agency in psychology and philosophy (Balconi, 2010;Gallagher, 2013;Bresnahan, 2014;Ataria, 2015Ataria, , 2018Deans et al, 2015;Moore, 2016;Martens, 2018;Ravn, 2020;Pini and Deans, in press), we stressed the capacity of dance to enable the reacquisition of an agentic perspective. Addressing Pini's case of acquired impairment and hidden disability, we highlighted how agency in dance encompasses cognitive and performative dimensions, providing an example of how a dancing body can reframe notions of disability considering its intersubjective and ecological aspects.…”

“…Research across phenomenology and the cognitive sciences pointed out how undergoing traumatic experiences often leads to a diminished sense of agency and a feeling of dissociation and "disownership" (Ataria, 2015(Ataria, , 2018. Researchers in psychology have also argued that a sense of agency arises from the coupling of the self with the social and material world, and as such it presents an interpersonal origin (Deans et al, 2015) 3 . Understanding agency and attunement as an intersubjective ecological phenomenon is salient in the context of addressing performance practises and the ways dance can expand and influence empathic and perceptive experience (Pini and Deans, in press).…”

“…By focusing on Pini's case, we address the embodied nature of pain and illness, emphasising the role of the body as vehicle of sense making, and how the construction and embodiment of a meaningful self-narrative can help shape one's identity. We relate to notions of agency in psychology and philosophy (Balconi, 2010;Gallagher, 2013;Bresnahan, 2014;Ataria, 2015Ataria, , 2018Deans et al, 2015;Moore, 2016;Martens, 2018;Ravn, 2020;Pini and Deans, in press) to elucidate the capacity that dance and creative performance practises exert in enabling the reacquisition of an agentic perspective. Addressing a case of acquired impairment and hidden disability, we explore disability as an intersubjective ecological phenomenon in which the dancing body plays a transformative role.…”

Expanding Empathic and Perceptive Awareness: The experience of attunement in Contact Improvisation and Body Weather

“…Stern emphasized the notion that it is through the resonance afforded by attuned interaction of caregivers that we first begin to form our own sense of what we feelour experience of the world. However, crucially-it is not simply an 'experiencing with' in terms of direct reflection of feeling or a 'joining in', but instead must also signal to the infant that the parent is not simply caught up in an emotional contagion of their experience, but can instead recognize their own separate centre of subjective experience (Stern 1985;Deans, McIlwain and Geeves, 2015).…”

Sense of agency: Theory, methods, and application.

“…301–314). In the final section of the special issue, contributors explore real-world applications of sense of agency research, including a developmental account of how the capacity for agency emerges during childhood (Deans, McIlwain, & Geeves, 2015, pp. 315–325), an exploration of agency alteration in dreams (Rosen, 2015, pp.…”