A functional analysis of personal autonomy: How restricting ‘what’, ‘when’ and ‘how’ affects experienced agency and goal motivation

C. Zhang; S. Sankaran; H. Aarts

doi:10.1002/ejsp.2923

A functional analysis of personal autonomy: How restricting ‘what’, ‘when’ and ‘how’ affects experienced agency and goal motivation

C. Zhang^*, S. Sankaran, H. Aarts

^*Corresponding author for this work

Eindhoven University of Technology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

Personal autonomy is central to people's experiences of agency and abilities to actively take part in society. To address the challenges of supporting autonomy, we propose a functional model of autonomy, according to which the experience of agency is a function of the opportunity to determine what to do, when to act and how to act in goal-pursuit. We tested the model in three experiments where the three goal-pursuit components could be constrained by another person or an artificial intelligence (AI) agent. Results showed that removing any of the three components from one's own decisions reduced experienced agency (Study 1a and 1b) and lowered motivation to pursue goals in organisational contexts (Study 2). In comparison to the strong and robust main effects, interactions between the components and the effects of the source of restriction (human vs. AI) were negligible. Implications for personal autonomy, algorithmic decision-making and behaviour change interventions are discussed.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	567-584
Number of pages	18
Journal	European Journal of Social Psychology
Volume	53
Issue number	3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2923
Publication status	Published - Apr 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The reported research is part of the Alliance project “HUMAN‐AI” funded by Utrecht University, Eindhoven University of Technology, Wageningen University and Research, and University Medical Center Utrecht. We thank Nil Akyüz for testing the experimental setup.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Authors. European Journal of Social Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Funding

The reported research is part of the Alliance project “HUMAN‐AI” funded by Utrecht University, Eindhoven University of Technology, Wageningen University and Research, and University Medical Center Utrecht. We thank Nil Akyüz for testing the experimental setup.

Keywords

agency experiences
behaviour change
functional analysis
goal motivation
goal-directed behaviour
personal autonomy

Access to Document

10.1002/ejsp.2923Licence: CC BY-NC-ND

Euro J Social Psych - 2022 - ZhangFinal published version, 2.64 MBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

Cite this

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title = "A functional analysis of personal autonomy: How restricting {\textquoteleft}what{\textquoteright}, {\textquoteleft}when{\textquoteright} and {\textquoteleft}how{\textquoteright} affects experienced agency and goal motivation",

abstract = "Personal autonomy is central to people's experiences of agency and abilities to actively take part in society. To address the challenges of supporting autonomy, we propose a functional model of autonomy, according to which the experience of agency is a function of the opportunity to determine what to do, when to act and how to act in goal-pursuit. We tested the model in three experiments where the three goal-pursuit components could be constrained by another person or an artificial intelligence (AI) agent. Results showed that removing any of the three components from one's own decisions reduced experienced agency (Study 1a and 1b) and lowered motivation to pursue goals in organisational contexts (Study 2). In comparison to the strong and robust main effects, interactions between the components and the effects of the source of restriction (human vs. AI) were negligible. Implications for personal autonomy, algorithmic decision-making and behaviour change interventions are discussed.",

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author = "C. Zhang and S. Sankaran and H. Aarts",

note = "Funding Information: The reported research is part of the Alliance project “HUMAN‐AI” funded by Utrecht University, Eindhoven University of Technology, Wageningen University and Research, and University Medical Center Utrecht. We thank Nil Aky{\"u}z for testing the experimental setup. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022 The Authors. European Journal of Social Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.",

year = "2023",

month = apr,

doi = "10.1002/ejsp.2923",

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N1 - Funding Information: The reported research is part of the Alliance project “HUMAN‐AI” funded by Utrecht University, Eindhoven University of Technology, Wageningen University and Research, and University Medical Center Utrecht. We thank Nil Akyüz for testing the experimental setup. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Authors. European Journal of Social Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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AB - Personal autonomy is central to people's experiences of agency and abilities to actively take part in society. To address the challenges of supporting autonomy, we propose a functional model of autonomy, according to which the experience of agency is a function of the opportunity to determine what to do, when to act and how to act in goal-pursuit. We tested the model in three experiments where the three goal-pursuit components could be constrained by another person or an artificial intelligence (AI) agent. Results showed that removing any of the three components from one's own decisions reduced experienced agency (Study 1a and 1b) and lowered motivation to pursue goals in organisational contexts (Study 2). In comparison to the strong and robust main effects, interactions between the components and the effects of the source of restriction (human vs. AI) were negligible. Implications for personal autonomy, algorithmic decision-making and behaviour change interventions are discussed.

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A functional analysis of personal autonomy: How restricting ‘what’, ‘when’ and ‘how’ affects experienced agency and goal motivation

Abstract

Bibliographical note

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Keywords

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