The Social Nature of Agency
When I was writing my most recent book, Past Forward, there was a point at which I was ready to give up. I had a lot going on in my professional life and was feeling overwhelmed. I’m an ambitious person who enjoys staying busy, but I started wondering if I had finally taken on more than I could handle. I stayed the course and finished the book in large part because of my wife. She helped me think through how to better manage the project alongside my other responsibilities. And she helped me reconnect with why I wanted to write the book in the first place. Of course, I still had to do the writing myself. But she played a crucial role in helping me reengage with and follow through on a goal I might have abandoned on my own.
I share this story because it captures something important about agency that we tend to overlook. We usually think of it in individualistic terms. Agency is our capacity to regulate our own thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, to set goals and pursue them, to take responsibility for the direction of our lives. This is a big part of the story. But there is another part that deserves more attention.
Humans are a deeply social species and other people play a central role in fueling the motivation that drives our agency, supporting us as we develop and pursue our goals, and shaping the environments that encourage or undermine agentic living. Understanding the social nature of agency doesn’t diminish individual responsibility. It helps strengthen it.
It starts with meaning. Meaning functions not just as an outcome of a good life but as a psychological resource that makes a good life possible. Meaning has motivational power. When people feel their lives are meaningful, they become more persistent, resilient, and willing to take on ambitious challenges. Meaning energizes the self-regulation and goal-directed action that agency requires.
And where does that meaning come from? Overwhelmingly, from other people. Research consistently shows that the most powerful sources of meaning are social. Family and close relationships come first for most people, but meaning also comes from the broader social groups, organizations, and institutions we participate in.
This isn’t simply because other people are present in our lives. It is because we believe we make a difference in theirs. We are inspired to take responsibility for our lives, to push through difficulties, and to strive to become better versions of ourselves in large part because of our desire to play a meaningful role in the lives of others. Think of the parent who persists through exhaustion, the entrepreneur who keeps building after setbacks, the volunteer who shows up week after week. In each case, the motivation to act agentically is fueled by a sense that what they are doing matters to others.
Other people don’t just fuel the motivation behind our agency. They also shape our belief that we are capable of directing our own lives. In his paper on the psychological building blocks of agency, Human Flourishing Lab fellow Andrew Abeyta highlights self-efficacy as a central component. It is the belief that we are capable of taking the actions necessary to achieve our goals. Our relationships and social environments are critical for developing self-efficacy. We build confidence in our abilities by watching others succeed, by receiving encouragement and mentoring from people we trust, and by being surrounded by individuals who support our efforts and acknowledge our growth. In other words, our belief in our own agency is not something we generate entirely on our own. It is cultivated through our interactions with others.
And when it comes to actually pursuing our goals, other people support our agency in practical and direct ways as well. As I discussed in a previous newsletter, research on goal sharing shows that when people tell others about their personally important goals, they receive significantly more support and invest considerably more effort into pursuing those goals.
When we share a goal with someone we trust, we invite them into our self-regulation process. They can remind us of what we are working toward, offer encouragement when we face setbacks, or provide practical accountability. Our agentic capacities are most effective when we strategically involve others.
Given the vital role that others play in our agency, it is worth being mindful of whether the social environments we inhabit are actually supporting it. Not all of them do. Social environments characterized by negativity, passivity, or a lack of accountability can quietly erode our motivation and self-efficacy. Being aware of this matters.
But equally important is recognizing that we are not just shaped by our social environments. We shape them. Every relationship and community we belong to is a context in which our actions influence what the people around us believe is possible. When we encourage someone’s goals, remind them of their potential, or simply show through our own efforts what it looks like to take responsibility, we strengthen the agency of those around us. And agency is not a finite resource that diminishes when shared. It grows when people invest in each other’s capacity to direct their own lives.
The next time you set a goal or push through a difficult stretch, notice who is behind that effort. Think about the people whose lives give your actions meaning and the people whose support keeps you going. Then consider how you might do the same for them and others. When we live agentically and support the agency of those around us, we help build a culture in which we feel responsible not only for ourselves but to each other.
Have a great weekend!
Clay