Agency - Hitlin and Elder 2007 - Time, Self, And Agency

PDFlib PLOP: PDF Linearization, Optimization, Protection

Page inserted by evaluation versionwww.pdflib.com – [email protected]

Time, Self, and the Curiously Abstract Concept of Agency*

STEVEN HITLIN

University of Iowa

GLEN H. ELDER, JR.

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The term “agency” is quite slippery and is used differently depending on the episte-mological roots and goals of scholars who employ it. Distressingly, the sociologicalliterature on the concept rarely addresses relevant social psychological research. Wetake a social behaviorist approach to agency by suggesting that individual tempo-ral orientations are underutilized in conceptualizing this core sociological concept.Different temporal foci—the actor’s engaged response to situational circumstances—implicate different forms of agency. This article offers a theoretical model involvingfour analytical types of agency (“existential,” “identity,” “pragmatic,” and “lifecourse”) that are often conflated across treatments of the topic. Each mode ofagency overlaps with established social psychological literatures, most notably aboutthe self, enabling scholars to anchor overly abstract treatments of agency withinestablished research literatures.

“Agency” has been central to theorists throughout sociology’s history, though withdifferent terminology in different eras. The current incarnation of this attempt to positindividual action in a world of social structures involves the seemingly ubiquitous“agency vs. structure” debates. This debate typically addresses the reciprocal nature ofperson and society, but largely fails to engage relevant social psychological work, theliterature most amenable to understanding social actors. Sociologists place themselvesagainst a naive psychological reductionism in an effort to combat a (rather American)tendency to reduce social phenomena to the level of the individual. However, thishas led to simplistic, straw versions of human actors within larger, structural modelsabout institutions and societies (Kohn 1989).

From a social psychological point of view, these debates over the relativeimportance—and even existence—of agency are a bit peculiar. To maintain that socialactors make decisions, no matter how socially circumscribed, is a fairly banal state-ment from a micro-analytic perspective. This is not, however, always the receivedwisdom in sociology, where there are those who render the actions (motivations,choices, goals) of actors as irrelevant, epiphenomenal, or error variation.1 It seems

∗Address correspondence to: Steven Hitlin, Department of Sociology, W140 Seashore Hall, Universityof Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242. Tel: +319-335-2499; Fax: 319-335-2509; E-mail: [email protected] for this research was provided by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development(T32-HD007376, Human Development: Interdisciplinary Research Training) at the Center for Develop-mental Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. We would like to thank Scott Brown, PeterCallero, Victor Marshall, members of Iowa Sociology Progress on Papers working group, the anonymousreviewers, and the editors of Sociological Theory for comments on earlier drafts of this article.

Sociological Theory 25:2 June 2007C© American Sociological Association. 1307 New York Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20005-4701

1“Lest you think, though, that my comments and criticisms are directed only to those sociologistswho call themselves social psychologists, I hasten to say that I think their sins of commission pale bycomparison to the sins of omission of other sociologists. Social psychologists at least recognize the existence

TIME, SELF, AND THE CONCEPT OF AGENCY 171

often as if the sociologists use “agency” as a placeholder for some vague sense ofhuman freedom or individual volition within a broader model.

For sociologists, the tools toward a more adequate understanding of the humanagent are located within the vast empirical and theoretical literature on the “self,”a body of work rarely linked with discussions of agency. The notion of time, high-lighted in Emirbayer and Mische’s (1998) notable treatment of agency, is converselyrarely employed within models of the self. Temporal orientations are a fundamentalaspect of social interaction (Flaherty 2003), and form the basis for developing an un-derstanding of the human agency that bridges multiple uses of the concept and linksto an established literature on the self. The self is at root a temporal phenomenon(Flahterty and Fine 2002; Mead 1932), and provides a pivot for such a synthesis.

Actors’ temporal orientations are shaped by situational exigencies, with some sit-uations calling for extensive focus on the present and others requiring an extendedtemporal orientation. Agentic behavior is influenced by the requirements of the in-teraction; as actors become more or less concerned with the immediate momentversus long-term life goals, they employ different social psychological processes andexhibit different forms of agency. The intra-personal perception of what might betermed a “time horizon,” a concentrated focus on a particular zone of temporalspace, is a response to social situations and conditions of agentic action. Agency isexerted differentially depending on the actor’s salient time horizon. Viewed this way,agency’s processes are less mysterious and draw on well-established scholarship onself-processes.

We identify and describe four variants of human agency: existential, identity, prag-matic, and life course. These are meant as heuristics for linking theoretical problemswith established research traditions; they have fluid boundaries and overlapping char-acteristics. These ideal types are intended as guides for future syntheses, and glossover debates between social psychological theorists about the scope conditions of var-ious approaches. Individuals exercise different forms of agency depending on theirtemporal orientation, though the first type (i.e., existential) underlies the three moresocially interesting ones. These analytic types represent different relationships be-tween an actor and the person’s time horizon. We suggest that this approach willlikely foster communication between theorists and social psychologists concerning acentral concern of both, individual action within social structures.

A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF AGENCY

Agency remains a slippery concept because of inconsistent definitions across theo-retical projects. Loyal and Barnes (2001) trace back the modern debate to Parsons’s“volunteristic theory of action,” and claim that the concept has no sociologicalutility. Collins (2004) suggests that the agency/structure rhetoric “is a conceptualmorass,” distracting from the proper study of interactions prior to individual action.As grounded within people, the concept of “agency” is certainly influenced by West-ern conceptions of the actor (Holstein and Gubrium 2000; Meyer and Jepperson2000), where individuals are the locus of social action in traditions focused on indi-vidual freedom. Current models focus on how apparently free actions lead individualsto (often) unconsciously reproduce their social structural milieu (e.g., Bourdieu 1977;

of people; other sociologists sometimes seem to act as if they thought that social institutions functionwithout benefit of human participants, or at any rate without benefit of participants who act human”(Kohn 1989:27).

172 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

Giddens 1984; Layder 1997).2 Most theorists addressing the agency/structure debateover the last two decades reasonably conclude that positing a strict dualism betweenagency and structure is erroneous (e.g., Cockerham 2005; Dunn 1997; Hayes 1994;Sewell 1992). Following Giddens (1984), the majority of such theorists understandsthe need to include both freedom and constraint while also noting the ways that freeactions reproduce social structures. Agency is not universally accepted or valorizedin sociological theory. Some (Fuchs 2001; Loyal and Barnes 2001; Meyer and Jepper-son 2000) maintain that it does not exist, while others (Alexander 1993; Cahill 1998;Collins 1992) focus on sociologists’ tendency to romanticize Western conceptions ofthe agentic individual.

The most prominent recent theoretical attempts at describing agency’s relation-ship to structure offer minimal engagement with current empirical social psychology.Emirbayer and Mische (1998) define agency as:

the temporally constructed engagement by actors of different structuralenvironments—the temporal-relational contexts of action—which, through theinterplay of habit, imagination and judgement, both reproduces and transformsthose structures in interactive response to the problems posed by changing his-torical situations. (1998:970)3

Sewell (1992) focuses on the importance of “rules and resources”(drawing on Gid-dens 1984), yet like other theoretical treatments it is unclear what is the empiricalwork flow from this understanding. Without a proper engagement, however, sociolog-ical theorists run the risk of establishing a “black box” to be filled in by psychologists.This, however, is a poor approach to understanding the social individual if we rely onpsychologists who tend not to find the existence of social constraints on individualvolition as problematic.

Psychologists, broadly speaking, typically employ some notion of agency, thoughsome are less dismissive of contextual influences (e.g., Bandura 2001, 2006). Whileagency is assumed on many levels of analysis, only the field of life course studiesexplicitly engages agency from an empirical perspective (e.g., Elder 1994; Shanahan,Elder, and Miech 1997; Thoits 2003). To life course analysts, human agency is anindividual-level construct, fundamental for social action. Even there, however, dif-ferent types of agency are conflated. Almost all of these approaches a omit seriousdiscussion of the self.

Empirically, agency has been imbued with multiple dimensions ranging from no-tions of self-efficacy (Gecas 2003) to what Clausen (1991, 1993) has termed “planfulcompetence.” Alexander (1992, 1993) focuses on “moments of freedom” and “effort,”while Thoits similarly discusses “free will” and “the ability to initiate self-change.”Bandura (2001) identifies four aspects of agency: (1) intentionality, (2) forethought,(3) self-reactiveness (self-regulation), and (4) self-reflectiveness (beliefs of efficacy).

Most social scientists intuitively recognize agency as important, even as defi-nitions abound. Ahearn (2001:112) defines agency as “the socioculturally medi-ated capacity to act,” an intentionally broad definition that is both helpful and

2Evans (2002) offers a useful typology for these various theoretical treatments along three dimensions:structure/agency; internal/external control; social reproduction/conversion.

3Fuchs (2001) criticizes this definition as “heavy rhetoric” added to mostly “trivial” conceptions ofactors and intentions: “actor has plans and will travel; plans don’t work as planned; actor adjusts plansover time. This is pretty thin for a novel, as well as for a sociological science” (2001:29).


misleading. It highlights the primary theme that runs through a variety of defini-tions of the concept, but its abstractness does not help us develop ways to identifyagentic action. Additionally, individual-level differences in capacity, skill, and fore-thought are ignored. Theorists’ attempts at thorough definitions typically do notlend themselves to empirical verification, while most empirical researchers tend toidentify either simplistic notions of agency or consider it tantamount to unexplainedvariance.

Broadly understood, agency deals with “questions of personal causality” (Bandura1982). Marshall (2003) poses an important dilemma: Is agency correctly thought ofas an aspect of human nature or as a variable? Is agency inherent to social action,or is it a differential property that some—whether through structural advantage orindividual attributes—possess more than others? Discussions of agency to date havenot dealt with different levels of analysis, and this leads to much of the confusionsurrounding the topic.

Theoretical questions about the existence of human choice appear rather pecu-liar to microsociologists. For those focused on individual interaction, constraintson and processes of agency are the concern, not “if” it exists. Empirical studiespoint to the ubiquity of individual innovation and choice.4 The existential ques-tion shifts away from abstract conceptualizations about the potential illusion ofindividual freedom. What concepts and empirical measures can we employ to ex-plore the process of—and limits on—individuals’ agency? The field of self and iden-tity (for overviews, see Owens 2003; Gecas and Burke 1995; Stryker and Burke2000) has developed an extensive literature that empirically engages these very is-sues. Study of the self, a phenomenon that allows for both choice and constraint,individual spontaneity and social patterning, individuality and group and socialidentification, is fundamental to—but missing from—debates about the nature ofagency.

SELF AND TEMPORALITY

Curiously, the self is rarely implicated within current debates over the nature of hu-man agency, though not for a lack of theoretical development (e.g., Burke 2004;Hewitt 1989; Holstein and Gubrium 2000; Stryker and Burke 2000; Wiley 1994).5

Joas (2000) refers to the self as one of social science’s greatest discoveries; consti-tuting active, socialized, meaning-making individuals. The self is “an organized andinteractive system of thoughts, feelings, identities, and motives that (1) is born ofself-reflexivity and language, (2) people attribute to themselves and (3) characterizespecific human beings” (Owens 2003:206). Treatments of the self commonly implythe capacity for agentic action, but such links are rarely explicated.

Mead’s focus on reflexivity as constitutive of the self is important for bridgingthese literatures. Though not directly concerned with the self, Emirbayer and Mische(1998) suggest that Mead (1932, 1938) offers the best conceptual tools for engagingagency. Callero (2003:117) argues that the “principle of reflexivity is at the core of theMeadian tradition and provides a pragmatic foundation for understanding agency.”

4Bandura (2001) suggests agency can also be granted to meaningful social groupings, like social move-ments and organizations. Giddens (1984) rejects this position. Individuals, only, can exercise agency. Groupsof individuals can represent the decisions of a majority of members, but the group as a whole does not“act.”

5See Baumeister (1999), Gecas and Burke (1995), and Owens (2003), for overviews of the self; seeArcher (2000), Callero (2003) for notable attempts to bring the self into discussions of agency.


Dunn (1997) highlights the prediscursive ability to act as fundamental to Mead’sconception of the self. Mead’s approach captures both individual innovation, theprelinguistic ability to act outside of social dictates, and a more socially mediated,collaboratively generated aspect of the self (see Wiley 1994). Mead’s development ofthe reflexive relationship between the spontaneous “I” and the more stable, sociallydeveloped “Me” introduces an aspect of individual volition mistakenly ignored bythose who mistakenly deny human subjectivity and agency (Dunn 1997). The capacityfor reciprocal interchange between these two aspects of the self lies at the core ofreflexivity. Mead’s incorporation of time into the self is vital for linking self andagency.

With few exceptions, notably life course studies and suggestive work by Flaherty(1999, 2002), the temporal nature of human activity has largely been unexploredwithin social psychological models. Life course studies are centered around the notionof historical and unfolding time, but even there it is rare to find first-person temporalorientations being the subject of inquiry. Mead’s discussions on time are not wellpresented (Flahterty and Fine 2001; Joas 1985), perhaps contributing to the omissionof temporality in most discussions of his ideas. The self exists, for Mead, expresslyin the ever-passing present, a moment whereby the individual interprets situationsand symbols as well as his or her past and future. Anticipation and memory areboth shaped by the current moment, a moment that immediately becomes past asthe actor plans and reacts to current situations. In this sense, we cannot abstractthe actor from the situation; even the “Me,” Mead’s notion of the backward-lookingaspect of self, is interpreted by the actor in the current moment. One’s past is not astable part of the self, but subject to reinterpretation based on current circumstances.The temporally extended self involves understanding that the links between the pastand present extend to the future (Lemmon and Moore 2001).

Humans are more capable of controlling their temporal orientation than Meadsuggested, and are able to engage in what Flaherty (2002, 2003) calls “time work,”employing one’s focus to control one’s temporal experience. The perceived durationof time is an interplay between self and situation (Flaherty 1999). Individuals donot simply passively experience time. In Flaherty’s notion, individuals exert agency(following Giddens’s notion of “could have acted otherwise”) by shaping their experi-ence of time; for example, self-consciously attempting to enact societally valued timeactivities (being prompt) or resisting the temporal experience of situations (passingtime when bored in a college lecture). Agency, in this form, occurs at the level ofthe actor’s control over his or her self-experience, skills we learn at around three orfour years of age (Barresi 2001).

Flaherty (1999) discusses the experience of time within situated activity, suggestingthat “variation in the perceived passage of time reflects variation in the intensityof conscious information processing per standard temporal unit.” We distinguishbetween Flaherty’s discussion of experienced time and a more agency-useful notionof temporal horizons, a concern with the focus on temporality as dictated by thesituation that in turn influences the self. The type of agency discussed in Flaherty’smodels forms the basis for what we will discuss as “existential” agency, and underliesagency’s other three variants (pragmatic, identity, and life course). This dovetails withBandura’s (1982) focus on the importance of “forethought” for understanding agenticaction, but we build on Mead and Flaherty to differentiate the range of forethoughtthat situations call forth within actors.


TEMPORAL ORIENTATION AND VARIANTS OF AGENCY

We adopt the perspective, following the social behaviorism found in Mead’s andBlumer’s work, that individuals’ actions are oriented toward meeting the condi-tions of social life (Swanson 1992). People’s actions do not occur in a vacuum.This statement advances the sociologically banal observation that individual actionis inextricably social yet not fully determined (though a strict structuralist mightquibble with this assertion). We view agentic action as those actions whose osten-sible origin begins within the actor, in the sense that, as Giddens (1984) maintains,the actor might have done otherwise. This covers behavior ranging from automatic(throwing a ball) to carefully considered (solving a math problem) to long term(enrolling in a particular university). All of these sorts of behaviors implicate in-dividual action, effort, and intention. Incorporating the self, however, allows forthe understanding of what these actions share beyond being self-initiated, and pro-vides the opportunity to anchor discussions of agency within empirical researchtraditions.

Agentic actions involve differential orientations toward the present and the future.Temporal orientations can be analytically separated and implicate different aspectsof the self within action. Individuals shift their time horizons based on the prob-lems that emerge within situated interaction. Agency stems both from individual andexternal circumstances that direct one’s attentional focus. An actor’s attention getsfocused on situational aspects perceived as most important. Our mental horizons,similar to “frames” (Goffman 1974) shape which information we attend to or omit(Zerubavel 1997) as situated activity evolves (Gonos 1977). Interactional models typ-ically omit the nature of the actor’s temporal frames, over which we can exercisecontrol (Flaherty 2002) but that also respond to situational exigencies.

Circumstances may require heightened attention and thus extensive conscious con-trol. Other situations involve monitoring one’s role enactment and do not necessitatethe same heightened focus on one’s own behavior; but, role internalization leads tosome automaticity in habits and routines. Even other actions are undertaken withlong-term, not immediate, concerns in mind. We name these types of agency “prag-matic,” “identity,” and “life course.” Each type has, at its root, an existential capacityfor initiating and controlling self-behavior. These ideal types have admittedly fuzzyboundaries, and systematically map onto actors’ future-oriented attentional foci. Weexplain each of these types of agency and offer some speculative links to estab-lished research literatures in order to anchor future discussions about agency withinempirical social psychological processes.

Three variants of agency/free will/personal control that are relevant to social lifeare anchored within a fourth “type,” an existential capacity for exerting influenceon our environments. Four ideal types of agency serve to anchor the concept indifferent levels of experience and help resolve seemingly incommensurate dimensions.Discussions of agency can fail to anchor the concept in lived experience, referringto it with a-situational abstractions. The more removed a discussion about humansis from actual human experience, the more slippery the idea of agency becomes.We ground the concept of agency by situating debates within social psychologicalunderstandings of the person and social structures (see Table 1). A temporally basedheuristic offers a schematic for understanding multiple, sometimes conflicting, usesof agency.

These analytic distinctions overlap in practice. They direct inquiry toward estab-lished models of the self that might help scholars engage sociological questions about

176 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORYT

able

1.T

ypes

ofA

genc

y

Rep

rese

ntat

ive

Age

ncy

“Typ

e”A

naly

tica

lSc

ope

Tem

pora

lSc

ope

Cha

ract

eris

tics

The

oris

ts

Exi

sten

tial

All

circ

umst

ance

sA

llte

mpo

ral

hori

zons

Pre

-ref

lect

ive

capa

city

tode

fyso

cial

dict

ates

Mea

d

Fun

dam

enta

lel

emen

tof

“fre

ew

ill”

Pra

gmat

icN

ovel

situ

atio

ns“K

nife

’sed

ge”

pres

ent

mom

ent

Abi

lity

toin

nova

tew

hen

rout

ines

brea

kdo

wn

Dew

ey/J

oas

Hei

se/

Smit

h-L

ovin

Iden

tity

Rou

tine

situ

atio

nsSi

tuat

iona

lly-

orie

nted

goal

atta

inm

ent

Cap

acit

yto

act

wit

hin

soci

ally

pres

crib

edro

leex

pect

atio

ns

Stry

ker/

Bur

ke

Lif

eco

urse

Lif

epa

thw

ays

Lon

g-ra

nge

futu

relif

epl

ans

Um

brel

late

rmfo

rre

tros

pect

ive

anal

ysis

ofde

cisi

ons

mad

eat

turn

ing

poin

tsan

dtr

ansi

tion

s

Eld

er/C

laus

en


the structural patterning of agentic action, what Evans (2002) and Shanahan (2000)refer to as “bounded” agency.6

Existential Agency

Much human action is self-initiated, even if it involves automatic processing. Existen-tial agency is inherent in social action, and as such is a universal human potentiality.This capacity for self-directed action underlies all of the types of agency we dis-cuss and refers to a fundamental level of human freedom, Giddens’s (1984) notionthat one might have acted otherwise. At this level, we are fully free within the con-straints of physical reality. Writers ranging from Sartre to Hegel to Goffman have dis-cussed the fact that, at a fundamental level, even those without power (slaves, mentalpatients) have the ability to make decisions about their actions, though they facesevere consequences for those choices. Humans can control many of their actions,but this capacity gets socially channeled, as we discuss below.

The capacity for self-initiated behavior, however, is of less interest than its socialdimensions and consequences. The capacity for action differs, for example, from theperception of that capacity, self-efficacy. Some scholars (e.g., Bandura 1997, 2001;Gecas 2003) view self-efficacy as the core of human agency, a reflectively accessiblebelief about one’s capacities. It is not the capacity, itself. The self-reflective beliefs wehave about our competence in various action domains is analytically separate fromthe actual capacity for acting within those domains.

That said, self-efficacy theory highlights an important social psychological contri-bution to understanding agency. Rather than being concerned with “free will” as anend in itself, sociologists need to take into account self-reflective understandings ofour abilities and capacities within specific domains to exert this will: “Once formed. . . efficacy beliefs regulate aspirations, choice of behavioral courses, mobilizationand maintenance of effort, and affective reactions” (Bandura 1997:4). We developa sense of “personal empowerment” (Little, Hawley, Henrich, and Marsland 2002)that motivates and guides our existential capacity for action.

Pragmatic Agency

Our capacity to exert influence on our action is only sociologically consequentialinsofar as it is utilized within social situations or with social outcomes. Mead’swritings about the “knife’s edge” of the present moment captures the fundamen-tal present-ness of social action, the need to attend to one’s surroundings as timeflows forward. Writing in response to the popular behaviorism of the time, Meadfocused on actors’ ability to process social stimuli and not simply react passively(Flahterty and Fine 2001). This emergent, creative aspect of the person has formedthe basis for much symbolic interactionist and pragmatic thought, and anchorspragmatic agency. Circumstances sometimes require heightened attentional concen-tration on one’s immediate surroundings in certain situations. We focus our attention

6To reiterate, we present this typology as a heuristic. The goal of bridge building between pure theoreticalapproaches and social psychology means that we gloss over debates within social psychology about thescope conditions of the relevant research. Just as theorists fall into different “camps” or “traditions,” so,too, do we find diversity among social psychologists about the importance of or mechanics behind variousself-processes. Our presentation is intended to demonstrate the utility of a particular approach drawingon social psychological work; it certainly is not intended to definitively present “a” social psychologicalposition on the self.


most strongly on the present moment within problematic situations (Flaherty 1999).This type of agency, “pragmatic,” highlights the overlap with pragmatist insights intothe contingent nature of human action (e.g., Dewey 1934; Joas 1993).

Pragmatic agency is expressed in the types of activities that are chosen when habit-ual responses to patterned social actions break down. Much of our action involveshabit (Camic 1986) as we rely on available, preestablished routines to guide inter-actions. If habits fail, however, we must make choices, and such choices necessarilyoccur within the flow of activity, not abstracted from it (like in rational models ofsocial action). We are not dispassionate, analytical actors. We make choices withinthe flow of situated activity, and emotions and personality traits—along with idiosyn-cratic personal histories, moral codes, and predispositions—influence the choices wemake in emergent situations.

People do not make completely random choices and new decisions in such situ-ations. It is at this level that the self begins to be instructive for understanding atemporal model of agency. We are guided by our self, the reflective, intuitive as-pect of consistency that guides interactions (Hewitt 1989). Individuals’ consistentresponses within the flow of situated activity, especially with respect to novel situa-tions, are yet to be fully fleshed out within action theory. Aspects of one’s personal-ity, biography, and values contribute greatly to the patterns of agentic decisions thatare manifested within these pragmatist-oriented situations of novelty and creativity(Joas 1996).

Mead’s “I” is the active portion of the self-concept that carries on a dialogue withthe reflective “Me,” an interplay that fundamentally involves temporality, a neglecteddistinction in the literature (Flahterty and Fine 2001). The “I” is an internal expe-rience of reflexivity (Dunn 1997; Wiley 1994), and exists prior to language, thoughover time it becomes socially shaped and channeled. The very existence of the “I”allows for agency when compared to an oversocialized view of individual action(Callero 2003). Sociological scholarship on the self has focused less on the “I” thanthe various “Me’s” that constitute the person (Thoits and Virshup 1997).

Mead’s “I” is conceptualized as a fundamentally spontaneous aspect of the self. Itis, however, far from random—idiosyncratic, possibly, but not unpredictable. If ourresponses were, in fact, completely random, much social science would be untenable.Hewitt (1989) extends Mead’s theory by noting that the “I” is more than simply aproduct of social conditioning but is guided by its own inner logic, a fundamentallycreative aspect of the self possessing what we call “patterned spontaneity.” The “I,”however, does not create itself anew in each situation. Rather, there is a patterneddevelopment over time of this creative, spontaneous aspect of self. The self is botha structure and a process, and the interplay between the socialized, developed “Me”and the spontaneous “I” captures the process notion of this construct. The “I” acts,and those actions are reflectively absorbed and compared with the “Me.” The “I,”however, while situationally emergent also implicates our personality, and our moralintuitions that circumscribe what we are “really” like. Over time, our sense of self isdeveloped in part by observing how we are predisposed to act in novel, nonroutine,emergent situations. The personal anchor of the “I” may refer to those self-aspectswe use to discriminate among actions that may or may not reflect our “true self”(Turner 1976). We rely on habitual responses to suffice for the engagement of manyproblems in action; the “I” comes into play when routine situations are interruptedand novel responses are called for, but these responses are not fully random.

Other than positing an enduring “I,” little of this section is new to sociologistsconcerned with agency (e.g., Emirbayer and Mische 1998). Others have discussed


this process at more depth than we can engage here. We might suggest, however,an empirical direction this work might take. The “I” is anchored in feelings, sensesof self that might draw on the burgeoning literature on emotions (see Turner andStets 2006). Emotions offer a window into the criterion that individuals use to judgewhether various possible actions “fit” with their self-conception, the referent thatpeople use while highly focused on agentic action in the present within problematicsituations. Relatedly, those looking for possible mechanisms behind agentic actioncan look at affect control theory (Heise 1977; Smith-Lovin and Heise 1988) for amodel of the ways in which emotional feedback serves to orient the social actor.The model, derived from Mead’s focus on language in interaction (Owens 2003), fo-cuses on actors’ emotional consequences when situational emotional reactions differfrom culturally shared meanings (sentiments). We attempt to confirm cultural ex-pectations of how we should feel, and when our transient feelings do not match weattempt to shape our behavior to fall in line with cultural definitions or eventuallywe reshape our definitions, themselves.7 Emotions serve as a gauge of the differencebetween internal expectations and internal results (Hochschild 1983), and are viewed(in American culture, at least) as windows into one’s “true self.” Thus, the standardsthat guide the internal logic of the “I” and the emergence of pragmatic agency areinextricably social.

Identity Agency

Identity agency represents the habitual patterning of social behavior. Following es-tablished ways of acting, role enactment, or identity performance, involves agenticaction. When we are following the guidelines of a social identity, we are not “culturaldopes” as Garfinkel terms it (see also Giddens 1991), blindly following social dic-tates.8 Social norms guide us as we quite intentionally strive to internalize and liveup to these norms and guidelines.9 Achieving a situated identity involves anotherlevel of agency, where interactional goals are less about reestablishing sustainableinteractions and more about achieving desired social or substantive ends. In such sit-uations, enacting a role of teacher, spouse, or customer, our time horizon shifts awayfrom the “knife’s edge” present. Because such interactions involve a great deal of thetaken-for-granted, our attentional focus becomes less concerned with the problematicnow and more with goal attainment or enjoying successful interactions.10 While novelsituations require estimates about one’s ability to act successfully, over time one nolonger needs to reappraise the fit between abilities and the task at hand. Much timewould be lost if living one’s life required people to “spend much of their time in re-dundant self-referent thought” (Bandura 1982:25). Playing the role of professor doesnot involve a complete reconstruction of the self within a routine interaction; pastbehavior and experience guide current role-based behaviors, and free up cognitivespace for focus on goals other than successful identity enactment.

7ACT’s mechanics are much more formalized and based on claimed identities than described here.8Social identities contrast with “personal identity” (Deaux 1992; Hitlin 2003; Onorato and Turner 2004).

Personal identity roots intuitions at the core of the “I’s” patterned spontaneity.9Goffman (1983) states that we identify others both by “categories” and by “individual” attributes. Over

time, significant others develop “identities” that shape our interactions with them. The process wherebywe attribute identities to others is an intriguing corollary to this discussion of individual agency, but onethat would necessitate its own space. For a cultural approach to attribution of agency, see Morris, Menon,and Ames (2001).

10We do not refer to “goals” in a utilitarian sense. Following Collins’s (1989) critique of Mead, weaccept that sociability is, in itself, a central motivation underlying a great deal of social action.


Even within routine situations, there is an element of unpredictability and con-tingency. The effort needed to maintain routine interactions is rarely tied into theconcept of agency, but we do not passively enact claimed identities. The successfulachievement of an identity—even those highest in our salience hierarchies—takes ef-fort and defines ourselves as agents. We are not the first to argue this (see Holsteinand Gubrium 2000), yet a multifaceted notion of agency is improved by noting thiskind of social achievement.

Identity agency captures the sense—unarticulated in Goffman (see Schwalbe 1993)and much symbolic interactionist work (Miyamoto 1970)—of the motivating natureof identity commitments (Gecas 1986, 1991). We do not simply act randomly in ourlives. We select into situations that allow us to build and fulfill important identitycommitments. One’s role as, say, a scholar puts a person in contact with very differentsituations than many alternative career identities.11 Over time, the various identitieswe internalize motivate our actions, and we exercise agency in the very performanceof those identities. We internalize our recurrent identities and they guide subsequentbehavior (e.g., Stryker 1980; Stryker and Burke 2000). Within situations, we mightlook to identity control theory (see Burke 2004 for an overview) for an insight intothe nature of identity influences on within-situation action. Feedback about ourbehavior motivates us to act in line with our claimed identities. We exert agencyover our behavior, but with a different temporal focus than when our routines getinterrupted.

By discussing identity agency, we focus on agentic individuals within the interactionorder and not on the interaction order, itself. The self, comprising both the patternedand spontaneous aspects of the agentic individual, is not only a performance, and itis not constituted anew in each interaction. There are personal commitments to linesof activity, captured through our understanding of identity processes, which motivateour actions and serve as standards for maintaining behavior (Burke 2004; Burke andReitzes 1981). We do not passively live up to our identity commitments, nor do ouridentities unreflectively guide our actions. Social interaction is a constant interplaybetween internal standards and external feedback, between self-verification and self-presentation. We modify our behavior based on feedback, and the maintenance ofsuccessful interaction relies on agentic choices.

Agency does not stem from a blank slate; we have commitments—to ourselves andothers—that we enact and recreate within interactions.12 It is these very commitmentsthat so often lead to the reproduction of structure highlighted in Bourdieu’s, Gid-dens’s, and Sewell’s work. Not simply because various social positions “act” on us ina deterministic way, but because it is important to our sense of self to play the partwell. This is in contrast to more process-oriented symbolic interactionists who privi-lege agency only when rendered evident in problematic situations (Snow 2001), whatwe regard as pragmatic agency. Both pragmatic and identity agency overlap and arepresent within interactions, just as affect-control and identity-control processes areboth operating within situations. Analytically, however, separating these two termsusefully points us toward a way to unify literatures that sometimes appear to talkpast each other.

11It is important to note, but beyond the scope of this article, the limits placed on identity selectionby biology and social circumstance. For example, racial and gender prejudice limits individuals’ potentialidentity claims.

12We bracket an important notion of power inherent within interactions among various social identities.For empirical approaches to this issue, see Cast (2003), or an overview of exchange theory in Cook andRice (2003).


Goffman’s focus on saving face, or Scheff’s (2000) discussion of the power ofshame, fit into the existentially agentic subtext to the identity-agency choices wemake. Shame and embarrassment stem from not fulfilling a valued role adequately,and this threatens our sense of self (Owens and Goodney 2000). The stronger theidentity commitment, we hypothesize, the more existential the threat one feels atfailing to fulfill that identity.13 There are certainly external sanctions, as well, thatlead toward the maintenance of identities. This often occurs in situations whereascribed identities are “forced” onto individuals, as in situations of extreme racialprejudice. Such negatively valued identities may be internalized.

What we refer to as identity agency relies on the personal autonomy we possesseven while following social dictates. “Probably one of the most crucial and adaptiveaspects of the executive function [of the self] is the ability to guide current behavioraccording to long-term goals that lie well beyond the immediate situation” (Baumeis-ter and Vohs 2003:200). While action that follows social guidelines can be describedas constrained action, individuals exercise agency in the successful (or unsuccessful)enactment of these lines of activity. While social commitments can feel binding, theyare also motivating; we strive to live up to them and feel inauthentic if we do not.We exercise agency as we follow social commitments. Agency is not present onlywhen acting in contrast to social expectations.

Identity agency is the level at which Giddens’s discussion of structuration theorybest fits, the anchoring of “practical consciousness” in Goffman’s theorizing aboutthe taken-for-granted in everyday life. Much of this taken-for-granted exists at thelevel of social identity commitments. Identity claims delimit the manner in whichactors can strive for what Manning (2000) refers to as “credibility,” the undercurrentof much of Goffman’s work. We are accountable both to ourselves and others, basedon the identities we attempt to claim and that we internalize; actions taken to produceidentity-specific credibility, while patterned, involve individual choice and free will,and thus comprise identity agency.

Goffman’s (1983) discussion of the “interaction order” points to an important linkbetween identity agency and the self: “much routine situated activity requires a greatdeal of creativity and ingenuity with respect to the notions of self, meaning, situa-tional propriety and so on—that is, the needs and requirements of the interactionorder” (Layder 1997:235). The interaction order is a “deeply moral domain” (Rawls1987) of face-to-face interactions grounded in “universal preconditions of social life”(Goffman 1983). As Rawls (1989) develops this theme in Goffman’s work, the in-teraction order necessitates limits on both self and social structure. Our focus onthe self as a meaningful social phenomenon veers away from Goffman’s vision ofwhat is sociologically important (see also Cahill 1998). Yet, the internal, reflexiveself underlies the myriad of techniques that individuals use to maintain the veneerof successful social interaction patterns (see Schwalbe 1993).

Agency in the Life Course

We do not simply act agentically with regard to temporally proximate goals (prag-matic agency), nor do we only act with situational goals in mind (identity agency).

13An identity is not the same thing as a social role (Thoits and Virshup 1997), though they are commonlyconflated. Identities define oneself in social space relative to others; one may have an identity as “shy”or “humorous” and align one’s self with others who fulfill the content of those identities as they definethem.


Both forms of agency focus primarily on present situations and the ways in whichhuman actors mutually construct interactions and, by doing so, reproduce and po-tentially alter social structures. Agency is constituted, in these situations, through es-tablished self-in-situation processes implicating the reflexive aspect of the self. Someof our actions, however, occur with a broader sense of our futures involved, andthese orientations are important for shaping individuals’ adaptations to situations(Lutfey and Mortimer 2003). We term attempts to exert influence to shape one’slife trajectory “life course agency.”14 This extended temporal horizon complicatesthe nature of agency, as our reflexive capacities extend to incorporate distal goalsand our beliefs about our ability to reach such goals gets folded into such agenticaction.

Life course agency contains two aspects, a situated form of agency (the exercising ofaction with long-term implications), and the self-reflective belief about one’s capacityto achieve life course goals. The former is a longer-range version of existential agency,a capacity all individuals possess. The latter is a self-belief, similar to notions of “per-sonal control” (e.g., Mirowsky and Ross 2003), which reflexively guides decision mak-ing with extended time horizons. This belief influences perseverance across difficultlife course situations much like self-efficacy influences individual self-perceptions ofcapacity for solving pragmatic agency problems; self-perceptions of agentic capacityhave social consequences. People who perceive more agency are more likely to perse-vere in the face of problems, either within situations or in encountering obstacles thatrepresent structural impediments (e.g., Bandura 1992). For example, men are morelikely than women to dismiss negative feedback on mathematical abilities and overat-tribute successes to their own ability (Correll 2001). Some people have self-conceptsabout the possible success of their efforts—which may be accurate or inaccurate—that allow them to endure setbacks or plan their lives with longer-term goals inmind, such as postponing employment to attend college. This distinction is capturedin Clausen’s (1991, 1993) notion of “planful competence,” an individual characteris-tic underlying agency involving three dimensions: self-reflexivity, dependability, andself-confidence. Agency, as planful competence, represents an individual-level con-struct that dictates a person’s facility with making (and sticking to) advantageouslong-term plans (Shanahan, Hofer, and Miech 2003).

A focus on the life course highlights the historically contingent constraints withinwhich individuals develop and exercise agency (Shanahan and Elder 2002). Lifecourse theorists (e.g, Elder 1994, 1998; Mortmer and Shanahan 2003) highlightagency as one of the core principles for understanding the intersection of individ-uals and their life pathways, though the topic is not always employed consistently.Marshall (2000) sees at least three versions of agency in Elder’s writing: agency ascapacity, resistance, and transition. In our typology, “resistance” can be exercisedeither pragmatically or through advocating important self-identities. Both forms havepotentially transformative aspects.15 “Capacity” seems to be related to the motivat-ing power of identity commitments as well as the existential ability to self-initiate

14We bracket what we call the “opportunity structure” of agency (Hitlin and Elder forthcoming). Agencyis exercised within socially structured opportunities. Of course, members of privileged groups have morestructural opportunities to shape their lives and direct their actions. Males, whites, and individuals withmonetary resources are structurally more likely to have the resources to exercise the kinds of agency wediscuss here.

15The concept of agency as resistance traces to a structurally-oriented view of society, with humanactivity seen primarily as residual action over and above macro-structural forces. For an empirical attemptto grapple with this conception, see Rudd and Evans (1998). See McFarland (2004) for an in-depthdiscussion of resistance itself.


actions, what we term existential agency. “Transition” is closest to what we term lifecourse agency, the ability of individuals to make choices at turning points in the lifecourse. We can differentiate between agency as a capacity that all individuals possess,like existential agency, and a variable capacity that some people utilize with greaterfacility. Competent people can make decisions with a future orientation. Some peoplehave more opportunity, however, to develop a sense of confidence due to experienc-ing successful decisions. We can analytically separate the pure capacity for life coursedecisions from the ability to successfully implement them.

Life course agency is an analytical construct that we can apply to the study ofindividuals from a cross-situational perspective: “agency at the level of the personcan be defined as the ability to formulate and pursue life plans” (Shanahan andElder 2002:147). It is exercised when individuals act in line with a distal, futuretime horizon and points to a conglomeration of decisions and events that oftenonly get linked together in hindsight. The concrete events that make up a turningpoint in one’s life may not be immediately clear at the time. Life course agencyrefers, we might say, to the selection of various identities in the process of making(socially delineated) life course transitions. Identity agency focuses on the behaviorsthat stem from the internalization of those identities. The possibility of “possibleselves” (Markus and Nurius 1987)—cognitive representations of who we would liketo become—are motivational, long-term goals for the self, and offer one way toconceptualize life course notions of agentic action. These beliefs about possible futureselves motivate current agentic choices.

Life course research views agency as a central aspect of constructing the life course(Elder, Johnson, and Crosnoe 2003), yet even here, empirical examinations are rare(McMullin and Marshall 1999). Agency is often asserted, claimed to be the post hocresult of differential life trajectories. “The increasing individualization and mobility ofWestern societies have shifted the burden of responsibility for creating and sustainingidentity to the individual” (Baumeister and Vohs 2003:198). Agency is often treated asprecisely the residual from normative patterns of behavior (Marshall 2000). Empiricaltreatments of agency are complicated by the constrained nature of individual agencywithin social structures that channel life course options.

We must stress that there are extreme temporal variations within life course agency,and a full article might be written discerning differences between types of futurehorizons. Certainly, social domains (work, family formation) call on different formsof long-term planning, and the concept might profitably be tied into literatures onsocialization and learning. We intend the concept to be broadly applicable to organiz-ing scholarship on the creation of one’s individual biography. As individuals organizetheir lives, they can be prompted to focus on major life events, major occupationaltransitions, issues of personal relationships, educational histories, and the like. Lifecourse agency refers to individual capacities to orient themselves toward long-termoutcomes, across social domains. Life course scholars can document transitions andturning points in others’ lives after the fact, but we are focusing on individual, first-person capacities for temporal focus on the future. Individuals are active agents inshaping their biographies—within a myriad of constraints, of course—but peoplediffer in their ability to successfully implement these strategies.

Empirical measures on the topic are far from consistent. For example, Kiecoltand Mabry (2000) examine the ways in which college students attempt to gener-ate more positive self-conceptions, and the results of such choices are defined asreflecting agency. Gecas (2003), in a recent review of the concept in life coursetheory, focuses almost exclusively on changes in self-efficacy over time. Shanahan


et al. (1997, 2003) employ Clausen’s (1991, 1993) concept of “planful competence”as a measure of individual skill with agentic choices. Hitlin and Elder (forthcom-ing) incorporate “optimism” as an important psychological component of life courseagency. Thoits (2003) suggests that holding more identities reflects greater personalagency.

Life course agency involves individual orientations toward potential self-capacitiesfor constructing and engaging in successful long-term plans. It highlights the variablenature of the life course at particular junctures based on social structural positionand personal resources that reflect what Shanahan and Hood (1998) term “boundedagency” (see also Evans 2002). For example, greater perceptions of personal control—one aspect of agency—lead to greater health among elderly adults (Krause and Shaw2003). This form of agency lessens across the life course, explained in large part byphysical impairment, less education, and poorer health (Schieman and Campbell2001). Our agentic actions aim toward goals that change in relation to our locationin the life course (Schulz and Heckhausen 1999).

The process of identity selection—or ascription—occurs most often at major tran-sitions (Elder and O’Rand 1995) such as the transition to adulthood (Graber andBrooks-Gunn 1996). Such transitions are rarely spontaneous, at least early in thelife course (in contrast to the death of a parent or spouse, or losing a job), butfundamentally affect the self. These transitions are normative, but they allow forpersonal discretion; within limits, the timing and order of these choices are up toindividuals. Such limits can be both biological and structural; we do not have thepower to become richer, or smarter, or often to accumulate resources that enablemore privileged individuals more options. Much of sociology focuses on the lim-its and social structural constraints that channel people’s choices. What can belost, however, is the fact that within these limits, choices are made. Agency ispresent.

What we term life course agency leads, then, over time to the accumulation ofidentities that are claimed at the level of identity agentic actions. Over time, theseactions get folded into our sense of self and become guiding forces for identityagency. Life course agency focuses on the transitions by which we claim—or leave(see Ebaugh 1988)—social identities (see also Heinz 2002). This type of agency maynot be present in patterned interactions, but rather is found in the “big” life choiceswe make about the timing and sequence of new pathways to follow.

The self is well suited for understanding agency within a longitudinal approach(e.g., Gecas and Mortimer 1987; Honess and Yardley 1987; Owens and Goodney2000), and is central for understanding the construction of the life course (Heinz2002). Evidence suggests continuities of the self over time (Alwin, Cohen, and New-comb 1991; Markus and Wurf 1987), with small fluctuation around a “moving base-line” (Demo 1992). Personal continuities in the self contribute, and derive from,individuals’ constructions of their life courses (see Atchley 1999 and “continuity the-ory”). Serpe (1987) focuses on the ways that socially structured identities remainlargely stable across time precisely as a result of the stability of social structures. Lifecourse agency is also strategic for understanding the interplay between individualsand social structures, as seen in Emirbayer and Goodwin’s (1994) focus on persistingnetworks that influence agency. A great deal of work (for some overviews, see Lutfeyand Mortimer 2003; Roberts and Bengtson 1999; Settersen 2003) discusses the inter-play between social structure and individual life choices, but rarely does this workextend downward to an extensive discussion of influences on the individual. Alwinet al. (1991) offer support for rather striking continuities in individuals across their


lives, in large part because one’s attitudes serve to select individuals into situationsand relationships that reinforce those attitudes over time. Agentic choices reproducesocial structures.

CONCLUSION

Humans are fundamentally active beings. Positing the existence of agency is an ed-ifying theoretical exercise, but current treatments are unfortunately too abstract tooffer guidance for empirical research, especially across different dimensions of socialaction. “Agency,” while an abstract concept, occurs through situated action (Howard1994). Actors must solve problems and enact or construct identities and relation-ships in order to maintain their place within institutions and structures. Theory andresearch have largely occurred in isolation, but incorporating social psychological the-ory and research on the self helps address core sociological concerns about agencyand structure, and can foster engagement with issues about constraints on or socialfacilitation of different sorts of agency.

We offer a model of agency based on the temporal horizons of actors within actionsituations. Being alive requires action, and for reflexive beings this involves choice,analysis, reflection: “Choice is part of the human condition, its content containedin the subjective experience of the person emerging in and through the social pro-cess” (Stryker and Vryan 2003:4). From this perspective, agency is a necessary aspectof organisms struggling to adapt and (in the case of humans) make sense of theirenvironments.16 Some of the more theoretically-oriented discussions of agency havelost touch with these necessary, lived realities, and in so doing show negligible en-gagement with the robust social psychological literature that describes how peopleinteract with their environments.

This model is meant as a heuristic guide for directing theorists toward relevantmicro-literatures. There are fuzzy boundaries between the analytically separate lev-els we discuss. Mapping types of agency and their relation to the reflexive self,we provide a window into relevant social psychological literatures in order to fa-cilitate more empirical treatments about the concept—to move forward from thedebates over the nature and existence of the topic. By incorporating a notion oftime, we suggest how overlapping, seemingly incommensurate notions of agency can,in fact, be organized. Situations call forth differing temporal orientations on thepart of the social actor; agency occurs in the flow of responses to situational exi-gencies. Routine identity enactment involves a different form of agency than doesnovel action, but both are actions guided by the reflexive actor. The sociologi-cal issue is not whether agency exists, but the extent to which we exercise it andthe circumstances that facilitate or hinder that exercise (Berger 1991). By anchoringagency within established research traditions of social psychology, we hope to ad-vance study of bounded agency—its precursors, processes, and influence on socialoutcomes.

Human agency is inextricably social, structured by interactional situations. Ac-tion problems orient actors toward immediate, routine, or long-range goals that im-plicate different attentional and self-processes. Individuals approach situations withframes that focus their attentional processes on relevant stimuli, and the feedback

16While privileging a Western conception of self, we claim that this basic conceptualization can carryacross cultures. The symbolic content of what it means to be a human agent, and the weight given toone’s own feelings and intuitions, certainly varies by culture (Cross 2000; Kondo 1990).


they receive influences their temporal focus. People can and do exercise control overthese horizons (Flaherty 2003), employing an existential level of agency. However,our focus within situations involves a combination of this existential capacity andsituationally circumscribed influences on our attentional processes. Social psycholo-gists have only rarely engaged this temporal dimension, yet time is instrumental forunderstanding the relationship between situated action and social structures.

We link types of agency to actors’ temporal orientations that derive from responsesto situations, shaped by cultural frames. A routine situation has established frames,whereas novel situations require more focus on the self and the moment, suggestingthat applied frames either are not specific to that situation or are borrowed fromother situations. Actors’ temporal horizons shift in response to situational influencesand lead to different types of agentic action. Actors can, of course, agentically shifttheir own temporal horizons (Flaherty 2002), but failure to properly be attuned to asituation would likely lead to social sanctions of some form. This allows us to mapout differing uses of agency across theoretical and empirical treatments, improvingon the vague notion that humans have some sort of free will and are not simplybuffeted around by structural forces. This capacity for self-initiated action, however,is not in and of itself enough to explain social processes surrounding the exercise ofpersonal agency.

Actors who are engaged in situations that we refer to as “pragmatic” are onMead’s “knife’s edge” in the present moment, with their temporal focus squarely onthemselves and interactional goals. Much situated social behavior, however, is of themore routine variety. That does not mean people are passive automatons, mindlesslycarrying out socially dictated roles. We know a great deal about the effort behindmaintaining even routine social action, and enacting claimed social identities. How-ever, the temporal focus during these encounters is less immediate insofar as a novelor ruptured situation drastically focuses one’s attention. The agency involved duringthese interactions is of a different sort, but still demonstrates self-initiated action.17

Finally, situated actions are not always concerned with the situation. Major life de-cisions occur through agents making choices, but those choices can be analyticallydistinguished from attempts to “save face” or to enact a particular identity.

These actions can be studied analytically within a life course framework, keep-ing in mind the distinction between the capacity to exert influence on one’s life (auniversal capacity of socially competent individuals) and the self-perception of thatcapacity (a sense of personal agency that may become a self-fulfilling prophecy). Thelatter form involves measurable sociological constructs (e.g., as personal control orplanful competence) and its social antecedents and consequences can be determined;“perceptions are important to social-psychological analysis, not as independent butas intervening variables” (Kohn 1989:31). Much more needs to be learned about howindividuals generate and employ agency in the life course (Heinz 2002), but this is apromising arena for interdisciplinary research.

Recent calls for exploration of “mechanisms” needed to explain empirical associ-ations (Reskin 2003) suggest that relevant social psychological insights are not beingemployed in the service of broader sociological work. Discussions of agency havebeen largely uninformed by empirical social psychology. We offer this typology in

17Perhaps the experience of agency is different depending on an actor’s self-orientation. For example,Turner’s (1976) suggestion that some people feel “real” in situations when relying on impulse while othersfeel real during institutional settings might theoretically map on to our distinction between pragmatic andidentity agency.


order to build bridges between related literatures addressing similar questions. Studyof the self, quite popular across social psychological disciplines, can be harnessedto guide inquiries about the social nature and distribution of individual freedomwithin social structures. Social psychologists have not, on the whole, been adequatelyconcerned with issues of time (George 1996). The temporal nature of the self hasbeen theorized, but not systematically linked to macro-sociological concerns aboutthe nature of agency. Individuals exercise different forms of agency as their sociallypatterned selves interact within bounded situations and social structures. We hopeto encourage scholars concerned with notions of agency to draw more extensivelyupon established research literatures that deal, though often implicitly, with similarconcerns about the relationship of the self and social structures.

REFERENCES

Ahearn, L. M. 2001. “Language and Agency.” Annual Review of Anthropology 30:109–37.Alexander, J. C. 1992. “Some Remarks on ‘Agency’ in Recent Sociological Theory.” Perspectives 15(1):1–4.———. 1993. “More Notes on the Problem of Agency: A Reply.” Schweiz. Z. Soziol/Rev. Suise Sociol

19:501–06.Alwin, D. F., R. L. Cohen, and T. M. Newcomb. 1991. Political Attitudes Over the Life Span: The

Bennington Women After Fifty Years. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.Archer, M. S. 2000. Being Human: The Problem of Agency.: Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Atchley, R. C. 1999. “Continuity Theory, Self, and Social Structure.” in The Self and Society in Aging

Processes, vol. 94–121, edited by C. D. Ryff and V. Marshall. New York: Springer.Bandura, A. 1982. “The Self and Mechanisms of Agency.” Pp. 3–40 in Psychological Perspectives on the

Self , edited by J. Suls. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.———. 1992. “Exercise of Personal Agency Through the Self-Efficacy Mechanism.” Pp. 3–38 in Self-

Efficacy: Thought Control of Action, edited by R. Schwarzer. Washington: Hemisphere Publishing Cor-poration.

———. 1997. Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control. New York: Freeman.———. 2001. “Social Cognitive Theory: An Agentic Perspective.” Annual Review of Psychology 52:1–

26.———. 2006. “Toward a Psychology of Human Agency.” Perspectives on Psychological Science 1(2):164–

80.Barresi, J. 2001. “Extending Self-Consciousness Into the Future.” Pp. 141–61 in The Self in Time: Devel-

opmental Perspectives, edited by C. Moore and K. Lemmon. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Baumeister, R. F. 1999. “The Nature and Structure of the Self: An Overview.” Pp. 1–20 in The Self in

Social Psychology, edited by R. F. Baumeister. New York: Taylor & Francis.Baumeister, R. F. and K. D. Vohs. 2003. “Self-Regulation and the Executive Function of the Self.” Pp.

197–217 in Handbook of Self and Identity, edited by M. R. Leary and J. P. Tangney. New York: GuilfordPress.

Berger, B. M. 1991. “Structure and Choice in the Sociology of Culture.” Theory and Society 20(1):1–19.

Bourdieu, P. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Burke, P. J. 2004. “Identities and Social Structure.” Social Psychology Quarterly 67(1):5–15.Burke, P. J. and D. C. Reitzes. 1981. “The Link Between Identity and Role Performance.” Social Psychology

Quarterly 54:83–92.Cahill, S. E. 1998. “Toward a Sociology of the Person.” Sociological Theory 16(2):131–48.Callero, P. L. 2003. “The Sociology of the Self.” Annual Review of Sociology 29:115–33.Camic, C. 1986. “The Matter of Habit.” American Journal of Sociology 91:1039–87.Cast, A. D. 2003. “Power and the Ability to Define the Situation.” Social Psychology Quarterly 66(3):185–

201.Clausen, J. S. 1991. “Adolescent Competence and the Shaping of the Life Course.” American Journal of

Sociology 96:805–42.———. 1993. American Lives: Looking Back at Children of the Great Depression. New York: Free Press.Cockerham, W. C. 2005. “Health Lifestyle Theory and the Convergence of Agency and Structure.” Journal

of Health and Social Behavior 46:51–67.Collins, R. 1989. “Toward a Neo-Meadian Sociology of Mind.” Symbolic Interaction 12(1):1–32.


———. 1992. “The Romanticism of Agency/Structure Versus the Analysis of Micro/Macro.” CurrentSociology 40:77–97.

———. 2004. Interaction Ritual Chains. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Cook, K. S. and E. Rice. 2003. “Social Exchange Theory.” Pp. 53–76 in Handbook of Social Psychology,

edited by J. Delamater. New York: Kluwer.Correll, S. J. 2001. “Gender and the Career Choice Process: The Role of Biased Self-Assessments.” Amer-

ican Journal of Sociology 106(6):1691–1730.Cross, S. E. 2000. “What Does It Mean to ‘Know Thyself’ in the United States and Japan?” Pp. 159–79

in Self and Identity Through the Life Course in Cross-Cultural Perspsective, vol. 5, edited by T. J. Owens.Stamford, CT: JAI Press.

Deaux, K. 1992. “Personalizing Identity and Socializing Self.” Pp. 9–33 in Social Psychology of Identityand the Self Concept, edited by G. Breakwell. London: Academic Press.

Demo, D. H. 1992. “The Self-Concept Over Time: Research Issues and Directions.” Annual Review ofSociology 18:303–26.

Dewey, J. 1934. A Common Faith. New Haven: Yale University Press.Dunn, R. G. 1997. “Self, Identity, and Difference: Mead and the Poststructuralists.” Sociological Quarterly

38(4):687–705.Ebaugh, H. R. F. 1988. Becoming an Ex: The Process of Role Exit. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Elder, G. H. Jr. 1994. “Time, Human Agency, and Social Change: Perspectives on the Life Course.” Social

Psychology Quarterly 57(1):4–15.———. 1998. “The Life Course and Human Development.” Pp. 939–91 in Handbook of Child Psychology,

Volume 1: Theoretical Models of Human Development, edited by R. M. Lerner and W. Damon. NewYork: Wiley.

Elder, G. H. Jr., M. K. Johnson, and R. Crosnoe. 2003. “The Emergence and Development of Life CourseTheory.” Pp. 3–19 in Handbook of the Life Course, edited by J. T. Mortimer and M. J. Shanahan. NewYork: Kluwer.

Elder, G. H. Jr. and A. M. O’Rand. 1995. “Adult Lives in a Changing Society.” Pp. 452–75 in SociologicalPerspectives on Social Psychology, edited by K. S. Cook, G. A. Fine, and J. S. House. Boston: Allynand Bacon.

Emirbayer, M. and J. Goodwin. 1994. “Network Analysis, Culture, and the Problem of Agency.” AmericanJournal of Sociology 99(6):1411–54.

Emirbayer, M. and A. Mische. 1998. “What Is Agency?” American Journal of Sociology 103(4):962–1023.Evans, K. 2002. “Taking Control of Their Lives? Agency in Young Adult Transitions in England and the

New Germany.” Journal of Youth Studies 5(3):245–69.Flaherty, M. G. 1999. A Watched Pot: How We Experience Time. New York: New York University Press.———. 2002. “Making Time: Agency and the Construction of Temporal Experience.” Symbolic Interaction

25(3):379–88.———. 2003. “Time Work: Customizing Temporal Experience.” Social Psychology Quarterly 66(1):17–

33.Flahterty, M. G. and G. A. Fine. 2001. “Present, Past, and Future: Conjugating George Herbert Mead’s

Perspective on Time.” Time and Society 10(2):147–61.Fuchs, S. 2001. “Beyond Agency.” Sociological Theory 19(1):24–40.Gecas, V. 1986. “The Motivational Significance of Self-Concept for Socialization Theory.” Pp. 131–56 in

Advances in Group Processes, vol. 3, edited by E. J. Lawler. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.———. 1991. “The Self-Concept as a Basis for a Theory of Motivation.” Pp. 171–87 in The Self-Society

Dynamic: Cognition, Emotion, and Action, edited by J. A. Howard and P. L. Callero. New York: Cam-bridge University Press.

———. 2003. “Self-Agency and the Life Course.” in Handbook of the Life Course, edited by J. T. Mortimerand M. Shanahan. New York: Kluwer.

Gecas, V. and P. Burke. 1995. “Self and Identity.” Pp. 41–67 in Sociological Perspectives on Social Psy-chology, edited by K. S. Cook, G. A. Fine, and J. S. House. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Gecas, V. and J. T. Mortimer. 1987. “Stability and Change in the Self-Concept from Adolescence toAdulthood.” Pp. 265–86 in Self and Identity: Perspectives Across the Lifespan, edited by T. Honess andK. Yardley. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

George, L. K. 1996. “Missing Links: The Case for a Social Psychology of the Life Course.” Gerontologist36(2):248–55.

Giddens, A. 1984. The Constitution of Society Introduction of the Theory of Structuration. Berkeley: Uni-versity of California Press.


———. 1991. Modernity and Self-Identity Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Cambridge, UK:Polity Press.

Goffman, E. 1974. Frame Analysis an Essay on the Organization of Experience. New York: Harper & Row.———. 1983. “The Interaction Order: American Sociological Association, 1982 Presidential Address.”

American Sociological Review 48(1):1–17.Gonos, G. 1977. “ ‘Situation’ Versus ‘Frame’: The ‘Interactionist’ and the ‘Structuralist’ Analyses of

Everyday Life.” American Sociological Review 42(6):854–67.Graber, J. A. and J. Brooks-Gunn. 1996. “Expectations for and Precursors to Leaving Home in Young

Women.” New Directions for Child Development 71:21–38.Hayes, S. 1994. “Structure and Agency and the Sticky Problem of Culture.” Sociological Theory 12(1):57–

72.Heinz, W. R. 2002. “Self-Socialization and Post-Traditional Society.” Advances in Life Course Research

7:41–64.Heise, D. R. 1977. “Social Action as the Control of Affect.” Behavioral Science 22:163–77.Hewitt, J. P. 1989. Dilemmas of the American Self . Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Hitlin, S. 2003. “Values as the Core of Personal Identity: Drawing Links Between Two Theories of the

Self.” Social Psychology Quarterly 66(2):118–37.Hitlin, S. and G. H. Elder, Jr. 2007. “Agency: An Empirical Model of an Abstract Concept.” Pp. 33–67

In Advances in Life Course Research, Vol. 11, edited by R. Macmillan. Netherlands: Elsevier/JAI Press.Hochschild, A. R. 1983. The Managed Heart Commercialization of Human Feeling. Berkeley: University

of California Press.Holstein, J. A. and J. F. Gubrium. 2000. The Self We Live by Narrative Identity in a Postmodern World.

New York: Oxford University Press.Honess, T. and K. Yardley. 1987. Self and Identity: Perspectives Across the Lifespan. London: Routledge

& Kegan Paul.Howard, J. A. 1994. “A Social Cognitive Conception of Social Structure.” Social Psychology Quarterly

57(3):210–27.Joas, H. 1985. G. H. Mead: A Contemporary Re-Examination of His Thought. Cambridge, UK: MIT Press.———. 1993. Pragmatism and Social Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.———. 1996. The Creativity of Action. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.———. 2000. The Genesis of Values. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.Kiecolt, J. and B. J. Mabry. 2000. “Agency in Young Adulthood: Intentional Self-Change Among College

Students.” Advances in Life-Course Research 5:181–205.Kohn, M. L. 1989. “Social Structure and Personality: A Quintessentially Sociological Approach to Social

Psychology.” Social Forces 68(1):26–33.Kondo, D. 1990. Crafting Selves: Power, Gender, and Discourses of Identity in a Japanese Workplace.

Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Krause, N. and B. A. Shaw. 2003. “Role-Specific Control, Personal Meaning, and Health in Later Life.”

Research on Aging 25(6):559–86.Layder, D. 1997. Modern Social Theory: Key Debates and New Directions. London: UCL Press.Lemmon, K. and C. Moore. 2001. “Binding the Self in Time.” Pp. 163–79 in The Self in Time: Develop-

mental Perspectives, edited by C. Moore and K. Lemmon. Lawrence Erlbaum.Little, T. D., P. H. Hawley, C. C. Henrich, and K. W. Marsland. 2002. “Three Views of the Agentic Self:

A Developmental Synthesis.” Handbook of Self-Determination Research, edited by E. L. Deci and R.M. Ryan. New York: University of Rochester Press.

Loyal, S. and B. Barnes. 2001. “‘Agency’ as a Red Herring.” Philosophy of the Social Sciences 31(4):507–24.Lutfey, K. and J. T. Mortimer. 2003. “Development and Socialization Through the Adult Life Course.”

Pp. 183–202 in Handbook of Social Psychology, edited by J. Lamater. New York: Kluwer.Manning, P. 2000. “Credibility, Agency, and the Interaction Order.” Symbolic Interaction 23(3):283–

97.Markus, H. and P. Nurius. 1987. “Possible Selves: The Interface Between Motivation and the Self-

Concept.” Pp. 157–72 in Self and Identity: Psychosocial Perspectives, edited by K. Yardley and T.Honess. New York: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Markus, H. and E. Wurf. 1987. “The Dynamic Self-Concept.” Annual Review of Psychology 38:299–337.Marshall, V. W. 2000. “Agency, Structure, and the Life Course in the Era of Reflexive Modernization.”

In The Life Course in the 21st Century. Washington, DC.———. 2003. “Agency, Events, and Structure at the End of the Life Course.” Presented at PaVie 2003

Research Colloquium, “Trajectories, Stages, Transitions and Events of the Life Course: Towards anInterdisciplinary Perspective.”


McFarland, D. A. 2004. “Resistance as a Social Drama: A Study of Change-Oriented Encounters.”American Journal of Sociology 109(6):1249–1318.

McMullin, J. A. and V. W. Marshall. 1999. “Structure and Agency in the Retirement Process: A CaseStudy of Montreal Garment Workers.” Pp. 305–38 in Self and Society in Aging, edited by C. Ryff andV. W. Marshall. New York: Springer.

Mead, G. H. 1932. The Philosophy of the Present. Chicago, London: Open Court Publishing.———. 1938. The Philosophy of the Act. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Meyer, J. W. and R. L. Jepperson. 2000. “ The ‘Actors’ of Modern Society: The Cultural Construction

of Social Agency.” Sociological Theory 18(1):100–20.Mirowsky, J. and C. E. Ross. 2003. Education, Social Status, and Health. New York: Walter de Gruyter.Miyamoto, S. F. 1970. “Self, Motivation, and Symbolic Interactionist Theory.” In Human Nature and

Collective Behavior: Papers in Honor of Herbert Blumer, edited by Tamotsu Shibutani. Englewood Cliffs,NJ: Prentice-Hall Inc.

Morris, M. W., T. Menon, and D. R. Ames. 2001. “Culturally Conferred Conceptions of Agency: A Keyto Social Perception of Persons, Groups, and Other Actors.” Personality and Social Psychology Review5(2):169–82.

Mortmer, J. T. and M. E. Shanahan. 2003. Handbook of the Life Course. New York: Kluwer.Onorato, R. S. and J. C. Turner. 2004. “Fluidity in the Self-Concept: The Shift from Personal to Social

Identity.” European Journal of Social Psychology 34:257–78.Owens, T. J. 2003. “Self and Identity.” Pp. 205–32 in Handbook of Social Psychology, vol. 5, edited by J.

DeLamater. New York: Kluwer.Owens, T. J. and S. Goodney. 2000. “Self, Identity, and the Moral Emotions Across the Life Course.”

Pp. 33–53 in Self and Identity Through the Life Course in Cross-Cultural Perspective, vol. 5, edited byT. J. Owens. Stamford, CT: JAI Press.

Rawls, A. W. 1987. “The Interaction Order Sui Generis:Goffman’s Contribution to Social Theory.” Soci-ological Theory 5(2):136–49.

———. 1989. “Language, Self, and Social Order: A Reformulation of Goffman and Sacks.” HumanStudies 12(1–2):147–72.

Reskin, B. F. 2003. “Including Mechanisms in Our Models of Ascriptive Inequality.” American SociologicalReview 68:1–21.

Roberts, R. E. L. and V. L. Bengtson. 1999. “The Social Psychology of Values: Effects of IndividualDevelopment, Social Change, and Family Transmission Over the Life Span.” Pp. 453–82 in The Selfand Society in Aging Processes, edited by C. D. Ryff and V. W. Marshall. New York: Springer.

Rudd, P. and K. Evans. 1998. “Structure and Agency in Youth Transitions: Student Experiences of Vo-cational Further Education.” Journal of Youth Studies 1(1):39–62.

Scheff, T. J. 2000. “Shame and the Social Bond: A Sociological Theory.” Sociological Theory 18(1):84–99.

Schieman, S. and J. E. Campbell. 2001. “Age Variations in Personal Agency and Self-Esteem: The Contextof Physical Disability.” Journal of Aging and Health 13(2):155–85.

Schulz, R. and J. Heckhausen. 1999. “Aging, Culture and Control: Setting a New Research Agenda.”Journal of Gerontology 54B(3):139–45.

Schwalbe, M. L. 1993. “Goffman Against Postmodernism: Emotion and the Reality of the Self.” SymbolicInteraction 16(4):333–50.

Serpe, R. T. 1987. “Stability and Change in Self: A Structural Symbolic Interactionist Explanation.” SocialPsychology Quarterly 50(1):44–55.

Settersen, R. A. Jr. 2003. “Age Structuring and the Rhythm of the Life Course.” Pp. 81–102 in Handbookof the Life Course, edited by J. T. S. M. J. Mortimer. New York: Kluwer.

Sewell, W. H. Jr. 1992. “A Theory of Structure: Duality, Agency, and Transformation.” American Journalof Sociology 98:1–29.

Shanahan, M. J. 2000. “Pathways to Adulthood in Changing Societies: Variability and Mechanisms inLife Course Perspective.” Annual Review of Sociology 26:667–92.

Shanahan, M. J. and G. H. Elder Jr. 2002. “History, Agency, and the Life Course.” Pp. 145–86 in Agency,Motivation, and the Life Course, vol. 48, edited by R. A. Dienstbier and L. J. Crockett. Lincoln:University of Nebraska.

Shanahan, M. J., G. H. Elder Jr., and R. A. Miech. 1997. “History and Agency in Men’s Lives: Pathwaysto Achievement in Cohort Perspective.” Sociology of Education 70(1):54–67.

Shanahan, M. J., S. M. Hofer, and R. A. Miech. 2003. “Planful Competence, the Life Course, and Aging:Retrospect and Prospect.” Pp. 189-211 in Personal Control in Social and Life Course Contexts, editedby S. H. Zarit, L. I. Pearlin, and K. W. Schaie. New York: Springer.


Shanahan, M. J. and K. E. Hood. 1998. “Adolescents in Changing Social Structures: Bounded Agencyin Life Course Perspective.” Pp. 123–34 in Negotiating Adolescence in Times of Social Change: Cross-National Perspectives on Developmental Processes and Social Intervention, edited by R. Silbereisen andE. Crockett. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Smith-Lovin, L. and D. R. Heise. 1988. Analyzing Social Interaction: Research Advances in Affect ControlTheory. New York: Gordon & Breach.

Snow, D. A. 2001. “Extending and Broadening Blumer’s Conceptualization of Symbolic Interactionism.”Symbolic Interaction 24:367–77.

Stryker, S. 1980. Symbolic Interactionism: A Social Structural Version. Menlo Park, CA: Ben-jamin/Cummings.

Stryker, S. and P. J. Burke. 2000. “The Past, Present, and Future of an Identity Theory.” Social PsychologyQuarterly 63(4):284–97.

Stryker, S. and K. D. Vryan. 2003. “The Symbolic Interactionist Frame.” Pp. 3–28 in Handbook of SocialPsychology, edited by J. DeLamater. New York: Kluwer.

Swanson, G. E. 1992. “Doing Things Together: Some Basic Forms of Agency and Structure in CollectiveAction and Some Explanations.” Social Psychology Quarterly 55(2):94–117.

Thoits, P. A. 2003. “Personal Agency and Multiple Role-Identities.” Pp. 179–94 in Advances in IdentityTheory and Research, edited by P. J. Burke, T. J. Owens, R. T. Serpe, and P. A. Thoits. New York:Kluwer.

Thoits, P. A. and L. K. Virshup. 1997. “Me’s and We’s: Forms and Functions of Social Identities.” Pp.106–33 in Self and Identity: Fundamental, edited by R. Ashmore and L. Jussim. New York: OxfordUniversity Press.

Turner, J. H. and J. E. Stets. 2006. “Sociological Theories of Human Emotions.” Annual Review ofSociology 32:25–52.

Turner, R. H. 1976. “The Real Self: From Institution to Impulse.” American Journal of Sociology 84:1–23.Wiley, N. 1994. The Semiotic Self . Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.Zerubavel, E. 1997. Social Mindscapes: an Invitation to Cognitive Sociology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press.

Agency - Hitlin and Elder 2007 - Time, Self, And Agency

Documents

Transcript of Agency - Hitlin and Elder 2007 - Time, Self, And Agency