Personal Control in Action : Cognitive and Motivational Mechanisms

Presents research developments on personal control and self-regulation. This book provides a brief synopses of each chapter as introductions to its three major sections. These sections cover the person as an agent of control, affective and cognitive mechanisms of executive agency, and reactions to threatened control.

Human beings are agents: They may exert influence over their own fate. They initiate their actions, experience a considerable degree of freedom and control in their mundane activities, and respond adversely to external constraints to their agency; they are able to monitor and modify their moti­ vation, affective states, and behavior. Since the sixties, the notion of person-as-agent has become increas­ ingly accepted in scientific psychology. Nowadays, personal control is a standard topic in research on personality, motivation, and social behavior. The most popular approach identifies personal control with a feeling or judgment: To have control means to perceive the self as a source of causa­ tion. Within this perspective, such consciously accessible contents like perceived freedom and self-determination, feelings and expectations of control, or perceived self-efficacy and competence emerge as natural tar­ gets of research (see e.g., Alloy, Clements, & Koenig, 1993; Bandura, 1977; OeCharms, 1968; Oeci & Ryan, 1985; Harvey, 1976; Rotter, 1966; Thomp­ son, 1993; Wortman, 1975).