Sense of Agency
entry by Julie M. Marx, Global Family Expert at Expat Valley
The subjective experience of being an active participant in one’s own life (capable of making meaningful choices, influencing outcomes, and authoring one’s own story) rather than being passively subject to circumstances. In internationally mobile contexts, a strong sense of agency is associated with more positive adjustment outcomes and is frequently what distinguishes individuals who experience mobility as enriching from those who experience it as overwhelming.
Comparable terms
Self-efficacy (Bandura — the belief in one’s capacity to perform specific tasks; agency is broader and more narrative in scope) · Internal locus of control (Rotter — the belief that outcomes are determined by one’s own actions; empirically related to positive adjustment outcomes) · Empowerment (social work, coaching — the facilitated development of agency in others) · Autonomy (positive psychology, self-determination theory — one of three basic psychological needs)
Why this matters
When moves are imposed, people can feel life is “done to” them. A strong sense of agency changes how the same circumstances are experienced. Supporting agency (especially for partners and teens) shifts mobility from pure disruption to chosen path.
Cross-references
Resilience (Wellbeing & Mental Health); Meaning-Making (Wellbeing & Mental Health); Positive Mobility (Transitions & Mobility); Flourishing (Wellbeing & Mental Health); Emotional Regulation (Wellbeing & Mental Health); Wellbeing (Wellbeing & Mental Health); Accompanying Partner Career Disruption (Family Dynamics). Flourishing and wellbeing describe the outcomes that a strong sense of agency most directly enables; emotional regulation is the psychological competency that sustains agency under pressure. The accompanying partner career disruption entry documents one of the most consequential threats to sense of agency in internationally mobile populations — when career identity is disrupted by relocation, the professional dimension of agency is significantly undermined, and restoring it is a primary coaching and counseling goal.
Sources
Bandura, A. (1997). Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control. W.H. Freeman. The foundational text on self-efficacy as the most empirically grounded dimension of agency, with direct implications for understanding how internationally mobile individuals approach new cultural and professional challenges.
Sense of agency as a broader narrative and existential construct — beyond Bandura’s self-efficacy — is addressed in: McAdams, D.P. (1993). The Stories We Live By: Personal Myths and the Making of the Self. William Morrow. For the specific application to accompanying partner empowerment in the relocation context, see: Lazarova, M., Westman, M. & Shaffer, M. (2010). Academy of Management Review, 35(1), 93–117.
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