The Influences of Role, Action Contribution, and Outcome Feedback on Individual and Joint Sense of Agency

Abstract

Individuals can experience both “I” based individual agency and “we” based joint agency during cooperative action. This study examined how three key factors, role identity (leader, follower), action contribution (high, equal, low), and outcome feedback (success, failure, none), influence these two forms of agency. Through three experiments using goal-directed joint tasks and subjective agency ratings, we systematically explored their main and interactive effects. In Experiment 1, without feedback, individual agency increased with greater action contributions and was stronger for leaders than for followers, while joint agency remained stable. Experiment 2 confirmed these effects, showing independent contributions of role and effort to individual agency but minimal effects on joint agency. Experiment 3 introduced outcome feedback, revealing that success amplified individual agency overall, while joint agency was shaped by complex interactions. Specifically, followers with high contributions reported stronger joint agency after success, whereas leaders with high contributions reported stronger joint agency after failure. These findings suggest that while individual agency is closely linked to leadership and effort, joint agency reflects a more dynamic integration of social roles, effort distribution, and outcome evaluation. The study highlights the importance of considering both conceptual (role-based) and sensorimotor (effort-based) cues in understanding agency. It also reveals how outcome feedback and attribution processes, such as self-serving bias, modulate perceptions of control and responsibility in cooperative contexts.