Justin M. Moscarello, Catherine A. Hartley, Agency and the Calibration of Motivated Behavior, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Volume 21, Issue 10, 2017, Pages 725-735, DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2017.06.008.
The controllability of positive or negative environmental events has long been recognized as a critical factor determining their impact on an organism. In studies across species, controllable and uncontrollable reinforcement have been found to yield divergent effects on subsequent behavior. Here we present a model of the organizing influence of control, or a lack thereof, on the behavioral repertoire. We propose that individuals derive a generalizable estimate of agency from controllable and uncontrollable outcomes, which serves to calibrate their behavioral strategies in a manner that is most likely to be adaptive given their prior experience.