Title: Understanding Personal Agency | Philosophical Therapist
Headings: Understanding Personal Agency
Understanding Personal Agency
Hyper-agency
Hypo-agency
Inverted agency
Conclusion
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Content: This all depends on what is happening inside of that person’s head, not what you’re saying or doing to them. I can give two women a massage: my girlfriend and a stranger on the train. While I am doing the exact same action to both women, they will react differently. But here’s the thing, while most of the time my girlfriend wants a massage, and most women don’t want to be touched by a stranger, sometimes my girlfriend won’t want a massage and sometimes a stranger on a train will respond positively to a massage. People are not predictable like a physical object is. That which has emotions is impossible to understand by the laws of physics alone. It may be tempting to tell people whatever you think might alter their thoughts, feelings, and actions to suit your interests, particularly if you believe you have agency over that person, but this is an error in observation. A more careful observation is that the other person chose to respond to your words in the way you were hoping they would, but just because they chose to respond positively to you once or even a few times, does not mean they will continue to do so. Indeed, once one starts full blown lying to people in an effort to get the desired responses from them, it is only a matter of time before they point blank refuse to co-operate with you at all and it turns into a vicious power struggle.