Human Agency: What It Means for Your Everyday Choices

What does human agency mean in practice?

Bandura describes four features: intentionality, forethought, self-regulation and self-reflection. Put simply, you can form an intention, consider what might follow, guide your actions and review whether your approach still makes sense. These features describe a psychological theory of agency; they are not a checklist you have to complete before making a choice. Bandura’s explanation of agency

Imagine opening a video platform to learn how to repair a shelf. You find the answer, then another video starts. You might enjoy it. You might prefer to get the screwdriver.

The agency involved is ordinary: the reason for opening the platform can remain relevant after its recommendations offer a different direction. Continuing, saving the video or closing the app can all express a deliberate choice. The outcome alone does not reveal whether the person felt able to choose it.

Personal agency does not require constant self-monitoring. There is room for habit, spontaneity, entertainment and a thoroughly unproductive afternoon. Agency concerns the room people have to influence their lives, rather than an obligation to scrutinise every moment.

How attention and agency connect

Attention control has a narrower meaning than human agency. Cognitive psychologist Klaus Oberauer describes it in terms of giving priority to mental representations relevant to a current goal. This helps explain how someone can keep an intention in mind while other information competes with it. Oberauer, 2024

Agency also raises questions about that intention: Is this what I want to pursue? Can I reconsider it? What resources or support do I need? A laboratory measure of attention control does not answer those questions or score how much freedom someone has in everyday life.

At unscatter, we use attention management for an everyday approach to understanding what occupies attention and the conditions that support deliberate choice. If you have time available but struggle to engage with your intended task, the time management and attention management comparison helps separate the questions involved.

Why the attention economy belongs in this conversation

The competition for attention predates the smartphone. In 1971, Herbert Simon argued that abundant information creates a problem for the limited attention available to receive it. He proposed designing information systems around the person receiving information, including filtering and organising what reaches them. Simon, 1971, pp. 40–44

Thomas Davenport and John Beck later developed a business perspective in The Attention Economy: organisations need to consider both how they attract attention and how they allocate their own. This is a management framework, rather than experimental proof of how a particular app affects you. Davenport and Beck, The Attention Economy

This creates a possible tension between a service’s invitation and a person’s purpose. A suggested video may be useful; a reminder may bring someone back to something they chose. At other times, continued engagement may serve a commercial goal after the person’s original purpose has been met. The design and business context belong in the explanation alongside individual habits.

The digital distractions article looks more closely at alerts, interruptions and the information competing for attention.

Your circumstances are part of your agency

Agency happens within real conditions: income, deadlines, caring responsibilities, accessibility and the authority to change a decision. Bandura distinguishes direct personal action from acting through others and acting collectively. Getting support can therefore be part of exercising agency. Bandura, 2001

The related idea of autonomy is sometimes confused with doing everything alone. In self-determination theory, Deci and Ryan distinguish autonomy—a sense of willing endorsement—from independence. You can willingly rely on another person. Deci and Ryan, 2008

Consider a hypothetical return to work after maternity leave. A recurring late meeting clashes with childcare. A better calendar may make the clash visible, but it cannot supply alternative care or change the team’s expectations. The relevant next step may be to ask for a different meeting time, a written contribution or a discussion about responsibilities.

The same distinction matters when a student lacks a quiet study space, a creative needs a clearer brief or an entrepreneur has accepted more work than one person can deliver. A constraint is part of the explanation, not evidence of inadequate effort.

Being heard also matters

There is a social side to attention. Philosophers Leonie Smith and Alfred Archer argue that failing to give people the attention they are due as contributors to knowledge can restrict their ability to influence shared understanding. Their paper develops an ethical argument about epistemic injustice. It does not describe a clinical attention deficit. Smith and Archer, 2020

For unscatter, this suggests a question for teams and product builders as well as individuals: whose experience is missing from the decision? Someone may need a meaningful opportunity to explain a problem before they need advice about managing it.

Agency can be shared

An everyday meeting illustrates the difference between personal choice and shared conditions. A participant may be able to prepare a question, while the organiser controls the agenda and the team controls when decisions are made. Asking one person to become more organised leaves those other sources of influence out of the picture.

In Bandura’s account, proxy agency involves others acting on a person’s behalf, while collective agency involves people acting together. Neither requires pretending that everyone has equal authority. A team agreeing to circulate decisions in writing is a different kind of change from one participant taking better notes. Both can matter, but they act on different conditions. Bandura, 2001

For unscatter, the principle of removal makes this distinction useful. A recurring demand may be unnecessary, a process may be unclear, or a decision may require someone else’s authority. More self-management is only one possible response. Sometimes a shared arrangement needs to change.

Human judgement and technology

An AI tool might suggest a schedule, summarise a discussion or draft an email. Producing an answer and deciding whether that answer deserves to guide an action are different roles. A schedule can be neatly arranged while containing commitments the person never wanted. An email can sound polished while expressing a position its sender does not endorse.

UNESCO’s Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence emphasises human oversight and ultimate human responsibility. It is an ethical and policy framework, not evidence that any particular product already supports agency. UNESCO’s AI ethics principles

unscatter’s mission is to develop technology with human agency at its centre. Our principle of removal guides that ambition: reduce unnecessary demands, explain suggestions clearly and leave room for people to question, change or decline them.

Human agency concerns both a person’s contribution to a choice and the conditions that make choice possible. For the related question of how technology fits into everyday life, continue with the digital wellbeing guide.