Experiences Of Agency Research Articles

Recognition and the Creation of Wellbeing

Whilst much research into alternative and complementary medicine use indicates that these practices enable experiences of control, agency and empowerment, few theoretically informed answers have been given to why and how consultations with alternative and complementary health practitioners facilitate experiences that are felt to be ‘healing’.This article utilizes theories of recognition in order to reflect on the healing experiences of women seeking health and wellbeing through varied forms of alternative and complementary medicine. I analyse the empowering and agency-giving aspects of alternative and complementary medicines, in particular in relation to wider societal conceptualizations of the self. This article is based on qualitative interviews with both practitioners and clients of varying alternative and complementary medicines.

Self-referring terms, event transitivity and development of self

We explored 2-year-olds’ developing self-conceptions by examining uses of terms for the self ( I, me, own name) to mark contexts of self-action that varied in transitivity. Children differed in their preferred terms for self-reference ( I versus proper name/ me). “I-users” produced relatively more verbs for highly transitive events that encode subjective experiences of intention and agency and “Name-users” produced relatively more verbs for intransitive events that encode objective experiences of self in motion, even though verb and self-reference vocabularies were similar for the two groups. Results are discussed in terms of children's creative use of language to construct different developmental paths toward self-conceptions and acquisition of the personal pronoun system.

The experience of agency nurses working in a London teaching hospital

This Husserlian phenomenological study explored the lived experience of eight full-time agency nurses working in the environment of intensive care in London, United Kingdom. In-depth interviews were used to ascertain the participants' experiences of full-time agency nursing in intensive care. Colaizzi's [Colaizzi P. Psychological research as the phenomenologist views it. In: Vale R, King M, editors. Existential-phenomenological alternatives for psychology. London: Oxford University Press; 1978, p. 48-71] method of data analysis was utilised. Thematic analysis identified three cluster themes: the shared experience of lacking confidence; the shared experience of deskilling; and the shared experience of feelings of isolation. The theme of the shared experience of lacking confidence identified the importance of support and understanding of agency nurses' needs in the ICU. The theme of the shared experience of deskilling illuminated participants concern at not having the opportunity to care for patients of higher acuity. The theme of the shared experience of feelings of isolation highlighted that often participants did not feel they "belonged to a team". Study findings suggest the need to include: the implementation of protocols within the clinical setting; the provision of performance feedback to agency nurses; and the consideration of ongoing structured professional development and education for ICU agency nurses.

Agency, authorship, and illusion

Daniel Wegner argues that conscious will is an illusion. I examine the adequacy of his theory of apparent mental causation and whether, if accurate, it suggests that our experience of agency and authorship should be considered illusory. I examine various interpretations of this claim and raise problems for each interpretation. I also distinguish between the experiences of agency and authorship.

The Rise of an Ideal: Tracing Changing Discourses of Wellbeing

Wellbeing is a quality in demand in today's society. Wellbeing is virtue that is much desired, much promoted, and much debated. Yet, as an ideal, wellbeing is not a concept set in stone. Rather, conceptualisations and experiences of wellbeing are produced in and through wider social perceptions and practices. This article outlines and analyses contemporary conceptualisations of wellbeing and suggests that ideas of wellbeing capture and reproduce important social norms. Indeed, the increasing popularity of the ideal of wellbeing appears to reflect shifts in perceptions and experiences of individual agency and responsibility. In particular, dominant discourses of wellbeing relate to changes in subjectivity; they manifest a move from subjects as citizens to subjects as consumers. In a consumer society, wellbeing emerges as a normative obligation chosen and sought after by individual agents. This article is informed by social theories of subjectivity and critical analyses of selected newspaper reports from 1985 to 2003.

The Diane Pretty Case and the Occasional Impotence of Justification in Ethics

Most discussions in ethics argue that a certain practice or act is morally justified, with any underlying theory taken as supporting a guide to general action by aiding discovery of the objectively and singularly right thing to do. I suggest that this oversimplifies the agent's own experience of the moral dilemma, and I take the recent English case of Diane Pretty's request for assisted suicide as an example. The law refused, despite the obvious sympathy many felt for her. This only appears paradoxical, I suggest, because too much is expected of the concept of justification, and because moral understanding of a particular case is too often reduced to the legalistic search for general justificatory reasons. The starting point should be, I conclude, a full awareness of the phrase "there but for the grace of God go I".

Self-Consciousness and the Unity of Consciousness

Consciousness has a number of puzzling features. One such feature is its unity: the experiences (conscious states) that one has at a particular time seem to occur together in a certain way. I am currently enjoying visual experiences of my computer screen, auditory experiences of bird song, olfactory experiences of coffee, and tactile experiences of feeling the ground beneath my feet. Conjoined with these perceptual experiences are proprioceptive experiences, experiences of agency, affective and emotional experiences, and conscious thoughts of various kinds. A striking fact about these experiences is that they appear to be phenomenally unified. Take just two of them: the sound of bird-song and the smell of coffee. There is something it is like to have the auditory experience, there is something it is like to have the olfactory experience, and there is something it is like to have both the auditory and olfactory experience together. These two experiences occur as parts or components or aspects of a larger, more complex experience. And what holds of these two experiences seems to hold?at least in normal contexts?of all of one's simultaneous experiences: they seem to be subsumed by a single, maximal experience.2 We could think of this maximal experience as an experiential perspective on the world. What it is like to be me right now is (or involves) an extremely complex conscious state that subsumes various simpler experiences (seeing a computer screen, hearing bird-song, smelling coffee, and so on). I will follow recent literature in using the term 'co-consciousness' for the relation that the members of a set of conscious states bear to each other when they have a complex phenomenology (see Bayne and Chalmers 2003; Dainton 2000; Hurley 19^8; Lockwood 1989). We can illuminate co-consciousness by contrasting it with other unity relations that experiences can enter into. One such relation is co-ownership:

Connecting Ethnicity, Agency and Ageing

The experience of growing older in Britain is ethnically and culturally differentiated. Yet, mainstream gerontological and sociological approaches to ageing have failed to examine, in any detail, the interconnections between agency, ageing and ethnic diversity. This means that theories of ageing often exclude experiences outside the ‘traditional’ domain. Here, traditional includes those theories of ageing that have relied on western (British/American) concepts to measure personal power and fulfillment in later life. Yet, the meanings attached to agency, empowerment, autonomy and independence vary in relation to the specificities of time, space and culture. Despite this, western culturally specific concepts tend to underpin the notion of ‘successful ageing’. This paper questions both the effect this has on how agency and empowerment are theorised and the extent to which some experiences are excluded by definition. It presents findings from an ESRC qualitative research project on womenís experiences of agency and dis/empowerment in later life across ethnic diversity. There were differences, for instance, in the timing of old age, what constituted control and agency and womenís relationship with their bodies, as they grew older. The paper considers the extent to which current gerontological and sociological theories and concepts of ageing adequately represent ethnic and cultural differences in what it means to grow older.

Agency nursing work in acute care settings: perceptions of hospital nursing managers and agency nurse providers.

There is a paucity of research in investigating agency nursing work from the perspectives of hospital nursing managers and agency nurse providers. This exploratory paper examines the hospital nursing managers' and agency nurse providers' perceptions and experiences of agency nursing work. Individual, in-depth interviews were conducted with three agency nurse providers and eight hospital nursing managers. Because of the lack of previous research in this area, an exploratory, semi-structured interviewing technique was deemed appropriate. Three major themes emerged from interview data: planning for ward allocation, communication and professionalism. In planning for ward allocation, hospital managers were primarily concerned with maintaining adequate numbers of nursing staff in the ward settings. A major concern for agency nurse providers was inappropriate allocation of temporary staff. Communication was valued in different ways. While hospital managers focused on communication between the agency nurse and other permanent members of the health care team, agency providers were concerned with exchanges between agencies and hospital organizations, and between the agencies and agency nurses. For both groups, responsibility for professional development and the status of agency nursing as a career choice for graduate and experienced nurses were the focal aspects for consideration. A limitation of this study is the small number of individual interviews conducted with hospital nursing managers and agency nurse providers. Nevertheless, the findings represent the views of 11 individuals in senior managerial roles. The findings reinforce the need to enhance collaboration between hospitals and nursing agencies, and to examine how divergent views of agency nursing work could be reconciled--with the aim of providing quality patient care.

Narrative, Agency, and Mood: On the Social Construction of National History in Scotland

It is a commonplace in the study of nationalism that the construction of national identity inevitably relies on the creation and use of narratives—part history, part myth—that imbue nations and nationalist projects with coherence and purpose. This article seeks to render this idea more complex and analytically useful by asking how such narrative discourses become connected to personal identities. Why and how do people invest themselves in nations and nationalisms? An important part of the answer lies in the ways that constructions of narrative and agency at the collective level articulate with experiences of narrative and agency at a personal level. It is our constant existential concern with power that binds together collectivities and individuals, national narratives, and life histories. We must attend to this connection in order to better understand the powerful resonances nationalist discourses often have.

Taking Control of their Lives? Agency in Young Adult Transitions in England and the New Germany

The present article provides an overview of findings from the UK Economic and Social Research Council's Youth Citizenship and Social Change Project on how young adults experience control and exercise agency in differing socioeconomic environments. The research builds on previous Anglo-German and UK studies (Bynner & Roberts, 1991; Evans & Heinz, 1994; Evans et al ., 2000), which have contrasted the regulated German and unregulated British approaches to transitions into the labour market. In the present new study, the ways in which social changes have impacted on the lives of individuals have been central to the rationale. The Eastern and Western parts of Germany shared a common culture but operated totally different socioeconomic systems during communism. West Germany and Britain had different versions of the same socioeconomic system, but different cultural histories. Britain and Eastern Germany have experienced, from different starting points, strong effects of market forces and deregulation of previous systems. Government policy in both countries is now focused on 'people taking control of their own lives'. The present research has explored comparatively the life experiences of 900 young adults in the under-researched 18-25 years age group. The sample, drawn from the three cities of Derby, Hannover and Leipzig, consisted of 300 students in higher education, 300 unemployed and 300 employed young people. Three research fieldworkers from the areas under study brought local knowledge and experience to the research process: Claire Woolley in Derby, Martina Behrens in Hannover, and Jens Kaluza in Leipzig. Peter Rudd and the National Foundation of Educational Research collaborated in the design and organization of the databases and the analysis of data. In answering the question posed in the title, the research has shown 18-25 year olds to be struggling to take control of their lives, while the effects of those struggles are bounded in important ways by wider societal features as well as social background and institutional environments. The range of empirical encounters with young adults in the chosen 'terrains' has led to the development of the concept of bounded agency to explore and explain experiences of control and personal agency of 18-25 year olds in the settings of higher education, employment, unemployment and in their personal lives.

Evaluating the effects of information technology on problem-oriented-policing. If it doesn't fit, must we quit?

Technologies promise to make our organizations more productive, efficient or effective. But our experience does not always fulfill this promise. Public safety agencies are the target of a barrage of new information technologies offering better performance, many of which are attractive because they can be financed through federal grants. But when evaluations are performed of these technologies, improvements do not always result. This article describes the experiences of a state police agency (SPA) during its use of cellular digital packet data (CDPD) systems to support its problem-oriented policing (POP) project. The CDPD system should have improved the SPA's POP operations; in practice, it was not as clear. Although participants believed the CDPD technology worthwhile, there were only a few minor differences between POP officers that did and did not use it. This evaluation suggests the need for better databases to measure performance as well as more informed federal funding of ways to assess the impact of technologies.

An Ongoing Omission: Adolescent and Adult Malnutrition in Famine Situations

Prolonged famine causes malnutrition in all age groups. The under five age group is systematically targeted for nutritional interventions in the majority of complex emergencies where famine is a major component. Older children and adults however, are often not targeted systematically or are excluded completely. This is despite the past experience in Somalia, Angola and more recently southern Sudan, of sustained high adolescent and adult mortality rates assocaited with malnutrition. Using the recent example of southern Sudan, the authors analyze some of the reasons for this ommission, which include factors such as inadequate scientific literature, the bias of conventional nutritional epidemiology, agency inexperience and media and funding pressures. Finally the authors call for a greater amount of attention and resources to be targeted towards these age groups by the humanitarian community. Programmes should be accompanied by operational research within the framework of a common research agenda.

I COULD BE YOU: THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL DIMENSION OF SOCIAL UNDERSTANDING

This paper discusses the phenomenological dimension of social understanding. The author's general hypothesis is that complex forms of social understanding that biological agents especially humans show are based on two mechanisms: 1 the bodily, experiential dynamics of emphatic resonance and 2 the biographic reconstruction of a communication situation. The latter requires the agent's bodily experiences as the point of reference for the reconstruction process. This hypothesis is derived from discussions in philosophy, natural sciences, and cognitive science on the social embodiment of cognition and understanding. Evidence comes from studies on social cognition in primates, infants, and autistic people that are interpreted in terms of the "mind-experiencing" hypothesis. The second part of the paper sketches an ''interactive'' experiment that investigates the dynamic coupling of a robot with its environment. This example is used to discuss the role of the human observer and designer as an active, embodied agent who is biased toward interpreting the world in terms of intentionality and explanation. The paper describes how this aspect can influence the processes of understanding and interpretation of the behavior of autonomous robotic agents. The author concludes by stressing the need to overcome the distinction between computationalism and phenomenology in order to develop complex artificial systems.

The Development of Identity. A Critical Analysis from the Perspective of the Self as Subject

In this paper an argument is presented, suggesting that the concept of identity articulated by Erikson and reflected in ordinary pretheoretical understanding includes, as a central feature, a special experience of self, namely, the experience of a unified psychological "essence," from which superficial characteristics of the person are differentiated. However, as is shown through a close analysis of various identity measures, this subjective experiential aspect is typically neglected in identity research, including the many studies that were guided by the identity status paradigm. A new approach is then presented, aimed at recapturing the subjective meaning of identity, by viewing identity as a modality of the self as subject and as characterized by specific experiences of agency, unity, otherness, and individuality. In an effort to empirically ground this approach, a typology of identity experience, derived from Loevinger′s ego development stages, is described. Several studies are then reviewed, that confirm the viability of this typology and illustrate the advantages of studying identity from the perspective of the self as subject.

The Advisers: Scientists in the Policy Process

America's governing system is unique in the extent to which scientists and other outside experts participate in the policy process. No other nation has used these experts as extensively - not merely for advice on the allocation of resources to science but in broad policy issues. This wide-ranging study traces the rise of scientists in the policy process and shows how outside experts interrelate with politicians and administrators to produce a unique and dynamic policy process. It also shows how the very openness of American government creates the potential for unusual conflicts of interest. Bruce Smith focuses on the experiences of agency and presidential-level advisory systems over the past several decades. He chronicles the special complexities and challenges resulting from the Federal Advisory Committee Act - the open meeting law - to provide a better understanding of the role of advisory committees and offers valuable lessons to guide their future use. He looks at science advice in the Departments of Defence, State, and Energy; the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; and the Environmental Protection Agency; then focuses on how science advisory mechanisms have worked at the White House. Rather than simply providing a description of structures and institutions, Smith shows the advisory systems in action - how the committees work or fail to work in practice. He analyzes how the advisory mechanisms influence the policymaking process and affect the life of the agencies they serve. Smith concludes with an assessment of the relationship between science advice and American democracy. He explains that the widespread use of advisory committees clearly reflects America's preference for pluralism. By scrutinizing agency plans, goals, and operations, these committees serve a variety of functions and attempt to strike a balance between citizen access to government and the need for sophisticated expertise. The challenge to the nation is to reconcile the integrity of science with the norms of democracy.

Community Service by Offenders: Agency Experiences and Attitudes

Community service orders (i.e., sentences) enable convicted offenders to perform unpaid work for the benefit of their local communities. The present article describes the experiences and views of 172 nonprofit social service agencies in Scotland that offered placements to, and supervised, offenders on community service orders during 1989. The results of the survey indicated that such work was highly valued by most agencies. Although approximately one half of the agencies had experienced some problems when supervising offenders on orders, these were usually of a relatively minor nature and agencies were, with very few exceptiom, willing to continue making placements available. The implications of the findings for social service agencies are discussed.

Modelling Probabilistic Agent Opinion

SUMMARY A single agent (an individual, expert or model) provides a decision maker with probabilistic information partially or completely describing the agent's opinion about a collection of uncertain quantities or events. This paper discusses ways in which the decision maker may model the agent's opinion to provide rules for updating his own probability for a related event or random quantity of particular interest. Concepts discussed include the relevance of the agent's information and experience, the accord between the agent and decision maker in terms of common or conflicting information and calibration of probability assessments. New theory develops and extends that of Genest and Schervish, requiring only a partial specification of the decision maker's prior over the agent's opinion. Several illustrative examples are developed.

Trends in genotoxicity testing of drugs and chemicals. Experiences of the German federal health agency

Trends in genotoxicity testing of drugs and chemicals. Experiences of the German federal health agency

The Personal Is the Theological

AT THE CENTER of contemporary feminist analyses of religion and theology lie women's experiences of oppression and agency embedded in our particularities and in our commonalities as women.' In such work, women bring experience to bear upon scholarly work, thealogies and theologies. We draw upon reports of female experience in historical, literary, and social scientific work we deem reliable. We also draw upon our own lives, upon our experiences of oppression and transformation. Our memories, traditions, and creativities are resources for reflection. So too are they resources for the ongoing construction of identities. In the work of contemporary feminist theo/thealogians, we have particular lives and experiences, reflected on, inscribed, for us. In inscribing experience, the work of contemporary feminist religionists aligns itself with reevaluations of the subject of autobiography sought by recent feminist theorists. Most radically, such theorists call in question the law of genre, the enforcement of generic purity, the policing of borders per se (Schenck:28-1). In addition to directing attention to letters, diaries and other private forms of writing selves, feminist theorists have focused upon poetry, film, pedagogy and philosophy as autobiographical acts constituted by female subjects (see Benstock