ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the fundamental nature of human self-control. It considers agency to be essential for understanding how people control their behaviors that have implications for health and well-being and deals with these agency mechanisms. More specifically, building on social-cognitive and neuroscientific research, addresses the different processes that underlie and shape people’s sense of agency as a precursor of their belief to control their own behavior. The chapter discusses a few key issues that are relevant to appreciate the nature and conceptualization of agency in the context of self-control. It analyzes the motor-sensory processes in relation to sense of agency and discusses the two primary processes that play a role in the experience of agency over actions–motor- and non-motor-prediction processes. The exact mechanism of how agency experiences have evolved and are produced is an essential problem in its own right, and remains a topic of intriguing theorizing and empirical scrutiny.
