Toward an Agentic Theory of the Self
In this address I will present self processes as rooted in agentic properties. In this conception, people are producers of their life circumstances not just products of them. I will discuss the nature of the self in terms of the core properties of human agency, its origins, the different forms it takes, its ontological and epistemological status, its development and role in causal structures, its growing primacy in the coevolution process, and its influential exercise at individual and collective levels across diverse spheres of life and cultural systems. Identity formation and the organization of the self-view will also be analyzed from an agentic perspective.