SELF AND THE SENSE OF AGENCY: THE EFFECT OF THE EXTENDED SELF

Abstract

The concept of self is important for the sense of agency because we need to distinguish ourselves from others in order to attribute outcomes to ourselves. Existing literature has focused on manipulating the ownership of the outcome, i.e., the outcome can be caused by oneself or an external agent. The effect of ownership of the stimulus on the sense of agency has not been extensively studied. The stimulus relevant to oneself can be included as part of one’s self-concept, which is known as the extended self. This current study investigated the effect of the extended self on the sense of agency. Our results show that the extended self modulates the sense of agency only when the movement of the stimulus was congruent with the direction that the participants indicated.