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							PARADIGMS IN PSYCHOLOGY: AGENCY-PATIENCE


1      Hypothesis

In terms of its history, philosophy, theory, methodology, research, subject matter and
application, psychology is governed by two, mutually exclusive, mutually contradictory
paradigms. These two paradigms, which are fundamental theses of psychology, derive
from two mutually exclusive and contradictory views of human existence. These two
views govern psychology in the sense that the various sub-fields of psychology serve to
demonstrate the validity of either of these two views of human existence. Or, to say it in
other words, psychological phenomena are explained by either one or the other of these
views of human existence.

2      Agency and patience

As far as the whole of psychology is concerned, human beings are either agents or
patients. By agency psychology means that human beings govern or ought to govern
their „lives‟. By patience psychology means that human beings are governed/or ought to
be governed by their „lives‟. By „lives‟ psychology means the past, present and future of
human beings, as well as their „environment(s)‟, or every thing or event that does not
belong to human beings as „phenomena‟, i.e. to observed human beings here-and-now.
Some phenomena in psychology are studied and explained in terms of the agency
paradigm, others in terms of the patience paradigm.

If we substitute the term „affect‟ for the term „govern‟, then we can say that psychology
studies the manner in which human beings affect their lives and are affected by their
lives. Psychology is the study of affects. Whatever phenomena psychology studies, it
always studies them in terms of their being affects.

Agency and patience have this in common that they are both affective phenomena, i.e.
they are both observed affects. But their more salient feature is that they operate in
psychology as mutual opposites, i.e. they mutually define one another as each other‟s
opposite. The one is, per definition, not the other. More concretely, insofar as human
beings affect their lives they are not affected by their lives, and vice versa. The more
human beings are agents, the less they are patients, and vice versa.

It is also important to note that agency and patience are equally valid phenomena, i.e.
they can both be observed to occur as part of being human. They both have equal
„ontological‟ status. But, „epistemologically‟ speaking, which of these two phenomena,
agency or patience phenomena, is observed depends on one‟s point of view. One cannot
observe events simultaneously as characterized by agency and by patience. To observe
both phenomena always involves a radical shift in one‟s point of view.

To reduce the distinction in psychology between agency and patience to an
epistemological artifact is unwarranted because this practice fails to recognize that the
distinction is deeply ingrained in the lives of, at least, members of Western civilization.
These people live their lives in terms of that distinction.

Both the practice of psychology to view its subject matter in terms of the distinction and
the tendency of people in Western civilization to live their lives in terms of this
distinction are products of historical development. Because of this, the investigation of
this historically developed distinction in psychology should be augmented by an
investigation of the development of this distinction in psycho-history.

3      The relation between agency and patience

Historically the relation between agency and patience in psychology has been most
frequently expressed in terms of reducing the one to the other. Behaviorism has attempted
to reduce agency to patience. Currently cognitive psychology attempts to do the reverse.
Neither attempt has been fully successful.

Perhaps the most popular attempt at relating the two in present-day psychology is
interactionism. This „and-and‟ position has this to say for itself that it refuses to deny the
reality of the one in favor of the other. However, since the methodology and data of
interactionistic research on the relation between agency and patience favors either agency
or patience, this formulation of the relation amounts to little more than a „solution of
embarrassment‟.

4      The embarrassment of psychology: agency versus patience

The fact that psychology is based on two mutually exclusive and contradictory paradigms
has always been an embarrassment to psychologists. This embarrassment has been
formulated as a conflict between opposing tendencies, with each of these conflicts being a
variation of agency vs. patience. The list is long:

In terms of the subject matter of psychology there is the conflict of mind vs. matter, soul
vs. body, mental vs. physical, rational vs. empirical, subjective vs. objective, inner vs.
outer, central vs. peripheral, whole vs. element, free vs. determined, conscious vs.
unconscious, cognition vs. behavior. In terms of psychology‟s view of human existence
there is idealism vs. materialism, rationalism vs. empiricism, romanticism vs. mechanism,
historicism vs. evolutionism, existentialism vs. positivism, humanism vs. behaviorism,
post-modernism vs. modernism. In terms of its research methodology there is deduction
vs. induction, clinical vs. actuarial, understanding vs. explanation, top down vs. bottom
up.

That this alleged conflict between agency and patience is, and has long been, an
embarrassment to psychologists is evident from the fact that most, if not all, research
programs in psychology to date have been fuelled by attempts to explain the „versus‟
away. As we saw, behaviorism has attempted it by ignoring agency; cognitivism has done
so by ignoring patience. Both psycho-physicalism and functionalism have tried to deal
with the conflict by focusing their research program on the relation between agency and
patience, thus removing both agency and patience from the purview of psychology.

Earlier there have been attempts at reducing psychological phenomena experimentally to
biological or physical phenomena. More recently, there have been attempts at
(re)contextualizing psychological phenomena as historical, cultural and/or social
phenomena. These attempts also miss the mark in that both eliminate precisely that which
makes psychology, psychology. In their unique, irreducible, uncontextualized state,
psychological phenomena are affects, not biological, physical or historio-socio-cultural
events or entities.

None of the attempts listed above have been completely successful at resolving the
alleged conflict, because, in spite of their offensive character, agency and patience
stubbornly remain basic data of human existence (at least in Western civilization).
Moreover, to remove either or both from the purview of psychology is tantamount to
eliminating psychology as the study of affects.

This datum has at long last been recognized by interactionism. However, since
interactionism does not even make an attempt to remove the alleged conflict, the
embarrassment remains. In that sense interactionism is a solution of embarrassment. It
has, in effect, institutionalized the alleged conflict within psychology.

5       The content of agency and patience

To make my thesis that agency and patience are basic data of human existence more
amenable, I want to fill these terms with experiential content. Doing this represents a
danger, because experiential content is by no means neutral. Experience is theory-, and
value-laden, it is always “up to something” (Rogers), it has something to say, it has its
own story to tell. It may entangle the discussion about agency and patience into its own
problematics. But the danger of filling agency and patience with experiential content is
offset by the advantage that it makes the discussion about these terms more concrete,
more life-like.

Phenomenologically speaking, agency is observable when human beings attend to events
or entities in their lives, i.e. shift their cognitive or perceptual point of view, or when they
search their memory, or think about what they experience, or try to solve a problem,
when they plan or make a decision or act upon their lives.

Patience is observable when human beings are aroused, influenced, when they feel an
urge or an emotion, or stress, when they believe, hope, listen, learn, adapt, behave, when
they open up/ are opened up to undergo an experience, when they allow their phenomenal
here-and-now selves to be affected by events and entities in their past, present and future
and by their environment(s). Patience is observable as the essential component of
creativity, imagination, artistry, sexual intercourse, enjoyment, suffering, excitement,
ecstasy, healing, relaxation, recreation and rest.
Within psychology phenomena in the following sub-fields appear to be best studied,
described and explained from the point of view of agency: consciousness, cognition,
perception, thinking, language, memory, personality, and abnormal psychology. Other
phenomena, such as sensation, learning, motivation, emotion, stress and therapy appear to
be best studied, described and explained in terms of patience.

Within the psycho-dynamic tradition agency and patience are represented by a number of
functions. In psycho-analysis both the superego, and id functions represent patience. The
same holds for the ego and the shadow in Jungian thought. Agency is represented by the
ego functions in psychoanalysis, and by the self in Jungian theory. Post-Freudian Ego
psychology emphasizes the executive functions of the ego, and thus stresses agency, but
does so at the expense of both the superego, and the id functions. This system thus
disregards the importance of patience in human existence.

Whether the primacy of the ego functions, and, therefore, of agency over the other
functions was not already pre-figured in classical psycho-analysis is a matter for
historical debate, a debate I will not enter here. What is interesting is that in classical
psycho-analysis the primary conflict in human existence is not seen to be one between
agency and patience but between the sanctions of the superego, rooted in socio-cultural
forces and biologically derived drives of the id. Classical psycho-analysis, thus,
represents a bifurcation, and indeed, a conflict within patience. What is further interesting
is that in this psychological system agency does not exhibit its usual character of control,
but of mediation. The same can be said for the self in Jungian psychology. The self of the
individuated human being serves as the golden mean between the two “onesidednesses‟
of ego and shadow. In distinction from both Classical psycho-analysis and Jungian
psychology, Ego psychology, with its emphasis on the executive functions of human
existence, once again returns to the ego, or to agency, the character of control.

Within humanistic psychology, particularly in the “person-centered” psychology of
Rogers, agency is represented by the „organism‟, and patience is represented by the „self‟,
(and also by „physical reality‟. With Rogers the origin of all that exists starts with the
[life functions of the] organism. The basis for Rogers‟ opposition to behaviorism is that it
is a form of physicalism; see my Basic Intent.)

Within person-centered psychology, the distinction between patience an agency comes to
expression as one between stasis and flux. Because of the presence of conditions of worth
in the other-regard and the subsequent self-regard of human beings, the self is a static
influence in human existence, (People who live their lives in accordance with an
externally derived, static „frame of reference‟ become who they were rather than who
they are, i.e. they do not live, but are being lived). On the other hand, the organism is an
influence for change in human existence. By identifying with their organism people begin
to live their lives „existentially‟, in the here-and-now, literally changing their selves from
moment to moment, They are perpetually „becoming who they are‟.
Within humanistic psychology the relation between agency and patience is one of
process. The organism is a growth principle. Human existence is a perpetual process of
overcoming undergoing, a process of perpetually substituting agency for patience.

Rogers derived his process oriented conception of human existence from Dewey‟s
instrumentalism, or experimentalism, or pragmatism. Both struggled with how
individuals can maintain their freedom in the face of societal constraints, a problem
which was paramount in late 19th. Century/early 20th. Century North-American culture.
This, in effect was the problem of how to maintain agency (individual control) in the face
of patience (societal control). Both gave a process-oriented solution to this problem.
However, whereas Dewey held that the individual can only remain free by perpetually
freeing (re-constructing) (past cultural formations of) society, Rogers held that society
can only become free by perpetually freeing individuals to be and become who they are.
Dewey ascribed far more culturally formative/constructive power (agency) to the human
subject/self than Rogers did.

For Rogers, the self (and ultimately society) must relinquish formative power to the
growth forces of the organism if individuals can ever hope to be free. According to
Dewey individuals make their freedom. According to Rogers, freedom happens to us (if
we let it). All this is a round-about way of saying that Rogers had far more respect for
patience than Dewey did. More concretely, it means that Dewey was more cognition-
oriented, and Rogers more feeling-oriented in his view of human existence. Dewey-based
forms of therapy are also more intellectualistic, Rogers-based forms of therapy more
experiential. Dewey‟s view of human existence is closer to the current post-modern
constructivistic conception than Rogers‟ view. Finally, Dewey is more a protagonist of
historicism, Rogers more a protagonist of evolutionism.

6      Agency and patience: conflict or complementary?

Quite possibly the fact that psychology is practiced from out of two paradigms is not a
problem, but rather its biggest asset. Perhaps agency and patience do not conflict, but
rather complement each other. The field of psychology is replete with illustrations of the
fact that agency and patience, though they are mutually exclusive and contradictory, are
in need of one another.

We may begin with the notion of science (in the broad sense of Wissenschaf) itself.
Science is generally characterized by theorizing (agency) and observation (patience) and
these two complement each other or else science would not be science. What would
theory be without empirical observations, and where would empirical observations be
without theorizing?

Moreover, two broad rules of logic seem to govern scientific explanation: Ockham‟s
razor (Do not multiply entities needlessly), and the law of sufficient reason (roughly: Do
not explain away real differences that exist). Finally, every scientist does well to
remember Bacon‟s dictum: we can only control nature insofar as we respect it.
The real interesting question in all this is why anyone would want to identify science
exclusively with theorizing, or with empirical observation, with Ockham‟s razor, or with
the law of sufficient reason, with control over nature, or with respect for nature. What has
enticed generations of scholars to practice their scientific activity either from out of the
agency paradigm or from out of the patience paradigm?

Within psychology proper there are also many illustrations of the necessary
complementarity of agency and patience. I give but a random sample: theoretical „laws‟
without empirical content are mere formalisms. Thought without experiential
content/cognition without „affect‟ (i.e. emotion) is intellectualization/rationalization.
Feeling is modulated by cognition, i.e. without thought emotion is undifferentiated
arousal. Perception without sensation is empty, sensation without perception lacks focus.
There are no responses without stimuli, but responses determine which of the
environmental events are to function as stimuli. In all these events agency complements
patience and vice versa.

7      Research program

The heuristic value of my hypothesis is determined by the extent to which it affords us a
clearer insight into the nature of psychology.

My intention is to examine a representative contemporary Introduction to Psychology
textbook to explore whether the topics dealt with in the text can be adequately described
as variants of either agency or patience.

Subsequently, I intend to study a number of systems in psychology to explore whether
they can be successfully described as variants of either agency or patience.