Psychometrics for a Cybernetic Theory of Human Agency

Despite its centrality to psychology, human agency lacks an accepted definition or reliable measurement. This paper proposes an operational definition grounded in cybernetics and control theory, drawing on Michael Levin’s framework of cognitive lightcones and Karl Friston’s active inference. Agency is decomposed into three factors: agentic scope (the temporal, spatial, and complexity scale of goals pursued), agentic capacity (the ability to act toward those goals), and agentic environment (environmental constraints on goal achievement). The paper focuses on developing the psychometric basis of agentic scope, linking it to established constructs including Big Five personality (interpreted through DeYoung’s Cybernetic Big Five Theory), general intelligence, the Agency and Communion value dimensions, identity formation, persuadability, and risk preference. A review of the literature finds that agentic scope is predicted by Assertiveness, Industriousness, and Intellect, moderated by Openness and risk tolerance, and constrained by Neuroticism (particularly Withdrawal) and conformity. Intelligence is central through its effects on perception, world-modeling, and the capacity for rational evaluation of competing claims. The paper also identifies variables outside the Big Five and IQ that bear on agency, including the autism-schizotypy spectrum as characterized by computational psychiatry, and proposes that identity formation processes distinguish between agents who select goals from an existing incentive landscape and those who construct novel goal hierarchies. Directions for future research include purpose-built scales for the spatial, temporal, and complexity dimensions of agentic scope, empirical investigation of the proposed striver-Nietzschean distinction, and extension of the framework to agentic capacity and environment.