United agency in joint action: A survey study of its prevalence, facilitating factors, and social and emotional effects.

United agency refers to a sense of 'acting as one' that sometimes occurs when people engage in joint actions such as group music-making, dancing, and team sports. First-hand accounts of united agency have been reported in a variety of settings, but there exists little systematic evidence regarding when and why the sense of united agency arises. The current study addressed this gap using an online survey in which participants reported general information about their experiences of united agency as well as detailed descriptions of a single memorable experience. Most participants reported experiencing united agency at least occasionally, and those scoring higher on extraversion, agreeableness, and cognitive empathy experienced it more frequently. Memorable experiences of united agency were reported more often in joint actions characterized by synchronous or highly rhythmic coordination, salient shared goals, close or long-term relationships among co-performers, and small to medium group sizes. United agency was often accompanied by positive affect, feelings of alignment and social connection with co-performers, a sense of empowerment, and heightened attention. Together, these findings elucidate the individual characteristics and joint action features that facilitate united agency, shed light on its positive social and emotional consequences, and suggest important avenues for further work investigating its underlying mechanisms.

Plastic Resilience: Rethinking Resilience in Illness with Catherine Malabou.

Drawing on Catherine Malabou's notion of plasticity, this article argues for a conception of resilience as plastic. Resilience has proven an important concept in health care, describing how we manage life-changing illnesses. Yet, resilience is not without its critics, who suggest it neglects a political, social, or personal dimension in illness. In this article, I propose that a concept of plastic resilience can address these criticisms. On this account, success should not be based on a return to function, but rather on how actively we are involved in the formation of a new self after illness. I address some approaches that can benefit from "plastic resilience," namely, art therapy, expert companionship, and shared decision-making. In each case, I underline how we should help patients thematize and engage with their new selves, while also being constantly vigilant for how these changes might impact our current assumptions around their preferences for treatment.

Marriage in displacement: Gendered (self)resettlement strategies of Syrian women in Egypt.

Drawing on fieldwork data among Syrian refugee women marrying Egyptian men amid forced migration, I explore how displacement reshapes the meaning and purpose of marriage. Many such unions, often customary or polygamous, provoke comparisons to forced marriage and gender-based violence. Bypassing the reductive exploitation and static narratives, I ask: How does displacement alter refugee women's perceptions of marriage's purpose? And can marriage serve as a strategic tool for (self)resettlement? This investigation urges us to reevaluate the existing range of resettlement options and criteria, offering fresh perspectives on marital strategies post-displacement. Rather, similar marriages often stem from both affective and practical considerations, challenging colonial dichotomies (e.g., agent/victim) and reinstating the role of factors such as social capital in the trajectories of the uprooted. This study expands understanding of gendered and Othered refugee experiences, highlighting marriage's transformative role in forced displacement and resettlement. It contributes to ongoing discussions on marriage, displacement, and resettlement, urging a nuanced approach that acknowledges the complexities of refugee agency and adaptation.

Measuring general sense of agency: a Japanese adaptation and validation of the sense of agency scale (J-SoAS).

The Sense of Agency (SoA) refers to the individual's perception of control over actions and their subsequent impact on the external environment. SoA encompasses multiple dimensions, such as implicit/local and explicit/general, which can be quantitatively assessed through cognitive tasks and psychometric questionnaires, respectively. The explicit and general aspect of SoA is commonly evaluated using the Sense of Agency Scale (SoAS). This study's objective is to adapt and validate a Japanese version of the Tapal-SoAS. To achieve this, we distributed an online survey in three stages, gathering data from 8,237 Japanese participants aged between their 20s and 60s. Our analysis confirmed the bifactorial structure identified in the original study: the Sense of Positive Agency (SoPA) and the Sense of Negative Agency (SoNA). Metrics pertaining to test-retest reliability, internal consistency, and construct validity reached satisfactory thresholds. Furthermore, the two-factor models demonstrated suitable fit across various age cohorts. The Japanese version of the SoAS (J-SoAS) shows potential for cross-cultural comparisons of explicit and general SoA, particularly between Western and Eastern populations, and among distinct age groups, including young adults and the elderly.

Understanding the role of agency in the navigation of regional dementia care and support service pathways.

INTRODUCTION: Reliable dementia care and support service pathways are essential for timely diagnoses and for reducing the delay in time from diagnosis to care and support. However, carers commonly experience difficulties in finding information about where to go and what to do before and following a dementia diagnosis. In rural and regional areas, accessing dementia care and support services can be especially challenging. This qualitative, narrative inquiry study explores the agency of carers, and people living with dementia, in their navigation of regional dementia care and support service pathways. METHODS: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten carers of people living with dementia from a regional location in Victoria, Australia. Data analysis was guided by the tripartite framework of Giddens' Theory of Structuration which considered the carers' intentionality, capacity and power to act in the navigation of their dementia care and support service pathways. FINDINGS: Carers had intentionality; however, they did not always have the capacity and power to act. Information played a critical role in facilitating agency. Health literacy was important - as knowledge about where to look for/find information, and knowledge gained through experience, education or learning from others. Where carers encountered barriers, they lacked capacity and power. This occurred where there was an absence of information or knowledge, incorrect information (e.g. misdiagnoses), and where government bodies impeded carers' efforts. CONCLUSIONS: Information and knowledge are critical to the progression of dementia care and support service pathways. Health literacy is a significant resource, and carers would benefit from dementia education/training. The agency of carers in navigating their dementia care and support service pathways relies on carers themselves finding information and seeking out knowledge and education. However, GPs, local health providers, and dementia organisations have an important role to play in helping carers to find information towards accessing dementia care and support services.

A multivariate dataset on water-energy-food nexus: Multi-actor governance for social justice.

The article presents and validates an extensive multivariate dataset that offers insights into water-energy-food (WEF) nexus governance for social justice at the intrahousehold, household, and community levels. The lack of insights in the WEF nexus debate that take social justice and governance into account is what spurred the data collection. The initial process involved scoping the originally selected investigated sites and their suitability. Once the research areas were identified, the data were collected from 1184 households in the Matatiele, Magareng, and Greater Taung Local Municipalities in South Africa, using a semi-structured questionnaire and KoboCollect software. The freely available software was installed on Android Tablets which were used by the enumerators. The questionnaires were initially piloted in Matatiele Local Municipality, testing for internal validity and skip patterns, as well as time to complete the questionnaire. The reliability of the Likert responses from the questionnaire was evaluated using Cronbach's alpha. The questionnaire was then refined for data collection and utilized a total of twenty-two (22) locally trained enumerators who were employed at the investigated sites. These enumerators were trained in administering the questionnaire and the use of the KoboCollect software used in data collection. The enumerators also received training on how to conduct the survey ethically, including informed permission, confidentiality, and the option to withdraw from the interview. The design of the data collection process was a cross-sectional survey that was conducted between 6 June and 4 August 2022, using purposive sampling. At the end of each data collection day, the enumerators uploaded their collected data into the KoboTool cloud, which allowed the lead in the survey to assess the data and effect any correctional measures on the questionnaire if the need arose. The enumerators also used a WhatsApp chat group to communicate real time opportunities and challenges in the questionnaire, which allowed the lead in the survey to constantly update the questionnaire. The multivariate questionnaire was divided into sections of socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, community-level governance, decision-making, food, energy, and water security, social justice, legal knowledge, and rights to utilize these resources. The dataset will be of significance to multi-disciplinary researchers focusing on WEF security, governance, and social justice in Southern Africa. Furthermore, environmental and sustainability practitioners can find valuable insights from the provided data. The employed methodology is replicable and adaptable, enabling real-time monitoring of social justice and governance in the context of food, energy, and water security. The real time monitoring of governance and social justice in water, energy and food allows for the possibility of continual data collection and updating, and if a longitudinal design is adopted, it can be used for impact inquiry of any interventions or policies.

Understanding the association between menstrual health and hygiene attitudes and personal agency among very young adolescents in Sao Paulo, Brazil: A cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: Although menstruation is a monthly biological phenomenon, it is shrouded in stigma and shame which directly impacts health, education, gender equality, decent work, and economic growth. However, there is scarce evidence on how personal agency, an individual's ability to access resources, may act as a protective factor to adequate menstrual health and hygiene practices. Therefore, we assess the association between attitudes toward menstruation and personal agency among very young adolescent girls. METHODS: We use cross-sectional data from the Global Early Adolescent Study in São Paulo, Brazil, among 10- to 14-year-old girls who have experienced menarche (n = 325) and completed a home-based self-administered questionnaire in 2021. "Attitudes toward menstruation" was created based on five indicators on a Likert scale, with a higher score indicating more positive attitudes. The main covariate was personal agency, comprised of three scales and modeled as three continuous variables: voice, decision-making power, and freedom of movement. Data were analyzed using multivariable linear regression. RESULTS: Attitudes toward menstruation mean score was 12.5 (range 5-19). Older adolescents (12-14 years-old) had higher mean scores (more positive) than younger adolescents (10-11 years-old) on attitudes toward menstruation, whereas no other sociodemographic or menstrual health indicator (knowledge or access to products) were associated with attitudes toward menstruation. In the multiple regression model, older age and higher freedom of movement remained positively associated with attitudes toward menstruation (ßadjust = 0.5; 95%CI 0.1 to 0.8). CONCLUSION: Positive attitudes toward menstruation are associated with higher freedom of movement among very young Brazilian adolescent girls. The promotion of personal agency should be recognized as key strategies to accelerate young girls' positive approaches to their own menstruation and, consequently, well-being.

Menstrual Health and Hygiene Attitudes are associated with Personal AgencyOur results show that positive attitudes toward menstruation among very young adolescent girls are associated with personal agency, measured through freedom of movement. This information can inform strategies to accelerate young girls' positive approaches to their own menstruation and, consequently, well-being.

Sex workers' professional agency, quality of life, and problematic substance use in Finland.

INTRODUCTION: Sex workers suffer considerable marginalization that limits their choices and exposes them to various types of harm. Hence, it is important to examine sex workers' professional agency and its association with quality of life. In the current study, we investigated professional agency, quality of life, and problematic substance use among sex workers in Finland. METHODS: Using an online survey, we collected data from 136 sex workers contacted through Finnish sex work organizations and social media platforms. We conducted correlational analyses between the study variables and linear regression analyses with professional agency as the independent variable and quality of life and problematic alcohol and drug use as dependent variables. RESULTS: As expected, in the regression analyses, professional agency was strongly positively associated with quality of life (ß = 0.86, p < 0.001) and negatively associated with problematic alcohol (ß = -0.38, p = 0.002) and drug (ß = -0.69, p < 0.001) use. Professional agency explained as much as 73% of the variance in quality of life. Most sex workers rated their quality of life as either good or very good. CONCLUSION: Our results underscore the importance of professional agency to sex workers' well-being, explaining a substantial proportion of the variance in quality of life. Promoting agency should therefore be at the heart of sex work policymaking. However, as most of the respondents were Finnish-born cis women, our results might not generalize to foreign-born, male, and gender diverse sex workers. Future studies should prioritize reaching these populations to ensure broader representativeness.

Energy-consuming right transaction and low-carbon technology innovation: Evidence from Chinese listed enterprises.

To decarbonize the economy and spur high-quality development, formulating effective environmental policies to encourage low-carbon technology innovation is increasingly critical. While the energy-consuming right transaction represents a significant institutional breakthrough, its potential to motivate enterprises towards low-carbon technology innovation remains underexplored. To address this gap, our study utilizes panel data from Chinese listed enterprises between 2009 and 2020, employing the energy-consuming right transaction pilot policy to develop a difference-in-difference model that assesses the policy's impact on low-carbon innovation. Our findings indicate that the implementation of energy-consuming rights transaction has boosted low-carbon innovation efforts by 14.3 %. In-depth analysis shows that R&D investment and green agency costs are crucial mediators, with energy-consuming rights transaction enhancing R&D capital and personnel investments by 2.1 % and 1.5 %, respectively, and reducing green agency costs by 1.8 %. The study also uncovers the moderating role of digital finance, which amplifies the positive effects of energy-consuming rights transaction on low-carbon innovation. Moreover, energy-consuming rights transaction shows a more significant effect on improving low-carbon innovation for low energy-consuming and non-state-owned enterprises. These insights underscore the importance of precisely segmenting energy-consuming enterprises and devising customized policies to meet their unique needs, paving the way for a national energy-consuming right transaction market.

Plant "intelligence" and the misuse of historical sources as evidence.

Proponents of the concepts of plant intelligence and plant neurobiology often use historical sources as "evidence" and argue that eminent past scientists have supported ideas of plant intelligence, memory, learning, decision-making, agency, and consciousness. Historical sources include writings by Charles Darwin, Julius von Sachs, F. W. Went, K. V. Thimann, Barbara McClintock, and J. B. Lamarck. Advocates of plant neurobiology also argue that the ideas of J. C. Bose, an Indian scientist who is considered an important forerunner of plant neurobiology, were suppressed chiefly because of racism. Plant neurobiology has been criticized on scientific grounds, but there has not been close scrutiny of the use of historical sources as a form of evidence. We provide the first in-depth analysis of how historical sources have been used and misused, and conclude that there is a consistent pattern of distortion of these sources. Distortions include the use of erroneous quotations, alteration of quotations, selective quotations without context, and misinterpretation and exaggeration of historical statements. In the case of Bose, we show that there were legitimate scientific reasons for questioning his interpretations of botanical experiments and argue that this context cannot be ignored in evaluating contemporary responses to Bose. Overall, the common practice by proponents of plant intelligence and plant consciousness of uncritically citing the words of eminent scientists of the past, taken out of their historical context to bolster their arguments, should not be confused with scientific evidence supporting these concepts, even when the quotations, themselves, are accurate.

Self-control and behavioral public policy.

How everyday self-control conflicts are resolved can have significant long-term personal and societal consequences, as readily illustrated by obesity, smoking, and unsustainable consumption. Here, we delineate connections between current self-control research and policymaking. We first discuss the achievements and shortcomings of the prevailing individual-level focus in self-control research. Next, we propose a multilevel perspective that incorporates structural factors operating at the micro, meso, and macro levels as the root cause of many issues framed as self-control problems. We then introduce a comprehensive framework (4LP) synthesizing four key levers for public policymaking. We conclude that future policy research may benefit from closer, interdisciplinary collaboration to better represent the complex interplay between individual agency and structural factors regarding self-control outcomes.

Patient perspectives on adverse event investigations in health care.

BACKGROUND: Over the last decade attention has grown to give patients and next of kin (P/N) more substantial roles in adverse event investigations. Adverse event investigations occur after adverse events that resulted in death or severe injury. Few studies have focused on patient perspectives on their involvement in such investigations. The present study sets out to investigate how P/N and patient representatives (client councils and the Patient Federation Netherlands) view the involvement of P/N in adverse event investigations, particularly whether and why they want to involved, and how they want to shape their involvement. METHODS: The study features qualitative data on three levels: interviews with P/N (personal), focus groups with representatives of client councils (institutional), and an interview with the Patient Federation Netherlands (national). Researchers used inductive, thematic analysis and validated the results through data source triangulation. RESULTS: The initiative taken by the hospitals in this study provided P/N with the space to feel heard and a position as legitimate stakeholder. P/N appreciated the opportunity to choose whether and how they wanted to be involved in the investigation as stakeholders. P/N emphasized the need for hospitals to learn from the investigations, but for them the investigation was also part of a more encompassing relationship. P/N's views showed the inextricable link between the first conversation with the health care professional and the investigation, and the ongoing care after the investigation was finalized. Hence, an adverse event investigation is part of a broader experience when understood from a patient perspective. CONCLUSIONS: An adverse event investigation should be considered as part of an existing relationship between P/N and hospital that starts before the investigation and continues during follow up care. It is crucial for hospitals to take the initiative in the investigation and in the involvement of P/N. P/N motivations for involvement can be understood as driven by agency or communion. Agentic motivations include being an active participant by choice, while communion motivations include the need to be heard.

Military Medical Student Specialty Preferences During the DHA Transition: A Retrospective Analysis.

BACKGROUND: The Military Health System is a unique subsector within the nation's Graduate Medical Education (GME), with a different incentive structure for specialty selection for military medical students compared with their civilian counterparts. Changes by the Defense Health Agency (DHA) in 2017 emphasized a shift in military GME to training "operational" medical specialties. This study sought to gain insight into military medical students' reactions to the 2017 DHA transition by examining whether students continued to select "operational" specialties at similar rates as well as whether students remained satisfied with attending medical school. METHODS: We performed a retrospective analysis of Uniformed Services University (USU) post-match students from 2015 to 2020 using anonymized data from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Graduation Questionnaire, separated into pre-DHA (2015-2017) and post-DHA (2018-2020) transition groups. RESULTS: Regarding both intent to practice an operational specialty and satisfaction with choosing medical school, there was no statistically significant difference between the preand post-DHA transition groups. CONCLUSIONS: Whether preor post-DHA transition, USU medical students demonstrated similar preferences for operational specialties as well as similar levels of satisfaction with medical school attendance, suggesting that this transition may not significantly influence medical students' career preferences nor blunt their desire to enter military medicine.

Evaluation of good review practices in member authorities of the East African Medicines Regulatory Harmonisation initiative: strategies for alignment with African medicines agency.

Introduction: The East African Community Medicines Regulatory Harmonisation (EAC-MRH) programme was established to address challenges faced by national regulatory authorities (NRAs) of the region. Work sharing through joint assessments and inspections was adopted to manage limited resources and capacity; however, NRA good review practices (GrevP) are also a key determinant to success. This study evaluated GReVP among the EAC-MRH NRAs and mapped required strategies for countries to align themselves with the African Medicines Agency (AMA). Methods: A validated questionnaire (Optimising Efficiency in Regulatory Agency-OpERA) that standardises and captures review processes was completed by the head of the medicines registration division in each NRA. A country report based on the completed questionnaire was developed for each NRA and validated by the heads of the respective authorities. Results: The population and size of the NRAs vary and four of the countries have semi-autonomous authorities and three NRAs are autonomous. The Burundi and South Sudan authorities were fully government funded, Kenya and Uganda entirely from fees, while Rwanda, Tanzania and Zanzibar were partially funded from different sources. All authorities except South Sudan, which does not receive or review applications had backlogs. Authority fees varied based on the different application categories. Key milestones for standardised regulatory processes are implemented in all authorities. Queue times range from a few weeks to about one year. Three NRAs use internal technical agency staff for scientific assessments and three use both internal and external experts. Clock stop time varies and target timelines for review committee range from one day to three months. All the NRAs implement some best practices on quality measures, transparency and communication. Some have activities for transparency improvement but with minimal attention to training and education. Most employ some quality decision-making practices. Discussion: GrevP in EAC-MRH NRAs still needs to be improved and it is imperative that these authorities streamline and harmonise their practices. Increasing human resources and an investment in training and education of staff will enable the implementation of all measures for GRevP. This is vital, as the effectiveness and efficiency of the AMA will depend on the strength of these NRAs.

Determinants of peer education on sexual and reproductive health and rights among in-school adolescents in Ebonyi State, Nigeria.

BACKGROUND: Peer education has contributed to increased knowledge and preventive behaviors of adolescents toward reproductive health matters with the unique feature of maintaining peer-to-peer learning ability and sustaining intervention gains. This study examined the factors that predict the agency of in-school adolescents as peer educators on the sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) of adolescents. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 257 adolescent boys and girls, purposively selected from six public secondary schools that had received a package of interventions that aimed to improve peer-to-peer education on SRHR in Ebonyi State, Nigeria. Data were collected using a pretested structured interviewer-administered questionnaire. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed. The level of statistical significance was determined at a P value < 0.05 and a 95% confidence limit. RESULTS: Almost all the students (98.05%) believed that adolescents need information on SRHR, which should be provided in the schools; however, 66.93% had ever shared information with their peers on the SRHR. The predictors of the practice of peer education on SRHR include being in senior secondary (adjusted odds ratios (AOR) =2.889, P = 0.026), participation in SRHR campaigns (AOR = 6.139, P = 0.005), receiving information, education and communication materials (AOR = 0.266, P = 0.042), and discussing SRH matter with adult family members (AOR = 2.567, P = 0.026). CONCLUSION: The practice of peer education among adolescents was determined by their level in school, availability of support structures such as parent-child communication, and program-related factors. Therefore, public health initiatives should prioritize these factors to strengthen adolescents' agency as peer educators on the SRHR of young people.

Othering and agency erosion of older adults living in extreme poverty in Bangladesh.

Offering fresh perspectives on the lived experience of ageing in extreme poverty, this article delves into unpacking the relationally driven processes of social, institutional, and self-othering that contribute to agency erosion in older adults. Positing that the context of extreme poverty in which a person ages is micropolitically shaped, where society, institutions, and ageing self interact in a complex way, it is argued that ageing in extreme poverty, inter alia, means ageing in subaltern conditions. A critical consequence of this process is the subjugation of older adults, leading to a life marked by the state of 'social death'. Additional research is needed to unpack such nuances to better understand ageing processes in extreme poor societies. This necessitates an approach informed by postcolonial perspectives that take into account the dynamics of othering and agency erosion. It concludes by asserting that to reverse extreme poverty among older adults as well as to reverse their subaltern conditions requires a political project that empowers the older adults in society, restores agency and strengthens their 'relational security'.

Commonsense morality and the bearable automaticity of being.

Some research suggests that moral behavior can be strongly influenced by trivial features of the environment of which we are completely unaware. Philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists have argued that these findings undermine our commonsense notions of agency and responsibility, both of which emphasize the role of practical reasoning and conscious deliberation in action. We present the results of four vignette-based studies (N=1,437) designed to investigate how people think about the metaphysical and moral implications of scientific findings that reveal our susceptibility to automaticity and situational influences. When presented with lightly fictionalized narratives about these findings, participants exhibit no tendency toward changing judgments of freedom and responsibility compared to control groups. This suggests that people seem unwilling to adopt skeptical attitudes about agency on the basis of these scientific findings.

Instant messengers and health professionals' agency in Russian clinical settings.

This research examines how Russian healthcare professionals use instant messengers (in particular, the group chat function on instant messengers) for work-related tasks. Based on qualitative interviews with Russian doctors and nurses conducted in spring 2020, the article explores how the informal implementation of instant messenger's group chat function facilitated and shaped health professionals' agency in two key areas of professional control: work regulation and medical knowledge. In the first case, front-line healthcare professionals used instant messengers to make horizontal connections, share relevant regulatory information, and smooth over organizational discrepancies. Hospital management, on the other hand, employed this technology as an additional tool for imposing top-down control on employees. The adoption of instant messengers for medical knowledge dissemination is more consistently linked with professional logic. By utilizing this technology, healthcare personnel not only shared clinical recommendations, publications, and clinical experience, but also fostered solidarity within the country's medical community and forged connections with international medical professionals. These findings support the social science assumption concerning the contextualized character of both professionalism and digital innovations in healthcare. In state-dominated Russian healthcare, instant messengers not only assist structurally disempowered professionals in dealing with pragmatic challenges, but also create more space for their ground-level discretion in the face of intense administrative pressure. Moreover, since the messaging technology helps Russian health workers in navigating and agentially connecting different knowledge and regulatory landscapes, it also fosters a new - trans-local and more reflexive - form of professionalism in post-socialist medicine.

My choice, my actions: self-determination, not instrumental value of outcomes enhances outcome monitoring during learning.

Freedom of choice enhances our sense of agency. During goal-directed behavior, the freedom to choose between different response options increases the neural processing of positive and negative feedback, indicating enhanced outcome monitoring under conditions of high agency experience. However, it is unclear whether this enhancement is predominantly driven by an increased salience of self- compared to externally determined action outcomes or whether differences in the perceived instrumental value of outcomes contribute to outcome monitoring in goal-directed tasks. To test this, we recorded electroencephalography while participants performed a reinforcement learning task involving free choices, action-relevant forced choices, and action-irrelevant forced choices. We observed larger midfrontal theta power and N100 amplitudes for feedback following free choices compared with action-relevant and action-irrelevant forced choices. In addition, a Reward Positivity was only present for free but not forced choice outcomes. Crucially, our results indicate that enhanced outcome processing is not driven by the relevance of outcomes for future actions but rather stems from the association of outcomes with recent self-determined choice. Our findings highlight the pivotal role of self-determination in tracking the consequences of our actions and contribute to an understanding of the cognitive processes underlying the choice-induced facilitation in outcome monitoring.

Grasping the Situation: analyzing how situational dynamics shape agency.

Despite the intimacy between the situation and our agency, "situation" remains an ambiguous concept in theory. Even within the context of situated theories of cognition and agency that take the organism-environment system as central in their investigations, the notion of "situation" has been undertheorized. Yet, whether affordances are relevant depends on the situation. Therefore, Van Dijk and Rietveld argue that we must understand the practical situation in which behavior occurs in order to know how we respond to the affordances that the materials and other people offer. Taking John Dewey's notion of "situation" as the basis for investigation, I follow Shaun Gallagher's analysis of how we are not just part of a situation, but we understand what an action is only in relation to a situation. Situations act like large-scale affordances, but this does not mean that affordances are inviting or soliciting as such. Because of the situational transactions with the environment that an agent has, the environment pushes and pulls the agent from and toward certain actions. This means that environments have expressive qualitative features that are non-subjective emotional qualities and social gestalt. I propose four overlapping but distinct features or axes of analysis of situations that can be identified and analyzed in terms of how they shape our agency: complexity, determinedness, the establishment of expectations, and restrictiveness. Situations can be more or less complex in a spatial, temporal, or layered way. They can also be more or less determined, meaning that the agent's actions are more or less obvious. Third, they can be characterized as socially established, meaning that certain behavior is expected. Finally, situations are more or less restricted, denoting the number of activities available to an agent.