Cultural and Universal Routes to Authorship Ascription: Effects of Outcome Priming on Experienced Self-Agency in the Netherlands and Japan

Abstract

The experience of self-agency is a fundamental feature of human experience. Recent research has suggested that self-agency experiences are driven by an unconscious authorship ascription process that relies on an online match between accessible outcome representations and the production of the outcome. Extending this work, this study explores the role of culture in the manifestation of this unconscious authorship ascription process by testing whether subliminal priming of the outcome of an action prior to occurrence increased experiences of self-agency in Dutch and Japanese participants. Results show that outcome priming enhances the experience of self-agency independently of cultural background. However, Dutch participants experienced higher levels of self-agency than did Japanese participants, and this cultural effect was mediated by differences in beliefs of self-determination.These findings suggest that the experience of self-agency has a universal, nonconscious component that operates independently from a more cultural one, reflecting differences in conscious beliefs about the role of the self in choice and control.