Helplessness Experience and Intentional (Un-)Binding: Control Deprivation Disrupts the Implicit Sense of Agency

Prolonged deprivation of personal control induces cognitive, motivational, and affective impairments that can lead to learned helplessness syndrome. Research on cognitive mechanisms involved in responding to uncontrollable events reveals a critical role of lack of contingency between one's action and outcomes. However, the impact of experienced uncontrollability on individuals' sense of self-agency has not been explored yet. This research examined how prolonged control deprivation affects implicit sense of agency. We exposed participants to action-outcome noncontingency of varying lengths and measured implicit sense of self-agency manifested in intentional binding. In 2 studies (N = 133 and N = 354, respectively), we found that control deprivation decreased the intentional binding effect, and that the relationship appeared to be monotonic: the longer the control deprivation, the smaller the intentional binding effect. Moreover, in the condition of prolonged control deprivation, no intentional binding was observed at all: Participants evaluated the time elapsing between the action and the effect as if both occurred separately. Our finding suggests that long-term exposure to uncontrollability has detrimental effects on the ability to detect consequences of one's actions, the basis of implicit self-agency. The implications of our results for the theory of control deprivation and sense of agency are thoroughly discussed.