Agency and Structure Within Us and Around Us

Derived from sociology, the concept of structure refers to influences and constraints on individual behavior. Elements of social structure include laws, policies, organizations, social categories (economics, race, gender, religion), prevalence of crime, sickness, health care, and quality education, as well as cultural norms of expected social behavior.

Agency refers to individual rights, responsibilities, and autonomy (control over one’s thoughts, feelings, and actions).

The structure-agency tension plays out on all levels of human interactions, including love relationships. It’s a useful lens for analyzing relationships, society, and politics.

Structure in Love Relationships

We’re not consciously aware of the structure that guides and constrains our behavior within love relationships. Nevertheless, love relationships feature tacit rules and norms to which partners expect adherence. Research suggests several norms that are optimal for committed relationships:

• Egalitarian
• Cooperative
• Supportive and protective
• Flexible
• Tolerance of differences.

Egalitarian: the rights, privileges, and preferences of partners are equal, with neither holding power nor authority over the other.

Cooperative: partners contribute to the well-being of the family according to talents, skills, and personal resources. Historically, division of labor, control of family resources, and assumption of responsibilities were determined by gender roles. In our times, partners must negotiate about them fairly for relationships to thrive.

Supportive and protective: partners help each other and protect each other’s well-being.

Flexible: partners are open to changes in behavior.

Tolerance of differences: partners accept that they have different family histories, life experiences, coping habits, and, most likely, different temperaments, emotional vulnerabilities, and cultural norms.

Rate the structure of your relationship by answering true or false to the following. My relationship is:

Egalitarian ___

Cooperative ___

Flexible ___

Supportive and protective ___

Tolerant of differences ___

*All answers should be true.

Agency in Love Relationships

This is what we know about the healthiest expression of agency within relationship structure:

• Partners accept personal responsibility for their behavior and contribute to the well-being of the family.
• Partners self-regulate: calm themselves when upset and strive to improve problematic situations rather than blame, punish, or try to avoid problems or each other.

Rate agency within your relationship by answering true or false to the following:

I accept personal responsibility ___

My partner accepts personal responsibility __

My partner thinks I accept personal responsibility __

I self-regulate__

My partner self-regulates__

My partner thinks I self-regulate.

*All answers should be true.

Social Structure vs. Agency

Democracies temper the tension between structure and agency by conjoining individual rights and responsibilities. There are no rights without responsibility to refrain from infringing on other people’s rights. Laws are measured by their protection of individual rights in relation to the general welfare. To the extent that governments override individual rights in disregard of the common welfare, they become oppressive.

In our times, structure is influenced by social and political factions with different agendas, some of which seem incongruous with the common welfare. In the past decade, factions have multiplied and, through social media, become more vociferous, with dramatic consequences for personal agency.

A particularly contentious struggle is between the constitutional right of free speech and the moral imperative to refrain from hurting others and knowingly spreading falsehoods. (Knowingly is the key; if you’re on social media, chances are you unknowingly spread falsehoods.)

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To that end, Oxford Union held an interesting debate about "deplatforming." One speaker argued that giving a platform to hate speech is dangerous. She used the example of the “seductive persuasiveness” of Hitler, which resulted in untold human suffering. Aside from the extremity of the example, it overlooks the fact that Hitler was able to seduce and persuade because no one else had a platform. Like all totalitarian regimes, the Nazis had a highly effective way of deplatforming opponents. If you want to put a nail in the coffin of democracy, canceling opposing views is a necessary step.

Externally Regulated Self-Value

Structure-agency conflicts burn hotter with external regulation of self-value. For those who suffer it, their self-value depends not on their own behavior but on what other people think and say about them. External regulation of self-value makes us hypervigilant to ego threats and insults. When we use other people as mirrors, we want to break those that give undesired reflections.

Positive self-value emerges from fidelity to one’s own deeper values. Authentic value is created within us, not outside us; it flows out of us, not into us. Externally regulated self-value greatly impairs agency and well-being.

Value vs. Power

The engine of structure is power: the ability to make people behave the way the powerful want.

The engine of agency is value, which provides meaning and purpose in life.

Many people internalize structural dynamics and conflate power with value. When they engage in power struggles, everyone loses.

When we appreciate the inherent value of others, we raise our own, and everyone wins.