Albert Bandura's Secret Agent - Making the case for a soul.

In an article written for the book "Are We Free?" (Reconstrual of Free Will from the Agentic Perspective of Social Cognitive Theory.[i]), Social Scientist extraordinaire Albert Bandura carefully evaluates the claims of those who would relegate personhood to mere neurons and makes a case for what he has called for over four decades, an "agent”. He tells us there is a Secret Agent in all of us. "To be an agent is to influence intentionally one's functioning and the course of environmental events. People are contributors to their life circumstances, not just products of them." (p. 87). In short, persons have the choice, intention and capability to act. They are active, not simply reactive.

One of the more challenging doctrines in the Christian faith is the concept of ‘will’. The notion of a person with a will, of intent of purpose, planning and forethought are crucial aspects of this doctrine. People must have an ability to select or choose behaviors or actions 'freely' if they are to be held accountable for their lives.

On one extreme, we find those who believe there is no such thing as a person or soul with a will. We are, according to these authors, merely electrochemical soup reacting to our environments. In response to this source of the personal actions, Bandura snidely quips: "their neural networks made them do it" (p. 118). This path of thinking is rife with serious ethical problems, not the least of which is the logical conclusion that no one is responsible for anything; we are simply reacting to environmental cues. "The incompatibility of non-ethical neuronal mechanism producing ethical and socially responsible conduct poses a formidable challenge for non-agentic theories of human behavior” (p. 119).

Behaviorists, take note!

On the other extreme, we have members of the theological community who believe in a separate, disconnected soul, as a separate immaterial substance, separate from all neurological actions, with everlasting existence, in some form of Nestorian compromise with the physical world.

Bandura argues for something in between, and in the process has, perhaps unwittingly, written concepts that support a sound Biblical anthropology arguing that the agent is a soul. While Albert Bandura is no theologian, his insights are profoundly theological and worthy of consideration. The purpose of this article is to provide a preliminary look into the intersection of his concept of cognitive agency with Biblical anthropology.

He begins his analysis by asserting that while evolution has had a role to play in human development, of far greater importance to him is the power of cognitive capacities (which he ascribes to language development - we think because we can speak). "The evolutionary emergence of language and abstract and deliberative cognitive capacities provided the neuronal structure for supplanting aimless environmental selection with cognitive agency." (p. 87.) Thus, he seems to think that the development of language provided the foundation for neurological development, not the other way around. He also states that evolution has no teleology, meaning evolution has no 'master plan' toward which it is working.[1] It is cognitive capabilities that are the essence of the secret agent.

He argues several times that evolution has its own question marks. "What is disputable is the common practice of attributing human affairs to alleged vestiges of prehistoric conditions that are unknowable." (p. 102). In other words, the theory of evolution doesn’t provide a clear path to how evolution ostensibly has built the wide range of human behavior. It is, at best, speculation. His focus is the power of cognition in human activities.

Cognitive capabilities of the agent

Bandura argues that what makes individuals agents are four specific cognitive capabilities: (1) intentionality, (2) forethought, (3) self-reactiveness, and (4) self-reflectiveness. In short, agents have plans and goals and they can think ahead. Agents also steer the courses of their lives by reading the feedback of their own actions, and they consider (and often morally weigh) the outcomes of their decisions. This next section reviews the four cognitive behaviors as elements of the secret agent identified by Bandura. "The core agentic capabilities of intentionality, forethought, self-reaction and self-reflection operate as hierarchically organized determinants. Their structural and functional properties are central to the exercise of human agency." (p. 107).

Intentionality

To have an intention is to have a plan, a goal, and a foreseen end. In this way, as agents, we reflect our Maker who has eternal plans for us. Humans are “about” something, whether as simple as growing food during the summer to harvest for winter, or planning a Space Shuttle Mission or constructing a cathedral. They have “thoughts and intentions of the heart" (Hebrews 4:12). They have plans, some of which can last for decades, or even centuries. This is a clear reflection of our Origin, whose plans and thoughts and intentions fill the universe and drive toward those things that the book of Ephesians refers to as the “Plan of God”. “In Him, we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will…” (Ephesians 1:11). "I know the plans I have for you, plans laid long ago, plans to prosper you" (Jeremiah 29:11). To be an agent is to have an intention. This is consistent with White's (1959) notion of Effectance Motivation which states people are about something and have a need to make an impact on their world in a purposeful way.

The notion that we are byproducts of neurology and neurochemistry is challenged by stating that a by-product cannot have an intention. Intentions are about choice. The inner workings of the human, the subjective nature of thoughts and actions, cannot be reduced to mere synaptic reactions. Reductionism does not account for a person’s ability to change course, consider options and multiple avenues of action, even in a crisis (and it surely does not account for creativity, the most mysterious of all human capabilities). An agent has intentions.

Forethought

In legal circles, the term “malice of forethought” is sometimes discussed, which demonstrates planning and intent by the criminal. It is the ability of the agent to predict possible futures that makes him or her unique above all creatures. People are not only able to predict possible futures, but also able to act to bring them to fruition. Decision-making is built around possible futures selected from among many possible outcomes. People can even resist intrusions of competing ideas and distractions to "stay the course" and accomplish “ends.” Here again is a likeness to our Creator, who manages the universe and all that is in it with foreknowledge.

“Remember this, fix it in your mind, take it to heart, you rebels. Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times what is to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.” (Isaiah 46:8-10)

Self-reactiveness

"Agents are not only planners and forethinkers. They are also self-regulators" (p. 87). In short, humans have recurring self-reactiveness that enables them to evaluate their actions, and change course almost instantaneously if necessary, not driven by instinct. The frequent ability to change course based on new input and decisions made "on-the-fly" are also evidences of an agent behind the machinery. As things come up, humans adapt very quickly to their situation, ingesting new information. Even the very idea of ingesting new information about situations or even adding cognitive rules of thumb for situations takes us far away from the animal kingdom. In the animal world, instinct weighs more heavily than even the most rudimentary human cognitions. In the animal kingdom, instinct will always win, since it is the more powerful force. This is simply not true with the self-reactive agent.

For example, Business Management is all about judgment; weighing experience, having knowledge of a situation, inducing values, thinking of possible futures, examining intent, and considering implications. None of this could possibly be true based on the effect of behavior modification alone. Cognitive calculations are moving at the speed of dialogue. An agent can self-evaluate.

Self-Reflectiveness

"The metacognitive capability to reflect upon oneself and the adequacy of one's thoughts and actions is the most distinctive human core property of agency" (2008, p. 88). Bandura comes dangerously close to admitting that there might be a conscience. Here we see something far outside the animal community. Let me give an example. I have a dog, whom I love very dearly. He has a sense of “wrongness” when he eats shoes, having been previously 'reinforced' for the consequences for his actions. However, I saw him kill a baby rabbit once, (unwittingly, because of his size) and he just continued on with life, as if nothing had happened.

Humans do not act in similar ways (unless of course they are pathological in some respect.) Self- reflection is an element of moral thinking, and consistent with the Biblical record. "Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, are a law unto themselves, even when they do not have the law, since they show the requirements of the law written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them" (Romans 2:14-15, NIV).

Summary of the four elements

I give two examples of all the elements working together. A chess game is an ideal expression of all these cognitive elements in play. While some could argue that each move is simply a reaction or reinforcement, it is obvious throughout the game that the agent displays Intention, Forethought, Self-reflection, and Self-reactiveness. A chess game involves intentional calculations (Ex: which opening should I use?), reviewing opponents options (forethought), regrouping of plans based on an opponent’s moves (self-reaction), and frustration or victory (self-reflection) all within a short time.

A second example: I am learning Hebrew. This requires an intention; I want to learn Hebrew because I see a deficit in my personal learning program, and my intention is to minimize that deficit. Gaining study materials and scheduling time with a teacher all require forethought. As to self-reflection, I gain insight into whether I am learning, and as to self-reactiveness, I sense that I am not working hard enough!

What might be of interest to us as Christians is that our spiritual framework impacts our intentionality, self-reactiveness, self-reflection, and forethought. Intentions are weighed against a higher standard, while forethought includes the impact to others as opposed to only the self. Self-reflection is not conducted in a vacuum, but against a spiritual framework, and self-reactiveness includes a feeling of guilt against a standard: the word of God. "For the word of God is living and active sharper than any two-edged sword piercing to the divisions of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and the discerning the thoughts and intentions (Greek: ennoia ἔννοια) of the heart" (Hebrews 4:12 NIV).

Calvin wrote most perceptively many centuries ago:

“For since the soul has organic faculties, they by this pretext bind the soul to the body so that it may not subsist without it [italics mine], and by praising nature they suppress God’s name as far as they can. Yet the powers of the soul are far from being confined to functions that serve the body. Of what concern is it to the body that you measure the heavens, gather the number of stars, determine the magnitude of each, know what space lies between them, with what swiftness or slowness they decline in their course, how many degrees this way or that they decline? I confess indeed that astronomy has some use, but I am only showing that in this deepest investigation of heavenly things there is no organic symmetry, but here is an activity of the soul distinct from the body. I have put forth one example, from which is will be easy for my readers to derive the rest. Manifold indeed is the nimbleness of the soul with which it surveys heaven and earth, joins past to future, retains in memory something heard long before, nay pictures to itself whatever it pleases. Manifold also is the skill with which it devises things incredible, and which is the mother of so many marvelous devices. These are unfailing signs of divinity in man.” (Calvin, Institutes, Book I, Ch. V. 5.)

Source of Agency

Where is the origin of agency? Referring to an infant's ability to get other people to do things for them, Bandura writes, "Infants acquire a sense of personal agency when they recognize they can make things happen and regard themselves as the agents of those actions" (p. 89). When infants discover that they and their actions are different from others, they are constructing an agentic self in that "... infants personally experience the effects of actions directed toward them … Such self-produced outcomes foster recognition of oneself as an agent” (p. 89-90). Although socially produced through contact with other people, the agentic actions of an infant tell us that all of the capabilities reside within that tiny being. All they need to do is show up and interact with those around them.

Other attributes of the Secret Agent

Self-perception throughout a lifetime

We perceive ourselves as our “selves” throughout our lifetimes. We change physically yet we still are who we are. And yet, our physical selves do not account for our complete selves. Consider Steven Hawking: Because of Lou Gehrig's disease, his body wasted away, while he remained one of the most intellectually brilliant minds the world has ever encountered. "The continuity of personal identity resides more in psychological factors and the experienced continuity of one's life course than in physical constancy. An amnesiac remains the same physically, but has no personal identity" (p. 91). The agent knows itself.

Resilience

Agents are remarkably resilient and adaptive, far beyond mere behaviorist reactions to environmental cues. We manage our environments and survive where impossible for other creatures, even in space and under the ocean.

Creativity

Agents are creative, inventors of other things. We see beautiful examples of this in music, art, and a perfectly thrown pass. "The inventive power of human agency is largely ignored in evolutionary accounts of human behavior, especially in the more biologically deterministic views propounded in psychological evolutionism" (p. 101). We reflect the image of our Creator. "Creative neuronal activation must be distinguished from the neuronal mechanical action production" (p. 109). Neuronal activation is occurring in the Secret Agent.

The secret agent manages the systems

As mentioned earlier in this article, a concept gaining prominence over the past two decades is that we are merely products of neural systems. Bandura, however, argues that the agent is managing the system, not the other way around. Through cognitive processing, I, the agent, am initiating the behavior that controls the systems. "Participants are not sitting idly with a blank mind waiting for an intention to emerge spontaneously. The cognitive activity leading up to a decision to act is part of the instigating condition" (p. 115). Macro-behavior controls the micro-neural level.

"Personhood embodies one's physical and psychosocial makeup with a personal identity and agentic capabilities that operate in concert through a variety of special-purpose biological systems." (p. 90). The Secret Agent uses the biological systems. Some have written of the notion that neural architecture supporting a cognitive and emotional process are working in concert.[2]

As my daughter has brain cancer, I have often watched her fight the electrical impulses smashing through her brain due to seizure. She is “there” while the machinery is malfunctioning. She can hear during her seizure, and even perceive. She once told me that she heard me say something 'protective' while she was in seizure. She accurately, cognitively assessed my words and even my intention while she was in the middle of a brain storm. The brain systems are present, but there is a person, an agent overriding the systems. If she were only electrical impulses, why would she fight against the physical manifestations of her disease? The secret agent is doing the fighting. She has recently told me she can assess when a seizure is coming on, and she has learned to ‘manage’ the seizure through sheer force of will. The cognitive (soul!) is managing the biology in her circumstance.

Agents manage biological, emotional and irrational impulses every day. If this were not so, every passing thought of lust would turn into bad behavior, every foul or harsh word that erupts in one's mind would become a curse or worse, every intention of revenge would be acted out. Humans through self-reactiveness manage their own impulses. This is a reflection of something beyond mere behavioral reaction, which also reflects we are not merely reacting via instinct. We are not just products of neural systems.

Another example of the agent managing the neural systems is insight; agents can make connections between unusual or completed disconnected things. Consider the very idea of insight, meaning developing a relationship between two things, or seeing a connection. On episodes of the popular medical drama "House”, Dr. Gregory House always has an epiphany that helps him to define and solve a medical case. Insight and epiphany, or seeing a trend and pattern, is a cognitive process that surpasses any behavioral reinforcement or electrochemical pathway, since it requires a subject to "see" the connections. What does the brain chemistry do to create insight? Dissimilar elements, thoughts, observations, and data points come together in combination to create something that did not formerly exist anywhere. This cannot be the impulse or reaction of synapses firing in random order. Someone is making the connection. This is the secret agent. Even this insight about insight was a reflection managed at the agentic level. Assembling this paragraph requires cognitive reasoning which surpasses mere electrochemical connections.

Another element of the agent managing the system is in the act of recollection or reminding. When someone says, "That reminds me" there is a sense of recollection of ideas, thoughts, memories, and goals that are resident in the mind, but triggered by an event or stimulus. The long-term goals of an individual are connected in the reminding process.

As agents, we also manage perspective and perception. We do not just idly wait for perception to change, we often deliberately do so, through statements such as the following: "take a different look at this, or "look on the bright side," or "let's look at this from a different vantage point."

Cognitive processing is required for someone to change a perspective on something. As information is brought to someone, they can choose to filter and change perspective. Literally, that means adding information and perspective to existing data and reshuffling and reordering the system to see something new. This cannot be simply a matter of behavioral reinforcement done in microseconds at the speed of dialogue. The brain systems designed only for mating, survival and relationships are not equipped for this level of sophistication (Kanazawa, 2010.)

Agents assemble questions during a dialogue; for example, the use of dialogue and questions such as “you don't know what you don't know and you know what you don't know”. So what is the Agent doing? The Agent is selecting, adding, and refining, based on new empirical and sensory and cognitive and value laden input. The Agent is forming the perspective, the angle of seeing through the inclusion of new data. The notion of agency answers a question that still baffles evolutionary psychologists: “what is general intelligence?”

“Viewed reductionistically, my computer is little more than a collections of small pieces of plastic, metal, silicon, other miscellaneous materials, and electrical energy. But through emergence, those pieces of material and energy give rise to another single entity with amazing capabilities, the computer”[3] In the same way, my hippocampus, amygdala, liver, kidneys, heart, lungs, muscles … come together in an emergent form to give rise to a human being, namely: me! An Agent. A soul.

Interrelationships between divine sovereignty and the Secret Agent

While this article cannot cover the immensity of the topic, one of the aspects Bandura touches on is what theologians call the interplay between divine sovereignty and a free agency. Bandura captures elements of this relationship in what he calls Triadic Reciprocal Determination; this is the interplay between interpersonal, behavioral, and environmental activities. From a personal dimension, I act because of who I am. From a behavioral dimension, I influence my environment which in turn influences me as I change it, finally influencing my behavior and the behavior of those around me. In short, the very environment I create influences my behavior, and my behavior influences the environment. We build environments to create our worlds as we want them, as actors, and not mere reactors. "Billiard balls cannot change the shape of the table, the size of the pockets or intervene in the paths they take or even decide whether to play the game at all." (p. 95) People are producers of their own environments. Again, Bandura: "The notion of 'free will' is recast in terms of personal contribution to the constellation of determinants operating within the dynamic triadic interplay" (p. 93).

From the perspective of theology, every choice is another constraint. Individuals contribute to their lack of freedom! This is a strange version of "O what a tangled web we weave." People create their own lives. If I get on a plane to Houston, I am locked into that choice and can no longer go to Tampa. In point of fact, every step, every action I take precludes other actions. "People are partial authors of the past conditions that developed them as well as the future course their lives take." (p. 97). Every choice creates boundaries to other choices. People are contributors to their lack of freedom, and every choice becomes a new constraint. "People also construct physical and social environments that enable them to exercise some measure of control over their lives" (p. 94).

Ultimately, humans create influences on other humans. "People are the producers of their lived environment, not merely a personal conduit through which socio-structural influences operate" (p. 96). From the perspective of Divine Sovereignty, could it be that all of the influences of our wills come together to bring about God's sovereign plan? "People do not operate as autonomous agents. Nor is their behavior wholly determined by situational influences. Rather, human functioning is a product of a reciprocal interplay of interpersonal, behavioral, and environmental determinants" (p. 93).

Linkages between agency and theology

From my perspective as a Christian, the agent Bandura refers to is the soul - the psuche. The integration of agentic cognitive processes with the physical aspects of neurology, brain chemistry, and proprioception is the Rosetta stone of anthropology. Agency prevents us from stepping into a Cartesian dualism. Where the spirit is of God's nature, the soul is the emotional, immaterial agent, and the neurology is the intersection of brain behaviors linked to neuromuscular efforts. To conclude this section, I bring in several salient quotes regarding agency that demonstrate the notion that human beings are more than a few neurons firing in rapid succession. According to Bandura, agency is active on many levels. Bandura's work integrates beautifully with a full orbed Biblical Anthropology.

Organic/Genetic Level and Agency

"Social cognitive theory does not dismiss the contribution of genetic endowment to human adaption and change. On the contrary, this endowment provides the very neuronal structures and mechanism for the agentic properties that are distinctively human." (p. 101). According to Bandura, while genetic endowment is foundational to human nature, it is subservient to agency, and in some cases can even be overridden.

Physical Level and Agency

"Personhood embodies one's physical and psychosocial makeup with a personal identity and agentic capabilities that operate in concert through a variety of special-purpose biological systems" (p. 90). My physical nature is an element of my personhood, but it is not "me" in the fullest sense of the word.

Neurological Level and Agency

"How neuronal machinery works and how to regulate it by psychosocial means are different matters" (p. 111). Confusing neurology as the source of agency is to confuse the tools with the craftsman.

Cognitive Level and Agency

"In agentic theories, cognitive factors in the form of self-views, beliefs, goals, expectations, and mind-sets influence how bottom-up inputs are encoded, organized and remembered. These are internally generated inputs in the top-down regulation of behavior." (p. 101). In short, the Agent is the arbiter of cognition; the Agent is the self that thinks.

In referring to the difference between ant colony behaviors (cited by some neuroscientists as an analogy for brain behavior), Bandura issues a challenge with the example of the complexity of developing a Space Program. "`Houston Control’ is not a capricious, epiphenomenal narrative spawned by sub personal neuronal activity operating autonomously below the level of awareness" (p. 117).

Moral Level and Agency

"The nonconscious neural processes at the micro level have sense of personal responsibility or morality. The issue of morality arises in the purposes to which behavior is put; the means that are used and the human consequences of the actions. A deterministic thesis that humans have no conscious control over what they do, in fact, represents a position on morality. Is it one of moral nonaccountability that is socially consequential? Would a nonagentic conception of human nature erode personal and social ethics that undergird a civil society?" (p. 118). Indeed. This is a serious question to be answered by those who relegate human beings to nothing more than reactive animals.

Conclusion

Ultimately, Bandura makes the most profound of theological statements. "There is no absolute freedom" (p. 97). This may come as a shock to many who debate about 'free will', but clear-thinking persons will acknowledge that agency, while powerful, is limited by multiple factors outside one's control, and indeed are confined by one’s own choices.

Bandura has put forth a theory of agency that accounts for the complexity of human physical phenomena integrated with mental phenomena regulated by cognitive capacities which are largely immaterial. "In short, the mind is part of hierarchically embedded systems and is not a separate entity acting on the body. The advanced symbolizing capacity, neuronally distributed and richly interconnected to diverse sensory and motor systems, provides humans with a means to function as mindful agents" (p. 105).

A person, an agent, is managing the physical systems to accomplish things beyond simple manifestations of behavior modification and reinforcement. The system doesn't account for the thoughts and intentions of the heart. The system is subservient to mental, emotional and spiritual processes which are the domain of the Secret Agent in all of us. In Christianity, we call this the soul.

In my view, soul activity is so complex it requires an interface with the real world to manage all the component parts of a body: we call that the brain.

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[1] This is a useful apologetic for us as Christians, because to assign intelligence to evolution, as if it had a 'plan', would be to give it an overriding intelligence, begging the question "what is the intelligence that gives rise to a long term evolutionary plan?"

[2] Barbey, Colom and Grafman. 2012. Distributed neural system for emotional intelligence revealed by lesion mapping. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Advance Access.

[3] Smith, p. 30

[i] Baer, Kaufman, & Baumeister, 2008