Intentional binding and self-transcendence: Searching for pro-survival behavior in sense-of-agency
Keiyu Niikuni, Miho Nakanishi, Motoaki Sugiura
Abstract
Sense-of-agency (SoA) is implicated in a wide range of pro-survival behavioral capacities from a classical psychological perspective. However, in recent years, SoA has primarily been considered a sensorimotor process indexed by intentional binding, and pro-survival behavioral capacity has been considered multifactorial. To revisit their association, considering such conceptual updates, we examined the relationship between intentional binding and eight factors of pro-survival behavioral capacity (as defined by the power-to-live questionnaire). The level of intentional binding measured using the Libet clock method was significantly correlated with, and contributed to, the self-transcendence factor of the power-to-live questionnaire. The results demonstrated the contribution of the sensorimotor processes of SoA to pro-survival behavioral quality in the domain of self-transcendence, which may be explained by a recent social-cognitive hypothesis for the development from contingency detection to social embeddedness and moral compliance.