Pressing for Control: Exploring Infants’ Intrinsic Motivation to Experience Agency

Abstract

Do infants explore the world merely to understand it, or are they also driven by something deeper, a fundamental desire to be the one who acts upon it? This thesis examines whether 16- to 18-month-old infants are intrinsically motivated to experience agency, defined as the ability to produce contingent outcomes through their own actions, distinct from a motivation to gain information about causal structure. Using a within-subjects design conducted remotely via Zoom, infants pressed a spacebar to interact with an on-screen button in two counterbalanced conditions. In the contingent condition, each press immediately triggered a sound and visual feedback. In the non-contingent condition, identical stimulation occurred on a preprogrammed schedule independent of the infant's actions. If infants are primarily information-seekers, they should press more when outcomes are unpredictable. If motivated by agency, they should press more when their actions reliably cause effects. A pilot study (n = 9) provided preliminary directional support, with six of nine infants pressing more in the contingent condition. In the ongoing Experiment 1 (n = 36 of 40), preliminary data shows infants pressing more in the contingent condition (M = 22.26) than the non-contingent condition (M = 14.97). These findings suggest instead that the experience of causing effects in the world is intrinsically rewarding from early in development. Confirmatory analyses will be conducted upon completion of the full sample.