An integrative framework for the human sense of control

From managing daily schedules to making major life decisions, how much we feel in control of our lives is central to our behavior and well-being. Yet, there is currently no precise, unifying account of what it means to feel in control. Here, we propose that humans feel in control when they are prepared to tackle future tasks. We formalize this perspective via a precise yet interpretable measure of controllability that quantifies three key factors: (i) the range of available actions, (ii) the certainty or (iii) the possibility of achieving desired outcomes. This measure unifies previous conceptions of control and successfully predicts human preferences in three experiments in which participants either rate their sense of control or prepare themselves to seek rewards or avoid punishments. Our framework offers a principled foundation for understanding how environmental structure shapes the human sense of control, paving the way towards an integrative science of agency.