ISSN : 1229-067X
A considerable amount of attention has been paid to the concepts of agency and communion over the past few decades overseas, as reflected in three special issues in academic journals. However, these concepts are barely introduced to the psychology literature in Korea. In the present article, we presented an organized overview of the so-called "Big Two" which has triggered research on various topics across different fields of studies. First, we introduced different measurements to assess agency and communion. We then explained how these two are related to mental health, physical health, and social relationships. In doing so, we organized studies depending on whether they included the concept of unmitigation. Next, we reviewed narrative studies and how agency and communion themes in narratives are related to psychological well-being. We also detailed the dual perspective model of agency and communion, an approach based on social cognition research. This model uses the two concepts to explain the actor-observer discrepancy in social interactions. Finally, we summarized studies done in Korea about agency and communion, and discussed the future directions of research.
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