Cultural models of agency in a psychosocial intervention in Vietnam: impacts on women’s economic empowerment, competitive behavior, and fairness beliefs
Women’s empowerment programs often aim to strengthen confidence, decision-making, and economic opportunities. Yet the ways people pursue goals and navigate decisions differ across contexts. Some approaches emphasize independent agency, expressed through personal choice and individual achievement, while others emphasize interdependent agency, expressed through harmonious relationships and shared progress.
This thesis examines how these different models of agency shape the effects of a psychosocialempowerment program for women in a microfinance organization in Vietnam. The studies involved1,140 women and compared two versions of the training: one emphasizing independent agencythrough self-direction and assertiveness, and the other emphasizing interdependent agency throughcollaborative action, respect for tradition, and harmony.
Both versions improved economic outcomes, but they affected women differently. The independently framed program produced stronger gains in personal agency and had different effects on willingness to compete, beliefs about merit, and support for reducing inequality.
The findings suggest that there may be multiple pathways to women’s economic empowerment. This points to the importance of considering locally valued and potentially coexisting forms of agency when designing empowerment programs. The findings also show that similar economic outcomes can conceal important differences in the beliefs and behaviors interventions leave behind. More broadly, the thesis shows the value of combining economics with cultural psychology to understand how different models of agency shape people’s responses to interventions.