Unmitigated communion  In psychology, unmitigated communion is focusing on others while excluding an individual's self. It is opposed to unmitigated agency, which is focusing on self while excluding others. Unmitigated communion is portrayed as a way of being concerned with others excessively and placing other human beings' needs or wants before one's own. Unmitigated communion and unmitigated agency are also correlated with unusual behaviour and psychological problems. Unmitigated communion was first introduced by David Bakan in the year 1966. Unmitigated communion originated from an analysis of two aspects of behaviour and personality: agency and communion. Bakan defined communion as a focus on relationship or interrelation with others and a focus that more characterises women compared to men in the culture, whereas agency indicates the focus on an individual's self or autonomy. It is believed that communion is referred to as a measure of psychological femininity. However, it is claimed that now communion is perceived to reflect a particular part of female gender-related traits, a communal orientation. Bakan (1996) had never explicitly pinpointed the construct of unmitigated communion, which was developed by other psychologists such as Vicki S. Helgeson and Heidi L. Fritz. Nevertheless, Bakan believed that high levels of communion could be mitigated by a personal sense of agency. Thus, the agency in the unmitigated communion is absolutely absent. Unmitigated communion is different from communion as unmitigated communion is the exaggerated version of communion. Communion can be viewed as a caring act toward other people in a positive way, whereas unmitigated communion can be seen as a psychological distress. In addition, communion is associated with the belief that other individuals are valuable, while unmitigated communion is not affiliated with any good or bad view of others. A study from Carnegie Mellon University shows that there are four main causes of unmitigated communion behaviour which includes the way a person was raised, modelling of a family member especially mother, lack of self-esteem as well as genetics. However, the most accurate and possible cause for unmitigated communion is the combination of genetics, which might be inherited from parents, and socialisation, where the environment and surroundings affect the way a person behaves. For instance, poor and unsupportive family surroundings and social environment would lead to high unmitigated communion behaviour. It is claimed that adolescents with high unmitigated communion would more likely to be raised in a family with less expressive parents. In addition, an individual with high unmitigated communion would tend to come from less cohesive family.