Do You Believe in Free Will?
New experiments show that disbelief in free will decreases helping behaviours and increases aggression.
Chances are you believe in free will - I do too. To me it seems that one moment I want cereal and soon I have it. Next I want to ride my bicycle and soon I am. Later I have an itchy nose, and, in no time at all, it is scratched.
But, say some scientists and philosophers, this sense of agency is an illusion: you were hungry and that's why you 'wanted' cereal; you were bored and fed up of being inside so you 'decided' to get some exercise; and as for itchy noses, well there is a biological cause for that as well. From a determinist viewpoint each of these actions, and their causes, as well as their causes and their causes can be traced right back to my birth, then back through my parents' lives, then right back, like clockwork, to the beginning of the universe.
The strong determinist view - that we're locked in an unchanging web of cause and effect going right back to the big bang - is repulsive to many. And quite naturally so, as free will forms the backbone of so many of society's structures. The criminal justice system is built on the idea that people can choose whether to obey the law or not, therefore people who don't obey should be punished.
Similarly many religious and/or philosophical systems of thought have the notion of free will at their heart. Existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre emphasised the connection between freedom and responsibility. He thought we must take responsibility for our choices, and that taking responsibility was at the heart of a life well lived.
This debate about free will is so interesting - and knotted - that philosophers can't keep away from it; but psychologists, on the other hand, perhaps sensing no end to the argument, can't help their minds wandering away to more practical points. They have focused more on how beliefs in free will might affect our behaviour and whether, more generally, there might be some reason why we seem predisposed to think we have it.
In new research published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Baumeister, Masicampo and DeWall (2009) theorise that a belief in free will may be partly what oils the wheels of society, what encourages us to treat each other respectfully. They explore this theory with three studies, two on helping behaviours and one on aggression.
Free will and helping behaviours
In the first experiment Baumeister and colleagues wanted to see how a belief in free will affected how much people were willing to help others. To manipulate their belief in free will participants read statements that either supported free will, supported determinism or had no bearing on the debate. A separate study confirmed that this really was enough to shift people's thoughts towards determinism or towards free will.
Participants then read scenarios in which helping behaviours were explored, for example by asking about giving money to a homeless person. They were asked to rate how much help they would provide to the people in these scenarios. The results showed that, as Baumeister and colleagues predicted, people whose thoughts had been pushed more towards free will were more likely to be helpful than those whose thoughts were pushed towards determinism.
So it seems that people really are more helpful when they think they are free to choose as compared to when they believe their actions are pre-determined. Baumeister and colleagues argue that the belief that behaviour is pre-determined encourages people to behave automatically, and often automatic behaviour is selfish.
Interestingly there was no difference seen between the free will condition and the neutral condition. What this suggests is that most people do already believe in free and don't require extra encouragement. Of course we each differ in the amount we believe in free will and this may well affect how much help we are prepared to offer others.
A second study by Baumeister and colleagues examined individual differences looking for an association between believing in free will and helping behaviours. Consistent with the previous experiment they found that people who had a 'chronic disbelief' in free will were less likely to be helpful to others.
Free will and aggression
The final experiment flipped the question around: instead of looking at prosocial behaviours they looked at antisocial behaviours. If a disbelief in free will makes people less helpful, perhaps it also makes them more likely to behave aggressively.
As before participant's thoughts were experimentally shifted towards free will or determinism and then their aggressive tendencies were measured. Instead of having people beating each other up in the lab, they chose a more indirect expression of aggression: putting spicy sauce on another person's food.
Participants were introduced to a study about food preferences which, with some complicated manoeuvring, they were encouraged to think had nothing to do with previous statements they read out about free will or determinism. Then they were told to prepare a plate of food for someone else to taste. One of the ingredients they could choose was a hot salsa sauce. The experimenters were interested in whether a belief in free will affected the amount of sauce participants put on the plate.
When the participants left, the experimenters measured how much hot sauce they put on the plate. Those who had been primed to think more deterministically had spiced up the food, on average, twice as much as those who were primed to think in terms of free will. This seemed to have nothing to do with being more generous as they didn't add more of other non-spicy foods, like cheese, to the plate.
Believers in free will cheat less
These experiments aren't the first to examine how a belief in free will (or otherwise) affects our behaviour. In a recent study Vohs and Schooler (2008) also found that a belief in free will seems to have a positive effect on people's behaviour. In that experiment (covered by Cognitive Daily) participants whose disbelief in free will was encouraged were more likely to cheat on a test.
These studies, then, point out the positive effect of free will on a variety of behaviours that most people would consider beneficial. Indeed it seems that most of us already have a firm belief in free will and so we're already benefiting. Practically the danger is that our thoughts take a more deterministic turn and we move towards more aggression and cheating and away from helping behaviours.
Compatibilism: reconciling determinism with free will
This leaves us with a serious problem. If we think scientifically about the world then we have to accept that one thing really does lead to another; the reason I 'decide' to eat cereal is that I'm hungry, so in some sense the determinist is right.
But a disbelief in free will is not only repugnant, it's also dangerous for society. If we don't have free will, a perverse kind of anarchism emerges, one which seems to encourage us to act any way we choose. After all if we don't have free will then we're not to blame for anything we do.
One way some philosophers have tried to resolve this conflict is by pointing out that determinism and free will are not necessarily incompatible. Using everyday notions of free will philosophers have put forward a viewpoint that tries to integrate the two (see philosopher of mind Daniel Dennett's book 'Freedom Evolves
Classical compatiblists argue that we have free will if we have the power and ability to do things that we want to do. For example, say I want to go and buy a pint of milk for my cereal, and the shop is open, and I can get there, and I have money. For a compatibilist I have free will if I can choose to go, or, alternatively, not go. The fact that I do actually go (mainly because I'm hungry and want to eat cereal) doesn't necessarily mean that I didn't have the choice not to go.
Compatibilists emphasise this idea that we have free will because we could have chosen to do otherwise, even if we didn't. This idea that we 'could have done otherwise' is a powerful one, and one that appeals to our everyday experience. It doesn't solve the dilemma of determinism but at least it provides a stick with which to fend it off.
So when one person chooses not to help another, or chooses to behave aggressively, there must be reasons for that behaviour, many of which might appear to deny their responsibility. Ultimately, though, the proponent of free will has to argue this person could always have chosen to do otherwise.
We have to cling to this belief, don't we?
[Image credit: evoo73]
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The "ability to do otherwise" is called the principle of alternate possibilities. Harry Frankfurt countered the alternate possibilities idea by providing an example of a person who could be held morally responsible while still not able to do otherwise. Look it up.
As far as free will goes it is, by definition not the ability to act along with your instinct but against it; using your intellect and understanding. That is to say, my instinct in a given situation of extreme fear, or anger might lead me to hurt others around me, however by means of my free will I can act against my initial instinct and CHOOSE to calm down and analyze the situation at hand more carefully in order to come to a more rational solution... the flavor of ice cream i eat more often or the time I eat it don't per-se necessitate free will it is only more complex moral choices that do.
As far as G-D's ability to foresee our actions without influencing our choices; It is more a matter of explaining the fact that when viewing a situation from an uninvolved position one can have farther insight: ie. A man standing on a corner balcony in a 10th floor sees two cars rushing down both sides of the bend on a one way road; the following collision of the two cars is in no way influenced by the man's knowledge of what would happen next and yet both drivers where free to obey or disobey the street signs...
Interesting post GREAT study!
Firstly, this is easily the most civilized and articulate comments thread that I've come across in months.
Secondly, I consider myself a determinist. As long as we have the illusion of free will, I don't see why a philosophical, deterministic truth in things should be viewed as repugnant. I might point to Baudrillard's notion of the simulacrum and say that could possibly be applied to what is typically considered to constitute free will, i.e., the decision-making process, but I'm not 100 percent certain on that.
One might extend DeCartes' statement/law/axiom/aphorism, "I think, therefore I am" to "I think I am making a decision, therefore I am making a decision." and realize that this is not necessarily true if there be some sort of reality that exists outside of one's subjective experience.
I have no idea what I'm talking about anymore, but that was fun to write.
That was a fun article to read! Thanks for posting it!
"If we think scientifically about the world then we have to accept that one thing really does lead to another;"
Ye gads! Over 100 years since the introduction of QM, and over 20 years since Alain Aspect demonstrated the violation of Bell's inequalities, and we _still_ have this death grip on determinism?
I'm not arguing for free will, but the determinism / free will dichotomy is a false one. We've already ruled out determinism, so shouldn't we be discussing randomness vs. free will?
Check out the work of Henry Stapp (at Lawrence Berekeley) for a more complete treatment.
@Aditya: anything which even mentions "quantum" has become the domain of quacks, new age loons, and indeed free will adherents. On a large enough scale this universe behaves in a deterministic fashion, and even the smallest parts of our brains are very much large-scale structures from a quantum perspective.
At any rate, this supposed "altruistic" streak in free will believers strikes me as highly suspicious - a lack of free will (or expectation thereof) does not change our status as social mammals.
And my "understanding" of a lack of free will and indeed of the "human" as a discrete entity (we're a shambling collective of various life forms, thought streams, and drifts, an autonomous self-mobile colony of sorts) does not in any way lessen the experience of it all. Just like understanding that sunsets is light behaving in a certain way due to atmospheric effects and the relative positions of sun and earth does not lessen my enjoyment of them.
I've always leaned to the deterministic side of the argument myself. Sure at the quantum level we may perceive true randomness but that could just mean we don't yet (or ever will) have the capabilities to understand what is actually going on.
As bleak as that sounds, I do have a hard time believing we have no control over what we will do next. Consciousness to me must be something more then chemical reactions, not in a religious sense.
We may be able to detect changes in our brain when lying or doing anything else but maybe we are not simply thinking based on our chemistry. Possibly it's our consciousness that makes our brain behave in a specific way in order to get the desired result.
This might just be wishful thinking on my part. It's too bad we will likely never know, but that might be for the best.
I lean deterministic, and am still a vigilant "decision maker" -- it is still just the small me who is appearing to make these decisions, as a result of the cause and effect train that goes back to the beginning of the universe. Just because we can recognize that, doesn't mean I should stop making decision - its not possible. I am comfortable being one of the multitudes of tiny effected beings moving forward as a result of everything else.
The word freewill means "willing". What it doesn't mean is easy. Someone may be willing to stop a bad habit, but that doesn't make it easy. Any change means a willing heart.
All the living beings of this world are subjected to certain conditions over which they have no control. We reap what we sow. whatever actions we have done in our previous births are responsible for our present conditions. Still we have free will. GOD HAS GIVEN US POWER TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT OR WRONG. We are responsible for our own actions. Good actions result good fruit or consequences. while bad actions result bad fruit or consequences. We have free will to perform good actions.
There is no perfect answer, generally, to most of the philosophical questions. Both sides of the answers are inprovable as well as infalsifiable. Perhaps the only thing we can do is to pursue the practical meaning.
Despite the larger rules, personally, I in general believe in Free Will, however, I am not sure whether wuch belief derives from my pre-determined experience and my written destiny, otherwise, it is decided all by myself.
It is just too hard to tell, and therefore, most of us choose not to or merely forget to distinguish between the two. After all, there are too much trifles congesting in life, and little time is left for such contemplations.
All this study shows is the effects of priming. You cannot trust someones account of what they say they would do in a real world situation. That argument implies an acceptance of the fact that people not only have free will, but that people are able to predict how they will act in any given situation. Given the subject matter of the study a lot of variables seemed to have been ignored. It is an interesting topic though.
Interesting article!
My book, Five Reasons Why Bad Things Happen: How To Turn Tragedies Into Triumph (just released last week on Amazon) talks a lot about the intersection of Destiny/Purpose vs. Free Will. That's where it all comes together!
Brownell