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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Free will has always existed but starts out linked to bodily functions (instinct), heritage (DNA), and environment (what you have to work with) because after birth your consciousness relies on these three things. If you're born a certain way you can only work with what you have. You can only grasp what you are taught and what your body tells your brain. When a baby turns it's head and looks around, that's pure human instinct. As your consciousness grows you begin to realize you are in complete control. You can eat whether you are hungry or not, but the effect on the body will differ. Even your thoughts become a part of your own free will in time but always have some kind of reaction. You cannot have one without the other.
These are still correlative studies though. Without any proper controls to determine if either of these beliefs "cause" or "result in" behavioral changes, it could also be said that being more willing to help people causes that person to believe they possess free will over their actions. Or that having an aversion to hot sauce results in a higher belief in free will.
The irony, of course, is that this article points out that there's a perfectly deterministic explanation for the perception of free will that doesn't require that it actually exist.
If we have evolved to believe in free will (due to the societal advantages), is our belief in it really free?
The thing I struggle with is that free will seems an awful lot like "magic". What would it mean? The ability to "mentally" determine that quantum mechanical states will sollapse in a particular way instead of another?
That just begs one to ask why I can't choose a quantum outcome that's more unlikely, such as all the atoms in the room spontaneously coming together as a unicorn.
However, that doesn't mean the universe is deterministic. It also could just be random. Hail Eris.
Two points.
1. Social ethics and hard determinism aren't incompatible. Justice based on utilitarian ethics works quite well with a deterministic world view.
2. If what is meant by free will is the to the ability to make decisions and act on them then it is not incompatible with a deterministic world. Only the ability to make nonsense decisions is incompatible with determinisms and in this form it makes little sense at all.
Amanda, the first and third studies were experimental, with randomised control groups, so we can say that there is causation. Only the second study was correlational.
Michael, I'm setting up the two positions in opposition to make some accessible points. As you hint at, though, philosophers can make practically anything compatible with practically anything else. That's why I prefer to take solace from empirical studies!
I have long been of the opinion that even though I don't believe in a diety (or perhaps I'm agnostic), I wouldn't want to be in a world where most people don't. Same with free will--I have a self-interest in most people believing in free will and then, we presume, they are more altruistic, less aggressive etc. I'm not freudian, but this does sound a lot like super ego development.
One very large issue in this area is the complete lack of any operational definition of free will. It's hard to affirm/prove it "exists" unless we know what the "it" is. for all we know it is tied up with collapsing universes as mentioned above. Perhaps we have essentiallly a near-infinite set of choices at any time. soif we take one of those, is it free will or is it determined by the near-infinite universe of options??? that would fool most people into the illusion of belief in free will.
This reminds me of the finding that economists are more likely to defect in prisoners dilemmas.
I'm guessing cognitive dissonance is causing most of the effect? (I.e., determinists/economists have a harder time justifying altruism?)
Free Will is a kind of religious myth that gives us a speciously satisfactory explanation for why God allows the existence of "evil" while providing the basis for culpability on a metaphysical level. At the same time, however, it suggests that God has given over part of his omnipotence to a bunch of apes who are bound to be influenced by instinct and false reasoning, inevitably resulting in a slew of "bad choices" (which would suggest that He is grossly negligent and indifferent to the conditions of Man).
There is no way to falsify either Free Will or Determinism, because it would require a godlike position (eg. being outside the universe-system so as not to be influenced by either possibility in order to decide the matter). Even then we would have to consider whether such a position was really a disconnect from our reality, or part of a larger one (The Universe/Multiverse by some definitions is All There Is, making a definitive answer impossible..)
To me, all decisions related to this question should be judged based on the degree of verification, (always allowing for the possibility that our judgments so far have been completely wrong) rather than relying on something impossible to prove, so that things like the justice system and scientific pursuit do not stagnate in the blind alley of systematic dogmatism and demonizations of the human condition.
I believe that most of us believe in free will and underestimate the way our brain is wired for us to seek certainty, to be primed to see thing a certain way and to act in patterned ways... as Burton points out in On Being Certain.
Wrote about that here
http://www.movingfrommetowe.com/2008/03/09/feeling-certain-how-our-brains-betray-us/
Yet being mindful of how much our brain processes experiences enables us to sidestep some decision making traps - and that's a good thing.
Well this is a tricky subject, for I can say I have free will if I decide not to go buy a coke to have with my steak since steak goes good with coke and I have none. I don't go because I don't feel like it, that is free will. But then you could also say that I don't go because I'm tired, and that is determinism. So maybe that is not the way to look at it.
The truth is that free will exists, since I can decide working on, lets say, decorative picture frame to give my favorite teacher as a gift when there's no reason to do so (no birthday, etc.). How does determinism explains that?
I believe they both coexist. It's true that some of our actions have an explanation based on cause and effect, but some of them don't.
Besides.. I decided to have chocolate cereal, and not vanilla!
What is up with polarizing things? I think that is the cognitive dissonance, living exclusively in one part of the pole.
Why do things have to be good or bad, free will or deterministic, wave form or particles.
It is very possible to live in both and yet not be the denizen of any one.
It makes sense that psychologists are focusing more on behaviors.
As many people have pointed out, one cannot exist without the other.
Nice post!!!!
What I find really interesting is the number of people who believe in both free will and an omnipotent, omnipresent deity. To believe in a god that is aware of every point in time and space is to negate free will entirely. How can you have free will if the outcome of the decision you just made was known before you made it?
Hows that for irony?
I believe in God and I believe in Free will.
This article, as others I've read, ptresent the absence of free will as a terrifying option, resullting in the paralysis of (esp criminal) law.
Thi is simply not true. Laws can very well punish people for committing crimes even without free will. It's called 'strict' or 'no-fault' liability and has become very common already in many branches of law.
I also agree with Ray who says the term 'free will' reminds him of 'magic'.
I believe two tests of any world-view are "is it true?" and "does it work?" The second question should be of secondary importance. The two are connected in that a belief system will work if it is true because it is most in touch with reality.
How can a determinist even talk about whether it's true if logic, reason, and even the scientific method are nothing more than the result of a predetermined concatenation of influences. We can't even have a meaningful conversation on these terms.