Cognition and consequences of the belief in free will

Abstract

Free will is a core concept in many modern societies and religions, and the belief in free will is commonly held by a high percentage of people across the world. The centrality of the concept of free will underlying everyday life calls for a better understanding of its manifestation in people’s cognition and behavior. In this thesis I adopt the scientific approach to free will in exploring the psychological underpinnings and the behavioral implications of the belief in free will. The purpose of my dissertation is to advance our understanding of laypersons’ beliefs in free will and to offer an empirical examination of the cognition and consequences of this belief. In Chapter 2, four studies show that despite a wide and controversial assortment of conceptions of free will in the long unresolved philosophical debate, laypersons seem to associate free will more simply with the concept of choice. The more strongly people believed in free will, the more they liked making choices, the higher they rated their ability to make decisions (Study 1), the less difficult they perceived making decisions, and the more satisfied they were with their decisions (Study 2). High free will belief was also associated with more spontaneous associating of choice with freedom, and with the perception of actions as choices. Recalling choices (Study 3) and making choices (Study 4) led to a stronger endorsement of the belief in free will, and the level of choice involved in the choice contributed to the effect. These findings suggest that the everyday social reality of beliefs about free will is a matter of how people think and feel about choice. In Chapter 3, six experiments showed that people associate higher freedom of will with negative valence as compared to positive valence, or put simply - that 'bad is freer than good'. Recalling actual events, people attributed more free will to negative actions than positive ones (Experiment 1). In hypothetical decision making tasks, negatives outcomes (Experiment 2) and negative framing (Experiment 3) were attributed higher free will than positive ones. Using a game theory paradigm, defection against another player was perceived as involving higher free will than cooperation (Experiment 4). Findings were consistent for both actions taken by self and actions taken by others and using different measures. No support was found for reverse causality (Experiment 6) and several possible alternative accounts for the effect were ruled out (Experiment 5). These findings support free will as underlying laypersons' sense-making and attributions of accountability for negative actions and outcomes. Chapter 4 details an examination of the consequences of the belief in free will. Perceptions of agency, freedom, and choice are at the core of human action, and the belief in free will has been shown to affect accountability, responsibility, motivation, and learning, all key components for achieving better performance. Three studies examine the relationship between the belief in free will and performance. The belief in free will predicted better academic performance (study 1) and job performance (study 2), as well as high job satisfaction (study 3), even when controlling for job self-efficacy and job autonomy. The belief in free will also interacted with self-control, such that the endorsement of the belief in free will and having higher self-control predicted the strongest performance. Results from a world-wide country-level analysis (study 3) indicated a positive relationship between the national endorsement of the belief in free will and country socio-economic performance indicators. Together, these findings from 14 studies highlight the concepts of choice and accountability as underlying the folk cognition regarding free will and establishes the belief in free will as a powerful predictor for positive choice attitudes and performance outcomes. Keywords: belief in free will, cognition, activation, choice, accountability, consequences, performance

Date of Award	2014
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology