THESIS
2014
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...[
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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
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