There are various studies out and about that (poorly) suggest that a lack of free will leads to unethical actions. I’ll be getting into some of these studies in future posts, in which this article will be a necessary precursor. It’s my objective to point back to this article and various others such as Problems With The Free Will and Determinism Plus Scale (FAD-Plus) which addresses some of the flaws with the scale used in many of these studies. Needless to say there is not just one thing wrong with the way these studies are done and the ideas concluded in them, but numerous problems throughout them.
One common problem with many of these studies that think they are addressing a disbelief in free will is that they do not study actual people with a disbelief in free will. I know that sounds a bit crazy (and it is), but rather than find people who actually consider themselves hard determinists, hard incompatibilists, non free will believers, and so on, they try to impose a lack of belief in free will on to people by having them read a passage. In other words, they take a group of people who read a passage with deterministic ideas, and then another control group who read a passage that does not say anything regarding free will or determinism. They then test the people using a scale such as FAD or FAD-Plus (FAD Plus being better than the older FAD but still pretty bad) to see where they fall down the free will vs. no free will lines.
Take, for example, one of the first of these studies titled The Value of Believing in Free Will – Encouraging a Belief in Determinism Increases Cheating, which not only uses the really poor FAD scale (called FWD in the study), but injects in a so-called disbelief in free will:
Participants came to the lab individually. First, according to the condition to which they were randomly assigned, they read
one of two passages from The Astonishing Hypothesis, a book written by Francis Crick (1994), the Nobel-prize-winning scientist. In the anti-free-will condition, participants read statements claiming that rational, high-minded people—including, according to Crick, most scientists—now recognize that actual free will is an illusion, and also claiming that the idea of free will is a side effect of the architecture of the mind. In the control condition, participants read a passage from a chapter on consciousness, which did not discuss free will. After reading their assigned material, participants completed the Free Will and Determinism scale (FWD; Paulhus & Margesson, 1994) and the Positive and Negative Affectivity Schedule (PANAS; Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988), which we used to assess whether the reading manipulation affected their beliefs and mood.
In other words, the people in this study who happen to score higher on the “no free will” side due to the reading most likely:
- Have a belief in free will in which the reading might give them a temporary confusion
- Aren’t sufficiently educated about free will and determinism
- Aren’t sufficiently educated about what it means or implies to not have free will
- Default to fatalistic understandings of a lack of free will based on such confusions
- If asked a week later if they have free will, will say “yes”
- Are not hard determinists or incompatibilists (let alone either of these on any long-term basis)
- Have acquired just a little bit of cognitive dissonance from the reading to skew the FAD results
In other words, this type of study does not study:
- People who have rationally concluded there is no free will
- People who have taken the time to learn a little bit about the topic
- People who don’t conflate determinism with fatalism or “random chance”
- People who are actual free will skeptics
Now mind you this is not the only thing wrong with this particular study and many others, there is so much more. Also a replication attempt of this particular study was made that did not have the same results (e.g. such didn’t cause cheating) in which 150 subjects were used rather than the 30 of the original. But that is beside the point of how deeply flawed this type of study is.
Find out why free will doesn’t exist and what it does and doesn’t mean!
To give an analogy, imagine if I were to create a study comparing atheists with theists and how they respond to action X. Imagine if I do this not by assessing if a person is actually an atheist or theist, but rather I take 30 random people (who statistically will almost all be theists of some kind), and I have one-half of the people read an atheistic text while the other half read something else. This drives a little more “atheistic response” from the group that read the atheistic text when questioned. Not only would (most or all of) these people not actually be atheists if asked directly, but even if such gave them a little hesitation and dissonance on their theism, such would simply lead to common theistic thought about their new atheistic thoughts. Ideas that do not actually occur in people who are actual atheists. The fact that most theists have some sort of negative opinion or bias regarding atheism would most definitely play into the psychology.
So when we test for how they respond to action X, it’s a response not of an atheist, but of a person who has become temporarily confused, with all of the biases they hold (as confused theists).
This is no different from people who think they have free will of some sort. They often hold a whole lot of incorrect biases if they are told they don’t have free will. A common one is that of fatalistic and defeatist ideas surrounding not having free will. Is it so strange that someone who thinks their actions might make no difference at all might cheat? I think not. But this is not a belief of most rational (deterministic or incompatibilistic) free will skeptics.
What’s important to come away with for this particular article is that these study methods are extremely flawed. They aren’t a study of people who actually hold a lack of belief in free will. They don’t, for example, send out surveys asking direct questions such as “Do you believe in free will?” and “If not, is such due to your understanding of causality, fate, or random chance?” and then pull in those people who answer these questions directly. A study that doesn’t inject in some false idea that the beliefs important for such a study can be temporarily influenced through the reading of one passage.
This should be obvious. Unfortunately I see a whole lot of people promote these studies as a way to say “see, we shouldn’t be telling people they don’t have free will”. And they do this at the expense of all of the dangers and inequalities that the belief in free will causes in the world (not to mention at the expense of what is true).
If these studies said “we are studying people who we impose a temporary confusion on” that would be more accurate. The studies I’ve come across never do this.
UPDATE (I added this as it’s something I left out of the original and thought it important to include):
Though this particular study is about “encouragement of a lack of belief in free will” (where as there are a number that don’t even suggest the “encouragement” aspect), it must be noted that there is an important distinction between having someone read a passage and encouragement through actual education of a topic, including what it means and does not mean (or even encouraging such education and pointing to such resources). But even though such is supposed to be about the “encouragement” aspect in the study I used, the study still makes horrible conclusions such as (on the last page):
Although the concept of free will remains scientifically in question, our results point to a significant value in believing that free will exists.
If exposure to deterministic messages increases the likelihood of unethical actions, then identifying approaches for insulating the public against this danger becomes imperative. Ultimately, in order to oppose the unfavorable consequences of deterministic sentiments, the field must first develop a deeper understanding of why dismissing free will leads to amoral behavior.
Which is suggesting that the “belief in free will” is what is of value rather than understand that not confusing people who believe in free will is the actual value shown by the study. Also, the idea that it’s “deterministic sentiments” that cause the “unfavorable consequences”, rather than confused free will sentiments that is causing all of the unfavorable consequences. These are the problematic and incorrect ideas that don’t follow from yet still arise from such a poor study.
Vohs, K. D., and J. W. Schooler. 2008. The value of believing in free will: encouraging a belief in determinism increases cheating. Psychol. Sci. 19:49-54.
'Trick Slattery
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2 Responses to “A Temporary Imposed Lack of Belief in Free Will? Seriously?”
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Even if studies “suggest that a lack of free will leads to unethical actions”, it does not make much of a difference since free will is a false belief. Keeping false beliefs because of fear of bad consequences is something that people often do. This of course is a fine example of why these people don’t have the “freedom” to believe the truth.
That’s true. Not only is the conclusion they make false, but it leads to many people using an “argument from adverse consequence” fallacy.