Free Will?

Changing belief in free will can cause students to cheat

Category: Reasoning • Research • Social
Posted on: April 22, 2008 3:31 PM, by Dave Munger

Do we have free will? While some may see the question as trivial, it's a challenging topic that has been actively debated for centuries. Whether or not you believe a god is involved, a case can be made that free will is simply an illusion, and that every "decision" we make is completely controlled by factors outside of an individual's control.

Yet others have argued that a belief in free will is essential to morality. If we don't actually have any control over the decisions we make, how can we be held accountable for them? Several studies have suggested that when kids believe their achievements are due to innate ability rather than their own effort, they are less likely to persist at similar tasks in the future. But until recently, no study has attempted to directly study belief in free will and how it affects behavior.

Kathleen Vohs and Johnathan Schooler have found a way to study this question (though they can't tell you whether they were predestined to do it or they came up with the idea through their own independent efforts!). They had 30 students read one of two passages by Francis Crick. The first passage argued that most scientists now recognize free will as an artifact of the way the brain works, that free will is simply an illusion and our actions are determined solely by genetics and the environment. The second passage discussed consciousness and did not bring up free will at all. Then the students were given a test to measure their belief in free will versus determinism.

Finally, the students were asked to take a computerized mental arithmetic test with twenty questions like 1 + 8 + 18 - 12 + 19 - 7 + 17 - 2 + 8 - 4 = X. Next came the key to the experiment: the experimenter told them there was a small computer "glitch" that caused the answer to be displayed shortly after the question appeared. To avoid the glitch, students had the space bar as soon as they saw each question. In fact, the computer recorded both the answers and whether or not the space bar was pressed. Here are the results:

Students who read the passage advocating determinism and against free will "cheated" significantly more often than those who read the passage on consciousness that didn't mention free will. These students also were significantly more likely to believe in determinism compared to the other group, so it seems likely that this increased belief in determinism led directly to the "cheating" behavior.

But arguably this is just passive cheating -- the students didn't do anything wrong, they just didn't take active steps to avoid an ambiguous moral situation. In a second study, Vohs and Schooler addressed the question of overt cheating with 122 new student volunteers.

This time, instead of just reading a passage, two groups of students read a booklet fifteen phrases such as "A belief in free will contradicts the known fact that the universe is governed by lawful principles of science," and were required to ponder each phrase for a full minute before turning to the next page. Another group read similar statements advocating free will, and another group read neutral statements. A final baseline group didn't read any statements at all. Everyone was given the same test, which was composed of 15 problems from the GRE exam, a rigorous test designed to assess applicants for graduate school.

One determinism group, the free will group, and the neutral group took the test in sets of 2 to 5 individuals. For these groups, a tempting possibility of cheating was introduced. The experimenter told them that she had to leave the room for a meeting, and that they were to take no more than 15 minutes to take the test, which they should grade themselves. She would not see their test sheets: they were to be destroyed in a document shredder in the room. Then they could award themselves $1 for every correct response from an envelope of coins she left on a table in the room.

The other two groups (the second determinism group and the baseline group) were tested individually, the experimenter graded their tests, and paid them based on their actual scores. Here are the results:

The beauty of this experiment is that the experimenter honestly didn't know how much money each person in the "cheating possible" groups took. She could only count the money after they left and find the average take per person. She couldn't even assess their answers on the test -- those were shredded. Yet those who had read the determinism statements took significantly more money when they were given the opportunity to cheat. The fact that reading about determinism didn't lead to higher scores when cheating was not possible suggests that indeed, cheating was going on, not just super-performance due to reading about determinism.

Does this study also demonstrate that free will itself doesn't exist? The authors won't go that far, but it's pretty clear from this demonstration that external factors had a very strong impact on these students' behavior.

One might also be tempted to use these results to argue that belief in free will is important from a moral perspective (whether or not it actually exists). Yet many religions have very strong deterministic traditions and also strong moralistic traditions, so clearly belief in determinism isn't the only influence on moral behavior. Nonetheless, the results of this study are fascinating. I look forward to hearing what our commenters think about them.

Vohs, K.D., Schooler, J.W. (2008). The Value of Believing in Free Will: Encouraging a Belief in Determinism Increases Cheating. Psychological Science, 19(1), 49-54. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02045.x

 

So, the people are worried about free will? Determinism affects scores? Helplessness increases probability of cheating? Why does this make absolutely no sense?

Ok, since I'm not really sleepy, I shall go abit into some of the IMOs of free will, morality and the common misconception of relating the lack of the former to complete collapse in society. This is the perfect example of the correct action for the wrong reason. Many believe that free will is really the most important thing to us. They even came up with this cool blockbuster where there is this cool guy that can change physics in a computer generated world. why did Morpheus and his team constantly plague the matrix? Because they are hiding the reality from us? Because they are restricting the freedom of man? Seriously, what freedom is Morpheus looking for? The people in the matrix, yes they are governed by this huge computer program that decides what is right and what is wrong, but in the end, they have the choice to make whatever decisions they want, whether to become an actor, live out as a beggar on the streets, become a world famous company CEO, fake as they may be. Most importantly, they are granted the freedom to live and the freedom of safety. What Morpheus and his team condemned themselves to is to the freedom to starve, to run away for eternity from a computer security system. Is that really freedom? Do we really mind sacrificing freedom, however fake it is, for a painful truth that would not affect anything or anyone if it was not known? True, the inconvenient truth or the convenient lie. But if the lie really does not endanger us, or force us to degrade, is living in a lie really that bad? What is reality? Morpheus asked. If what we smell, touch, feel, taste is reality, then reality is simply electrical impulses in the brain. And truly it is. Plato spoke about a true reality, that we are simply living in a cave, staring at a shadow, thinking it is reality. If we were to simply turn around and to see the reality, what happens then? What if turning around and looking out of the cave exposes us to the dangers of a degrading eyesight? What if walking out of the cave exposes us to heavy beasts? Is this reality actually worth the cost of happily looking at a shadow till death? Of course if the beast has the ability to enter the cave, then of course, walking out is the better choice. But if it does not? Al Gore's question of the inconvenient truth rightly speaks this. This convenient lie is one day going to turn around and kill us before we even know what hit us. But if the truth is not more painful but rather worse off than the lie, is the end worth the sacrifice? Bringing this back to the question of free will. If we one day realize free will does not exist, what changes? Only our perception of life. Really, the lie that free will exists actually regulates and enforces laws. All of laws are based on moral right and wrongs. These are of course based on the assumption that we choose to do things. Thus, we are to be punished for choosing the morally incorrect path. Now if we realize that free will does not exist, it means we could not choose the morally correct path to begin with, and thus we cannot be punished. Or not? Writing this article might sow questions about morality, thus possibly leading to a state of chaos. Based on that argument, I cannot be punished because I had no choice not to do so. That I had no ability to stop myself from doing so. Reading about the above article lead me to think about free will, coupled with a rebellious nature as well as a conditioning to use logic, I come to the conclusion that free will does not exist. Thus, I had nothing to do with it. WRONG. I wrote this article while being perfectly conscious. This means that even if there are minor changes to the environment such as this water bottle hitting the ground, it would not change the fact that I am going to post this. If this article results in an increase in chaos to society, thus I am to be punished for doing so. This fear would change the conditions for future people and would thus reduce the probability of other people coming to the same conclusion or gathering up the courage to post a similar article. In other words, punishment to benefit the society and not because of a moral implication. Now many will say, if I insist that there are no need for morals and the concept of choice, but yet come to the same conclusion as before, that punishment must be met out, by my own argument ½ a paragraph ago, it really should not matter whether the truth of whether free will exists or not should be told. Now if one day, someone suddenly comes to a realization that free will DOES NOT exist, the same as the above article, people would tend towards chaos. Why? Simply because the basis of morals rest on decision. If order of society were to rest on such a fragile value, its loss will destroy society. But if order of society were to rest on advancement, nothing can destroy society. Of course, suddenly thinking that advancement is bad would result in collapse, but it would regardless of the presence of morals. Determinism? Irrelevant. Free will? Pointless. So, it appears that a wrong backing does lead to a fragile will.