Disassociating the Agent From the Self: Undermining Belief in Free Will Diminishes True Self-Knowledge
Abstract
Undermining the belief in free will influences thoughts and behavior, yet little research has explored its implications for the self and identity. The current studies examined whether lowering free will beliefs reduces perceived true self-knowledge. First, a new free will manipulation was validated. Next, in Study 1, participants were randomly assigned to high belief or low belief in free will conditions and completed measures of true self-knowledge. In Study 2, participants completed the same free will manipulation and a moral decision-making task. We then assessed participants’ perceived sense of authenticity during the task. Results illustrated that attenuating free will beliefs led to less self-knowledge, such that participants reported feeling more alienated from their true selves and experienced lowered perceptions of authenticity while making moral decisions. The interplay between free will and the true self are discussed.
Get full access to this article
View all access and purchase options for this article.
References
Aarts H., van den Bos K. (2011). On the foundations of beliefs in free will: Intentional binding and unconscious priming in self-agency. Psychological Science, 22, 532–537.
Alquist J. L., Ainsworth S. E., Baumeister R. F. (2013). Determined to conform: Disbelief in free will increases conformity. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49, 80–86.
Alquist J. L., Ainsworth S. E., Baumeister R. F., Daly M., Stillman T. F. (2015). The making of might-have-beens: Effects of free will belief on counterfactual thinking. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 41, 268–283.
Bargh J. A. (2008). Free will is un-natural. In Baer J., Kaufman J. C., Baumeister R. F., Baer J., Kaufman J. C., Baumeister R. F. (Eds.), Are we free? Psychology and free will (pp. 128–154). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Baumeister R. F., Bauer I. M., Lloyd S. A. (2010). Choice, free will, and religion. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 2, 67–82.
Baumeister R. F., Brewer L. E. (2012). Believing versus disbelieving in free will: Correlates and consequences. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 6, 736–745.
Baumeister R. F., Masicampo E. J., DeWall C. N. (2009). Prosocial benefits of feeling free: Disbelief in free will increases aggression and reduces helpfulness. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35, 260–268.
Bergner R. M., Ramon A. (2013). Some implications of beliefs in altruism, free will, and nonreductionism. The Journal of Social Psychology, 153, 598–618.
Campbell J. D., Trapnell P. D., Heine S. J., Katz I. M., Lavallee L. F., Lehman D. R. (1996). Self-concept clarity: Measurement, personality correlates, and cultural boundaries. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 141–156.
Clark C. J., Luguri J. B., Ditto P. H., Knobe J., Shariff A. F., Baumeister R. F. (2014). Free to punish: A motivated account of free will belief. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 106, 501–513.
Costas J., Fleming P. (2009). Beyond dis-identification: A discursive approach to self-alienation in contemporary organizations. Human Relations, 62, 353–378.
Crescioni A. W., Baumeister R. F., Ainsworth S. E., Ent M., Lambert N. M. (2016). Subjective correlates and consequences of belief in free will. Philosophical Psychology, 29, 1–23.
Feldman G., Baumeister R. F., Wong K. F. E. (2014). Free will is about choosing: The link between choice and the belief in free will. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 55, 239–245.
Fleeson W., Wilt J. (2010). The relevance of big-five trait content in behavior to subjective authenticity: Do high levels of within-person behavioral variability undermine or enable authenticity achievement? Journal of Personality, 78, 1353–1382.
Freud S. (1949). An outline of psychoanalysis. Oxford, England: Norton.
Freud S. (1961). The ego and the id. New York, NY: Norton.
Gino F., Kouchaki M., Galinsky A. D. (2015). The moral virtue of authenticity: How inauthenticity produces feelings of immorality and impurity. Psychological Science, 26, 983–996.
Horney K. (1950). Neurosis and human growth: The struggle toward self-realization. Oxford, England: W. W. Norton.
Jung C. G. (1953). Two essays in analytical psychology (Hull R. F., Trans.). New York, NY: Pantheon.
Kernis M. H., Goldman B. M. (2006). A multicomponent conceptualization of authenticity: Theory and research (pp. 283–357). San Diego, CA: Elsevier Academic Press.
Laing R. D. (1960). The divided self. New York, NY: Pantheon.
Lakey C. E., Kernis M. H., Heppner W. L., Lance C. E. (2008). Individual differences in authenticity and mindfulness as predictors of verbal defensiveness. Journal of Research in Personality, 42, 230–238.
MacKenzie M. J., Vohs K. D., Baumeister R. F. (2014). You didn’t have to do that: Belief in free will promotes gratitude. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 40, 1423–1434.
Markus H., Nurius P. (1986). Possible selves. American Psychologist, 41, 954–969.
Markus H., Wurf E. (1987). The dynamic self-concept: A social psychological perspective. Annual Review of Psychology, 38, 299–337.
May R. (1981). Freedom and destiny. New York, NY: Basic Books.
McAdams D. P. (2013). How actors, agents, and authors find meaning in life. In Markman K. D., Proulx T., Lindberg M. J., Markman K. D., Proulx T., Lindberg M. J. (Eds.), The psychology of meaning (pp. 171–190). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
McAdams D. P., Cox K. S. (2010). Self and identity across the life span. In Freund A., Lerner R. (Eds.), Handbook of life-span development (pp. 158–207). New York, NY: Wiley.
Mele A. R. (2006). Free will and luck. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Miller A. (1979). The drama of the gifted child: The search for the true self. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Monroe A. E., Malle B. F. (2010). From uncaused will to conscious choice: The need to study, not speculate about people’s folk concept of free will. European Review of Philosophy, 1, 211–224.
Newman G. E., Bloom P., Knobe J. (2014). Value judgments and the true self. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 40, 203–216.
Newman G. E., De Freitas J., Knobe J. (2015). Beliefs about the true self explain asymmetries based on moral judgment. Cognitive Science, 39, 96–125.
Paulhus D. L., Carey J. M. (2011). The FAD-plus: Measuring lay beliefs regarding free will and related constructs. Journal of Personality Assessment, 93, 96–104.
Petty R. E., Cacioppo J. T. (1984). The effects of involvement on responses to argument quantity and quality: Central and peripheral routes to persuasion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46, 69–81.
Petty R. E., Cacioppo J. T., Goldman R. (1981). Personal involvement as a determinant of argument-based persuasion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 41, 847–855.
Rogers C. R. (1959). A theory of therapy, personality and interpersonal relationships, as developed in the client-centered framework. In Koch S. (Ed.), Psychology: A study of science (pp. 184–256). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.
Rogers C. R. (1961). On becoming a person: A therapist’s view of psychotherapy. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Rokach A. (1988). The experience of loneliness: A tri-level model. The Journal of Psychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied, 122, 531–544.
Ryan R. M., Deci E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55, 68–78.
Ryan R. M., Deci E. L. (2006). Self-regulation and the problem of human autonomy: Does psychology need choice, self-determination, and will? Journal of Personality, 74, 1557–1586.
Schlegel R. J., Hicks J. A. (2011). The true self and psychological health: Emerging evidence and future directions. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 5, 989–1003.
Schlegel R. J., Hicks J. A., Arndt J., King L. A. (2009). Thine own self: True self-concept accessibility and meaning in life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96, 473–490.
Schlegel R. J., Hicks J. A., Davis W. E., Hirsch K. A., Smith C. M. (2013). The dynamic interplay between perceived true self-knowledge and decision satisfaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 104, 542–558.
Schlegel R. J., Vess M., Arndt J. (2012). To discover or to create: Metaphors and the true self. Journal of Personality, 80, 969–993.
Shariff A. F., Greene J. D., Karremans J. C., Luguri J. B., Clark C. J., Schooler J. W.…Vohs K. D. (2014). Free will and punishment: A mechanistic view of human nature reduces retribution. Psychological Science, 25, 1563–1570.
Simmons J. P., Nelson L. D., Simonsohn U. (2011). False-positive psychology: Undisclosed flexibility in data collection and analysis allows presenting anything as significant. Psychological Science, 22, 1359–1366.
Stillman T. F., Baumeister R. F. (2010). Guilty, free, and wise: Determinism and psychopathy diminish learning from negative emotions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46, 951–960.
Stillman T. F., Baumeister R. F., Mele A. R. (2011). Free will in everyday life: Autobiographical accounts of free and unfree actions. Philosophical Psychology, 24, 381–394.
Stillman T. F., Baumeister R. F., Vohs K. D., Lambert N. M., Fincham F. D., Brewer L. E. (2010). Personal philosophy and personnel achievement: Belief in free will predicts better job performance. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 1, 43–50.
VanVoorhis C. R. W., Morgan B. L. (2007). Understanding power and rules of thumb for determining sample sizes. Tutorials in Quantitative Methods for Psychology, 3, 43–50.
Velten E. (1968). A laboratory task for the induction of mood states. Behavior Research and Therapy, 6, 473–482.
Vohs K. D., Schooler J. W. (2008). The value of believing in free will: Encouraging a belief in determinism increases cheating. Psychological Science, 19, 49–54.
Wegner D. M. (2003). The mind’s self-portrait. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1001, 1–14.
Winnicott D. W. (1960). The maturational process and the facilitating environment: Studies in the theory of emotional development. London, England: Hogarth Press.
Wood A. M., Linley P. A., Maltby J., Baliousis M., Joseph S. (2008). The authentic personality: A theoretical and empirical conceptualization and the development of the authenticity scale. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 55, 385–399.
Yalom I. D. (1980). Existential psychotherapy. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Biographies
Elizabeth Seto studied psychology at Baylor University as an undergraduate and is currently a doctoral student at Texas A&M University. Her research interests broadly include self and identity, meaning in life, and the psychological outcomes of belief in free will.
Joshua A. Hicks is an associate professor at Texas A&M University. His research explores individual differences and situational factors predicting outcomes such as meaning in life, substance use and abuse, judgment and decision-making, and personality development.
Handling Editor: Jesse Graham
Cite article
Cite article
Cite article
OR
Download to reference manager
If you have citation software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice
Information, rights and permissions
Information
Published In
Article first published online: July 8, 2016
Issue published: September 2016
Keywords
Authors
Metrics and citations
Metrics
Journals metrics
This article was published in Social Psychological and Personality Science.
VIEW ALL JOURNAL METRICSArticle usage*
Total views and downloads: 1410
*Article usage tracking started in December 2016
Altmetric
See the impact this article is making through the number of times it’s been read, and the Altmetric Score.
Learn more about the Altmetric Scores
Articles citing this one
Receive email alerts when this article is cited
Web of Science: 34 view articles Opens in new tab
Crossref: 0
-
The value of believing in free will: A prediction on seeking and exper...
-
Investigating the relationships of free will belief, presence of meani...
-
Feeling our place in the world: an active inference account of self-es...
-
Climbing the Invisible Ladder: Attenuating Belief in Free Will Reduces...
-
The role of free will beliefs in social behavior: Priority areas for f...
-
Civic Hope and the Perceived Authenticity of Democratic Participation
-
Freedom and Constraint in Digital Environments: Implications for the S...
-
Implications of the TASI taxonomy for understanding inconsistent effec...
-
Manipulating Belief in Free Will and Its Downstream Consequences: A Me...
-
Consider the tumor: Brain tumors decrease punishment via perceptions o...
-
The impact of free will beliefs on implicit learning
-
To Blame or Not to Blame: the Role of Belief in Free Will in Substance...
-
Automatic or controlled: How does disbelief in free will influence cog...
-
Distinguishing free will from moral responsibility when measuring free...
-
The Effect of True Self-Attributions on the Endorsement of Retributive...
-
Why do followers feel inauthentic and withdraw? The joint effect of le...
-
Relating free will beliefs and attitudes
-
Intentional mindwandering and unintentional mindwandering are differen...
-
Agentic meaning-making: Free will beliefs, sense-making, and psycholog...
-
Awareness of societal emphasis on appearance decreases women’s (but no...
-
The Illusion of Time: Testing the Bidirectional Relationship Between B...
-
The true “me”—Mind or body?
-
Stuck in an Existential Quagmire: The Role of Perceived True Self-Know...
-
On Freedom
-
Choosing goals that express the true self: A novel mechanism of the ef...
-
A plea for minimally biased naturalistic philosophy
-
Freeing or freezing decisions? Belief in free will and indecisiveness
-
Sketching the Contours of State Authenticity
-
Understanding the Relationship Between Perceived Authenticity and Well...
-
Varieties of Conscious Experience and the Subjective Awareness of One’...
-
Becoming your true self: Perceptions of authenticity across the lifesp...
-
Different Types of Religiosity and Lay Intuitions About Free Will/Dete...
-
Agency Beliefs Over Time and Across Cultures: Free Will Beliefs Predic...
Figures and tables
Figures & Media
Tables
View Options
Get access
Access options
If you have access to journal content via a personal subscription, university, library, employer or society, select from the options below:
loading institutional access options
ARP and EASP members can access this journal content using society membership credentials.
ARP and EASP members can access this journal content using society membership credentials.
Alternatively, view purchase options below:
Purchase 24 hour online access to view and download content.
Access journal content via a DeepDyve subscription or find out more about this option.
