Freewill vs Determinism In Psychology

Determinism

The determinist approach proposes that all behavior has a cause and is thus predictable. Free will is an illusion, and our behavior is governed by internal or external forces over which we have no control.

Don’t confuse predictability with determinism entirely; unpredictability doesn’t automatically equal free will (it could just be complexity or randomness).

External Determinism

External (environmental) determinism sees the cause of behavior as being outside the individual, such as parental influence, the media, or school.

Approaches that adopt this position include behaviorism and social learning theory.

For example, Bandura (1961) showed that children become aggressive through observation and imitation of their violent parents.

Its purest form is Skinner’s radical behaviourism. It eliminates all reference to inner states.

Free will and “autonomous man,” in this view, are “explanatory fictions.” They cannot be defined or measured.

Environmental causes are usually hidden from us. That is why the illusion of freedom survives.

When behavior is obviously coerced, like a gun or a punishment, we see the constraint. Most of the time, though, we simply do not notice the reinforcement histories shaping us.

The causes stay hidden.

In Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971), Skinner made the case bluntly. He argued that “autonomous man” is a false and harmful notion.

His utopia Walden Two (1948) makes the same point through fiction. It depicts a society run entirely on positive reinforcement.

Internal Determinism

The biological perspective assumes behavior is largely controlled by internal biological factors, such as genes, brain neurochemistry and hormones.

The biological approach explains mental illness as a genetic predisposition or a brain imbalance. These causes sit beyond the person’s control.

It is internal, not external, forces that are the determining factor here. The forces are internal, not external.

According to sociobiology, evolution governs the behavior of a species and the genetic inheritance of each individual within it. The theory takes biological determinism furthest, holding that culture and behavior are coded in the genes and shaped by natural selection.

For example, Bowlby (1969) said a child has an innate, inborn need to attach to one main attachment figure. This is monotropy.

High concordance rates in identical twins for certain disorders (e.g. schizophrenia) point to biological causes.

Personality traits like extraversion or neuroticism, and the behavior associated with them, are triggered by neurological and hormonal processes within the body.

There is no need for the concept of an autonomous human being. We are, in this view, no more than biological machines.

Even consciousness itself is treated as a level of arousal in the nervous system.

Psychic Determinism

Freud also viewed behavior as being controlled from inside the individual through unconscious motivation or childhood events, known as psychic determinism.

This means unconscious drives and early experiences, not conscious choice, control what we do.

Nothing we do is truly accidental.

For example, a person’s adult relationship problems might be traced to repressed trauma or early fixations.

Freud used this idea to explain slips of the tongue, dreams, and mental-disorder symptoms.

Freud was not a fatalist, though.

He believed people could gain freedom through psychoanalysis: bringing unconscious conflicts into awareness could help a person overcome those determinants.

Neo-Freudians like Erich Fromm pushed this further.

Fromm argued that many people let unconscious forces or circumstances govern their lives.

Everyone still has the potential to take control and choose between good and evil, once they overcome their fears.

Thus, psychodynamic theory is deterministic about the causes of behavior, but not fatalistic – therapy can restore some free will.

Different levels of determinism

Hard Determinism (no free will at all)

Hard determinism sees free will as an illusion and believes that every event and action has a cause.

Behaviorists are strong believers in hard determinism. Their most forthright and articulate spokesman has been B. F. Skinner. Concepts like “free will” and “motivation” are dismissed as illusions that disguise the real causes of human behavior.

In Skinner’s scheme of things, the person who commits a crime has no real choice. Environmental circumstances and personal history propel them toward breaking the law. It feels natural and inevitable.

For the law-abiding, an accumulation of reinforcers has the opposite effect. Having been rewarded for following rules in the past, the individual does so in the future.

There is no moral evaluation or even mental calculation involved. All behavior is under stimulus control.

Skinner insisted that even when we think we are choosing freely, our decision can be traced to environmental causes we may not recognize.

Soft Determinism (some choice within constraints)

Soft determinism represents a middle ground. People do have a choice, but that choice is constrained by external or internal factors.

William James (1890) first drew this distinction in The Principles of Psychology, relating it to what he called the effort of attention in willing.

Causal factors make certain behaviors more likely but don’t force one inevitable outcome. Behavior is often predictable, yet not inevitable. We can choose among options, though our choices stay restricted.

For example, being poor doesn’t make you steal. It may, though, make you more likely to take that route out of desperation.

Soft determinism suggests that some behaviors are more constrained than others and that there is an element of free will in all behavior.

A problem with determinism, though, is that it clashes with society’s ideas of responsibility and self-control. Those ideas underpin our moral and legal obligations.

Psychologists also face a practical limit: they cannot predict a person’s behavior with 100% accuracy, given the complex interaction of variables that can influence behavior.

Cognitive psychologists assume some determinism, since mental processes follow patterns and can be studied scientifically. They also see people as capable of reflecting on and overriding some influences through thought.

Behavior is somewhat predictable, based on schemas or biases. Yet individuals can exert control by thinking differently, as used in therapies like CBT.

The cognitive approach thus bridges free will and determinism: we have agency to decide, but our decisions operate within constraints of brain processing and past experience.

Freewill

Free will is the idea that we have some genuine choice in how we act, and that we are, at least sometimes, self-determined.

This does not mean behavior is random. We are free from the causal influence of past events, and so responsible for our own actions.

For example, people can make a free choice about whether to commit a crime, unless they are a child or are insane.

Four Meanings of Free Will

Philosophers and psychologists use “free will” in at least four distinct senses. Before looking at the evidence, here is what each one means:

• Having a Choice: we could have behaved differently given the same circumstances, unlike determinism, where things could only have happened as they did.
• Not Being Coerced: a gun to your head makes behavior clearly unfree; this is usually where the philosophical debate begins.
• Voluntary Behavior: “voluntary” means not automatic, in contrast to a reflex like an eye-blink; most behavior is neither reflex nor coerced.
• Deliberate Control: Norman and Shallice (1986) distinguish automatic, partially automatic, and deliberate processing; deliberate control is the level that corresponds to free will.

The Humanistic Case for Free Will

One of the main assumptions of the humanistic approach is that humans have free will; not all behavior is determined.

Personal agency is the humanistic term for the exercise of free will: the choices we make in life, the paths we go down, and their consequences.

For humanistic psychologists such as Maslow (1943) and Rogers (1951), freedom is not only possible but also necessary if we are to become fully functional human beings. This matters.

Both see self-actualization as a unique human need setting us apart from other species. That, they argue, draws a line between the natural and the social sciences.

When two chemicals react, there is no sense in imagining they could behave any other way. People are different.

When two people meet, they could agree, fall out, compromise, or start a fight. The permutations are endless.

To understand their behavior, we would need to understand what each party chooses to do. Determinists who think what “is” was inevitable are ranged against those who believe people can control their own destinies.

Subjective Experience: Does Freedom Feel Real?

Free will also shows up in how choosing actually feels, and several strands of evidence back this up.

Psychological reactance is one: when people feel their freedom is threatened, a common response is to reassert it, which is why “don’t tell me what to do” so often backfires.

A striking demonstration comes from Delgado’s (1969) brain-stimulation studies. Stimulating a patient’s motor cortex produced a clenched fist that the patient could not stop, however hard he tried.

He described the experience sharply: “I guess, doctor, that your electricity is stronger than my will.” The patient could clearly tell the movement was not his own doing.

Freud, Fromm and the Possibility of Change

There is also an intermediate position. It goes back to the psychoanalytic psychology of Sigmund Freud.

At first sight, Freud looks like a supporter of determinism. He argued that our actions and thoughts are controlled by the unconscious.

Yet the very goal of therapy was to help the patient overcome that force. Without the belief that people can change, therapy makes no sense.

Several neo-Freudians took up this insight. The most influential was Erich Fromm (1941).

In Escape from Freedom, Fromm argues that we all have the potential to control our own lives, but many of us are too afraid to do so.

As a result, we give up our freedom. We let circumstances, other people, ideologies, or irrational feelings govern our lives instead.

Determinism is not inevitable, though. Fromm locates the essence of human freedom in the very choice we all have between good and evil.

Key Studies and Evidence in the Debate

Research across psychology provides evidence both for determinism and for elements of free will. Here are several influential studies and findings relevant to the free will–determinism debate:

Libet’s Free Will Neuroscience Experiment (1983):

Benjamin Libet’s famous study is a cornerstone of this debate. Does conscious intention start a voluntary act, or does the brain start it first?

Aim: to determine whether the conscious intention to make a simple voluntary movement precedes or follows the brain activity that prepares it.

Method: participants watched a revolving spot of light. They were asked to flex their wrist spontaneously whenever they felt the urge, with no pre-planning.

Participants reported the clock position at the moment they first felt the intention to move, which Libet labeled the “W” moment. Scalp EEG recorded the Readiness Potential (RP), a slow build-up of electrical activity over the motor cortex.

Timing was everything here.

Results: the RP began about 550 milliseconds before the movement, but the reported conscious intention (W) came only about 200 milliseconds before it.

Brain preparation therefore preceded the conscious decision by roughly 350 to 400 milliseconds.

The order was reversed.

Conclusion: Libet inferred that a voluntary act is begun unconsciously by the brain, before the person becomes consciously aware of deciding. Taken at face value, that suggests conscious free will does not initiate our actions.

That is a strong claim.

Evaluation: Libet himself resisted the strongest reading. He proposed that consciousness retains a “veto,” a power to abort the movement in the roughly 100–200 ms window before muscle contraction, sometimes called “free won’t.”

A deeper objection concerns validity. Flexing a wrist for no reason is an arbitrary, meaningless act, arguably a poor model of the deliberated choices we most care about calling free.

Later work confirmed that unconscious motor initiation can precede awareness (Hallett, 2007). The phenomenon is robust. What it means stays contested.

Soon et al.’s fMRI Prediction Study (2008)

Libet’s RP led conscious awareness by only a fraction of a second. Soon and colleagues asked whether a choice could be read out of the brain far earlier, using brain imaging instead of EEG timing.

The idea was bold.

Aim: to test whether the outcome of a free decision is encoded in brain activity before it enters conscious awareness, and how far in advance.

The same question repeats.

Method: in an fMRI scanner, participants freely decided when to press a left or right button, while letters streamed on screen.

They later reported which letter was showing when they became aware of deciding. Machine-learning classifiers were trained to predict the chosen hand from brain-activity patterns. The signal was subtle.

Results: the outcome could be decoded from activity in the frontopolar and parietal cortex up to 7–10 seconds before the decision reached awareness. Predictive accuracy was modest, though, around 60%.

Conclusion: unconscious neural activity in high-level control regions shapes a free decision long before the person experiences deciding. This extends Libet’s conclusion from milliseconds to several seconds.

Evaluation: a technical landmark, but 60% accuracy shows the early signal biases rather than fixes the outcome. As with Libet, the task is an arbitrary button choice, so it may tap random noise (see Contemporary Research, below) rather than a considered choice.

Vohs and Schooler’s Free Will Belief Experiment (2008)

A different question sidesteps the metaphysics entirely. Regardless of whether free will is real, does believing in it change how people behave?

Aim: to test whether weakening people’s belief in free will increases dishonest, antisocial behavior, specifically cheating.

Method: in two experiments, participants first read passages manipulating belief. The anti-free-will group read that free will is an illusion; control groups read neutral or pro-free-will passages instead.

They then completed tasks with a covert opportunity to cheat. One task was a computer arithmetic test with a “glitch” that revealed the answer unless the participant pressed a key to stop it.

Results: participants who had read the deterministic passages cheated more, pressing the key less often and awarding themselves more undeserved money.

Conclusion: discouraging belief in free will can increase cheating, suggesting the belief supports self-control and moral responsibility, whatever its metaphysical truth.

Evaluation: a clean link between belief and behavior. But the effect proved fragile on later, larger testing, the subject of the Contemporary Research section below.

Twin and Adoption Studies (Nature vs Nurture):

Decades of research with twins provide insight into genetic determinism.

For example, identical twins (100% same genes) often show much higher concordance on traits than fraternal twins (50% same genes).

A classic finding: identical twin pairs have about an 80% similarity in intelligence scores, compared to lower for non-identical twins.

Similarly, identical twins have around 40% concordance in depression risk, vs ~20% in fraternal.

These patterns suggest a strong genetic component.

Another example: Gottesman’s meta-analysis for schizophrenia found ~48% risk for an identical twin of a patient vs ~17% for a fraternal twin. Genes clearly matter.

However, genes are not destiny. Concordance is not 100%.

The fact that ~52% of identical twins in Gottesman’s data did not develop schizophrenia, despite sharing the same genes and upbringing, is telling. It points to an important role for other factors, such as environment or individual choices.

Likewise, 20% of IQ variance in identical twins seemed due to environment. That points to an interplay.

Conclusion: Twin studies strongly support biological determinism, since genes clearly have a big causal impact. But they also support soft determinism, since genes set limits while environment and personal agency fill in the rest.

Behaviorist Experiments (Environmental Shaping):

Classic behaviorist studies demonstrate how the environment determines behavior:

• Pavlov (1902): Taught dogs to salivate at a bell by pairing it with food. This showed how a natural reflex could be determined by an external stimulus (conditioned response) – supporting environmental determinism, the view that the causes of behavior lie outside the individual, in reinforcement, upbringing and culture.
• Watson & Rayner (1920) – “Little Albert”: Conditioned a toddler to fear a white rat by pairing it with loud clanging noises. Albert’s acquired fear of furry objects illustrated how even emotions can be environmentally determined through associative learning. Albert had no choice in this; the environment (loud noise) produced the fear.
• B.F. Skinner’s Operant Conditioning (1930s–50s): Skinner trained pigeons and rats to perform complex actions (like pressing levers or pecking specific keys) by carefully controlling rewards. His work demonstrated that behavior follows schedules of reinforcement. 

These studies collectively support the deterministic view that environmental contingencies “program” behavior.

In therapy too, behavior modification techniques based on these principles (token economies, systematic desensitization) effectively change behavior by manipulating causes, not by appealing to free choice.

• Bandura’s Social Learning Theory (1961, 1963): Albert Bandura’s Bobo doll experiments showed children an adult model behaving aggressively toward a Bobo doll.

  Children who observed this were more likely to imitate the aggressive actions when given a chance to play, especially if the model was rewarded.

  This experiment provided evidence for observational learning and introduced Bandura’s concept of reciprocal determinism. This is the idea that a person, their behavior, and their environment all cause one another, rather than behavior simply being an effect of the environment.

  However, Bandura also noted that children don’t imitate blindly; cognitive processes (attention, retention, motivation) mediate this. He proposed that personal factors, behavior, and environment all influence one another (reciprocal determinism), implying an interactionist stance.

  The study is key evidence that while environment influences behavior (supporting determinism), individuals also interpret and choose whether to imitate (hinting at cognitive free will component).

Freudian Slips and Psychodynamic Evidence:

Freud’s case studies and observations underpin psychic determinism, even though they are not “experiments” in the traditional sense.

Freud documented numerous slips of the tongue, dreams, and neurotic symptoms. He argued that these ostensibly accidental behaviors had determinable unconscious causes.

A famous anecdote makes the point. A man meant to compliment his host’s “wife” but instead said “your life is really delicious”.

Freud read the slip as revealing an unconscious attraction to the host’s wife. Such evidence is admittedly interpretative.

Still, Freud amassed a large body of such analyses to claim every behavior has meaning.

Psychodynamic therapy outcomes add further evidence. Bringing unconscious motivations to light often changes behavior. A resolved phobia, once its root conflict surfaces, is a classic example.

This could be read as restoring free will, since the person is no longer unknowingly driven by a hidden cause. Or it could be read as replacing one deterministic cause with another, since conscious insight now determines behavior. Either reading is plausible.

Freud’s work shows that unconscious determinants are powerful either way, even when we don’t consciously realize it.

Locus of Control Studies (Rotter, 1966 & later):

Research on locus of control classifies people on a spectrum from internal (believing they control their fate) to external (believing outcomes are controlled by outside forces).

Generally, an internal locus (akin to a belief in free will/personal control) correlates with better outcomes: higher achievement, better coping with stress, and proactive behavior.

An external locus (believing in deterministic fate or luck) correlates with anxiety, depression, and passivity.

For instance, studies find that internals are more likely to wear seatbelts, quit smoking, or seek information – they act as if their choices matter.

Externals might not bother, seeing it as “whatever happens, happens.”

These findings don’t prove whether free will exists, but they show that people’s belief in control versus determinism affects their actions.

It adds weight to the argument that in psychology (and life), perceiving oneself as a free agent is beneficial.

Implications

The free will vs determinism debate has far-reaching implications for psychology, ethics, and our broader understanding of human behavior. Below are key evaluation points and why this debate matters:

Scientific Rigor vs. Human Complexity:

A determinist approach in psychology is praised for being scientific. Assuming behavior has causes lets psychologists run experiments, gather data, and form theories, such as linking anxiety to neurotransmitters or conditioning.

This has led to effective treatments, including drugs and behavioral interventions. It lends psychology credibility as a science.

However, critics argue that an overly deterministic, scientific approach may oversimplify human behavior.

Humans have self-consciousness, goals, and creativity. Hard science models struggle to capture these.

Hard determinism might work well in physics. Applying it to human thought risks stripping away meaning and subjective experience.

There is a real tension here. Determinism drives scientific advancement, but psychology also risks losing sight of phenomena, like spontaneous insight or genuine choice, that resist a deterministic mold.

Therapeutic Approaches:

The stance one takes in this debate can influence therapeutic strategy.

Behaviorists, as determinists, focus on altering environmental contingencies, such as reinforcement schedules. They see these as the real causes of behavior.

Biological theories are also determinist. They hold that genes, brain structure and neurochemistry dictate behavior, and typically use drugs to control it.

Therapies influenced by free will, like humanistic therapy, take the opposite view. They emphasize empowering the client to make choices, self-reflect, and take responsibility for improvement.

Both approaches show real effectiveness. Drugs can alleviate symptoms by addressing determined biological causes, while client-centred therapy can help a client feel more in control and actually change.

Many clinicians adopt a pragmatic compatibilism instead. They acknowledge the role of determinants, so they remove barriers, such as detoxifying an addict’s body. They also encourage patient agency, having the addict commit to change and practice coping skills.

The debate reminds therapists to ask a simple question. Are we treating the person as an active agent, or just a product of causes?

Most agree that instilling a sense of control, even if it is an illusion, is often beneficial in treatment.

Ethical and Legal Responsibility:

If we lean too far into determinism, accountability might be undermined.

This matters in practice. Forensic psychology and the legal system feel it directly.

Is a criminal act the result of free choice, or was it “destined” by the person’s genetics and upbringing?

The legal system mostly operates on a compatibilist assumption. People have enough free will to be responsible, except in special circumstances, such as insanity, coercion, or immaturity, where that free will was compromised.

Psychologically, this shows up in how we assess defendants: their state of mind, intentions, and ability to understand right from wrong.

A current implication is the use of the “warrior gene” (the MAOA gene, linked to aggression) as a courtroom defense. A few cases have argued this. A genetic predisposition to violence, they say, should mitigate responsibility.

So far, courts have been reluctant to accept that argument wholesale, precisely because of the slippery slope (many worry it sets a precedent where nobody could be guilty since “my brain made me do it”).

In practice, a balance is struck. Influences may inform rehabilitation or sentencing leniency, but the concept of choice remains central for legal and moral purposes.

Implications for Society and Personal Attitudes:

On a societal level, this debate influences things like educational approaches and social policy.

A determinist might focus on changing environment structures, like improving schools or reducing poverty, since these determine better behavior and success.

A free-will believer might instead focus on teaching personal accountability and discipline. They allow individuals to rise above their circumstances.

In reality, successful policies often consider both. They provide supportive environments and encourage personal effort.

On a personal level, belief matters too.

Believing in free will tends to encourage effort (“I can do this if I choose to”). A deterministic outlook can instead lead to fatalism (“What’s the point, it’s out of my hands”).

However, determinism can also foster compassion. If someone’s struggles are largely due to factors beyond their control, like trauma or mental illness, we might respond with empathy rather than blame.

Thus, the debate shapes our attitudes toward others, blame versus understanding, and toward ourselves, empowerment versus acceptance of limits.

Middle-Ground Resolution:

Many psychologists take an interactionist or compatibilist approach as a resolution.

Before exploring this middle ground, here is what it involves.

• Causation: we keep researching genetic markers, neural correlates, and reinforcement histories, because behavior has causes.
• Choice: humans also exercise choice in how they respond to these influences, and that choice counts as “free enough” for personal responsibility.
• Two Levels: a biological (deterministic) level and a psychological (intentional) level are both useful. They don’t contradict, because they operate in different explanatory frameworks.

Thus, the debate evolves into questions like “to what extent are we free, and under what conditions?” rather than a yes/no dichotomy.

The interactionist approach essentially says freedom exists in a constrained form. We’re not absolutely free, but neither are we absolutely determined.

This middle path aligns with common sense.

For example, the diathesis-stress model in psychopathology is often cited. A genetic predisposition (diathesis) may be present, but whether a disorder manifests often depends on an environmental trigger (stress) and the individual’s coping responses.

Not everyone with a genetic risk for depression becomes depressed; it might take a stressful life event to activate it. The trigger matters.

Conversely, someone with no particular predisposition might still develop depression after extreme stress.

Neither the “internal cause” nor the “external cause” alone is sufficient here. Both matter.

The model is deterministic in a broad sense, since both the diathesis and stress are causes. But because both must coincide, there is still a sense of contingency.

Personal coping strategies, a form of free will, may buffer the stress effect. That inserts personal agency back into the causal network.

By adopting this middle ground, psychology can remain scientific, seeking causes, while still valuing individual agency.

It’s an ongoing dialogue.

Areas like cognitive neuroscience and philosophy of mind continue to explore how “volition” fits a causally governed brain.

The consensus in contemporary psychology leans toward soft determinism – recognizing lawful influences on behavior but not eliminating the concept of personal choice altogether.

Critical Evaluation

The free will versus determinism debate has been argued for over a century, and neither side has landed a knockout blow. Three problems keep resurfacing.

Is the Debate Unfalsifiable?

The strong free-will thesis is hard to test. Any apparently free act can be redescribed as the product of causes we simply have not identified yet.

Hard determinism is equally protected. Its promise that hidden causes will eventually be found is not itself falsifiable, and any failed prediction gets blamed on complexity rather than freedom.

A related fallacy is sliding from how behavior is caused to whether people should be held responsible. Even if all acts are causally initiated, that would not mean nobody should ever be held responsible. “Is” does not entail “ought.”

Most psychologists resolve this with an interactionist or compatibilist position instead. Critics disagree.

They counter that “soft determinism” may just relabel the problem. If a choice is fully caused by character, and character by prior causes, calling the outcome “free” may be renaming determinism, not escaping it.

Does Libet Disprove Free Will?

Libet’s readiness-potential finding is often read as proof that free will is an illusion. That strong reading faces several deep objections.

Wrist-flexes and button-presses are unreasoned, inconsequential acts. They may be a poor model of deliberated choice, and later work (below) shows the readiness potential does not even precede consequential decisions.

The introspective report of the moment of decision is also uncertain, since a fast-moving clock is hard to read precisely.

A further objection targets what the readiness potential actually is. On the stochastic-accumulator reinterpretation (below), it may be a statistical artefact of averaging random neural noise, not a genuine decision signal.

Finally, Libet’s own “free won’t” leaves room for a conscious veto. Taken together, the strong conclusion that Libet demonstrates free will is an illusion outruns the data.

Contemporary Research

Two questions have moved the debate forward since 2015. What is the pre-movement brain activity, really? And does belief in free will change behavior the way it was once claimed to?

The Readiness Potential Reconsidered

Schurger, Sitt and Dehaene (2012) proposed the stochastic-accumulator model: spontaneous movements happen when ongoing, random neural fluctuations cross a threshold by chance.

Because the readiness potential is computed by averaging EEG backwards from movement onset, it will show a rising ramp even if no “decision” preceded it. A decade of follow-up work has hardened this reading.

Reviewing the accumulated evidence, Schurger, Hu, Pak and Roskies (2021) concluded that the classic reading of the readiness potential as an unconscious decision signal is no longer tenable.

The strongest empirical support comes from a 2019 study that tested real, consequential choices rather than arbitrary ones.

Aim: Maoz, Yaffe, Koch and Mudrik (2019) tested whether the readiness potential that precedes arbitrary decisions also precedes deliberate, consequential ones.

The question was simple.

Method: in an EEG study, participants chose which of two charities would receive a real $1,000 donation. In the deliberate condition the charities differed; in the arbitrary condition they were identical, so the choice carried no consequence.

Results: the readiness potential appeared before arbitrary decisions but was “strikingly absent” before deliberate ones.

That gap matters.

Conclusion: deliberate and arbitrary decisions rest on different neural mechanisms, so Libet’s finding cannot be generalized from meaningless finger-flexes to real, reasoned decisions.

Does Disbelief in Free Will Increase Cheating?

Vohs and Schooler (2008) first showed that reading anti-free-will passages increased cheating, and a wave of follow-up studies extended the effect to aggression and reduced helping. The effect later proved fragile.

Aim: Genschow and colleagues (2022) tested, across the whole literature, whether manipulations reliably shift belief in free will and whether that shift changes behavior.

Method: a meta-analysis of 145 experiments, including 95 previously unpublished studies, pooling effect sizes for both the belief manipulation and any downstream behavior change.

Results: anti-free-will manipulations reliably lowered belief in free will. However, the analysis found no evidence for the predicted downstream effects on cheating or antisocial behavior.

Conclusion: the belief can be shifted, but the alarming behavioral effects that made the original 2008 finding famous do not hold up once aggregated across a large, bias-controlled sample.

Across both themes, the twentieth-century results that seemed to settle the debate for determinism are being retained as real phenomena but downgraded as arguments. That trend supports the field’s soft-determinist center of gravity.

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