1. Q UALIFYING THE FREE WILL - MORALITY LINK : D ETERMINISM PRIMES PROMOTE LESS HELPING, BUT MORE APPROVAL OF UTILITARIAN ACTIONS Brianna L. Middlewood and Karen Gasper The Pennsylvania State University Free Will = 1 Determinism = 0 Free will belief Cognitive Response Test Helping b =.34* b =.41 b =-.19 b =.06 b =-.13 Faith in Intuition Need for Cog b =.35 b =.15 b =.73* Locus of Control b = -.04 b =.33 Free Will = 1 Determinism = 0 Approval of Utilitarian Decision Free will belief Cognitive Response Test Faith in Intuition Need for Cog 1A. Past work suggests: NO FW (DET)  less control / less FWB  less helping 1B. We suggest: NO FW (DET)  more rational / less emo  less helping 2. Rational thought is associated with greater approval of utilitarian decisions (Greene et al.,2008), and DET may prime rational thought, thus: NO FW (DET)  more rational / less emo  more util. Utilitarian dilemmas are designed to be morally ambiguous. A.Commit crime for the greater good B.Avoid committing crime, resulting in a bad end Figure 1. Do you push the big man to stop the trolley and save the 5 workers, or stand by and watch them die? No Free Will (DET primes) Free will belief Prosocial behavior Helping (S1) Util (S2) Emotional Thought Rational Thought Locus of Control - - - - - - ++ Figure 2. Conceptual hypotheses. Sign of paths reversed for helping. Figure 3. Results study 1. FW predicted greater helping, mediated by greater reported FW belief. The primes had no effects on rational or experiential thought, nor locus of control. Figure 4. Results study 2. FW predicted less approval of utilitarian decisions, as expected. None of the mediating variables operated. It is unclear whether free will belief (FW) leads to these effects. Primes used to undermine FW and prime determinism are complex and perhaps confounded with rational and emotional processing (Epstein, 1985). Emotionality is linked to making moral decisions, and thus priming emotionality rather than free will may be accounting for the results. Undermining free will belief is consistently linked with less desirable behavior less helping (Baumeister, Masicampo, & DeWall 2009) Cheating, stealing (Vohs & Schooler, 2008) Boundary conditions have yet to be specified. When will undermining FW not undermine prosocial behavior? This work investigates possible mechanisms and boundary conditions of effects of undermining FW using sentence primes. Determinism= Science / logic / FW is illusio n = Rational Free Will = Experiences / feelings / total responsibility = Emotional b =-.45** (direct effect) Examples of Free Will Primes I have feelings of regret when I make bad decisions because ultimately I am responsible for my actions. I have free will to control my actions and destiny in life. I am more than a robot that has been programmed by genetics and the environment, no matter what a few scientists claim. Examples of Determinism Primes Brain is complex machine capable of highly sophisticated behavior. Science has demonstrated that free will is an illusion. A belief in free will contradicts the fact that the universe is governed by lawful principles of science. Every action a person takes is caused by neural firings. Introduction Study 1 1.Show sentence-primes (15 FW or 15 DET), displayed one at a time, for 20 sec. each. 2.Measure helping intent 3.Measure mediators Study 2 1.Show primes 2.Measure approval of utilitarian action 3.Measure mediators [w/ longer NFC,FI ] General Method Study 1 Results Study 2 Results Supporting past work, successfully undermining free will led to less willingness to help. As predicted, undermining free will led to greater approval of utilitarian decisions. The hypothesis that self-report measures of rational and emotional thought would mediate, was not supported. Overall, the data suggest that undermining free will might produce a more complex effect than simply enabling one’s selfish impulses (Baumeister et al., 2009), for determinism resulted in people being more willing to incur the personal cost of hurting someone to save others Discussion Measures Hypotheses