Belief in free will affects causal attributions when judging others’ behavior
Publikation: Beiträge in Zeitschriften › Zeitschriftenaufsätze › Forschung › begutachtet
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in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), Jahrgang 114, Nr. 38, 19.09.2017, S. 10071-10076.
Publikation: Beiträge in Zeitschriften › Zeitschriftenaufsätze › Forschung › begutachtet
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Belief in free will affects causal attributions when judging others’ behavior
AU - Genschow, Oliver
AU - Rigoni, Davide
AU - Brass, Marcel
N1 - Funding Information: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. This work was supported by a grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation (Grant PZ00P1_168007). Publisher Copyright: © 2017, National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
PY - 2017/9/19
Y1 - 2017/9/19
N2 - Free will is a cornerstone of our society, and psychological research demonstrates that questioning its existence impacts social behavior. In six studies, we tested whether believing in free will is related to the correspondence bias, which reflects people’s automatic tendency to overestimate the influence of internal as compared to external factors when interpreting others’ behavior. All studies demonstrate a positive relationship between the strength of the belief in free will and the correspondence bias. Moreover, in two experimental studies, we showed that weakening participants’ belief in free will leads to a reduction of the correspondence bias. Finally, the last study demonstrates that believing in free will predicts prescribed punishment and reward behavior, and that this relation is mediated by the correspondence bias. Overall, these studies show that believing in free will impacts fundamental social-cognitive processes that are involved in the understanding of others’ behavior.
AB - Free will is a cornerstone of our society, and psychological research demonstrates that questioning its existence impacts social behavior. In six studies, we tested whether believing in free will is related to the correspondence bias, which reflects people’s automatic tendency to overestimate the influence of internal as compared to external factors when interpreting others’ behavior. All studies demonstrate a positive relationship between the strength of the belief in free will and the correspondence bias. Moreover, in two experimental studies, we showed that weakening participants’ belief in free will leads to a reduction of the correspondence bias. Finally, the last study demonstrates that believing in free will predicts prescribed punishment and reward behavior, and that this relation is mediated by the correspondence bias. Overall, these studies show that believing in free will impacts fundamental social-cognitive processes that are involved in the understanding of others’ behavior.
KW - Correspondence bias
KW - Free-will belief
KW - Interpersonal perception
KW - Business psychology
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85029562204&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1073/pnas.1701916114
DO - 10.1073/pnas.1701916114
M3 - Journal articles
C2 - 28855342
AN - SCOPUS:85029562204
VL - 114
SP - 10071
EP - 10076
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA)
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA)
SN - 0027-8424
IS - 38
ER -