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 -