University of Cologne, Germany.
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium.
Conscious Cogn. 2019 Apr;70:80-87. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2019.02.004. Epub 2019 Mar 9.
The question of whether free will actually exists has been debated in philosophy for centuries. However, how belief in free will shapes the perception of our social environment still remains open. Here we investigate whether belief in free will affects how much intentionality we attribute to other people. Study 1a and 1b demonstrate a weak positive relation between the strength of belief in free will and the perceived intentionality of soccer players committing handball. This pattern even holds for behavior that is objectively not intentional (i.e., when the player touches the ball accidentally). Going one step further, in Study 2 we find a weak correlation between belief in free will and perceiving intentions in very abstract geometrical shapes. These findings suggest that whether individuals believe in free will or not changes the way they interpret others' behavior, which may have important societal consequences.
自由意志是否实际存在的问题在哲学领域已经争论了几个世纪。然而，自由意志信仰如何影响我们对社会环境的感知仍然存在争议。在这里，我们研究自由意志信仰是否会影响我们对他人的意向性的归因。研究 1a 和 1b 表明，自由意志信仰的强度与人们感知到的足球运动员手球的意向性之间存在微弱的正相关关系。这种模式甚至适用于客观上不是有意的行为（即，当球员偶然触球时）。更进一步，在研究 2 中，我们发现自由意志信仰与感知非常抽象的几何形状中的意图之间存在微弱的相关性。这些发现表明，个体是否相信自由意志会改变他们解释他人行为的方式，这可能会产生重要的社会后果。
