Berlin School of Mind and Brain/Department of Psychology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Luisenstraße 56 Haus 5, 10117, Berlin, Germany.
Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
Psychol Res. 2023 Oct;87(7):2283-2296. doi: 10.1007/s00426-023-01815-x. Epub 2023 Mar 26.
Research in social psychology and experimental philosophy has investigated lay people's free will beliefs (FWB). Using different approaches (i.e. experimental manipulations and vignette studies), they investigated how FWB relate to other concepts, and whether changing FWB has an impact on downstream processes such as social behavior. However, both approaches have shortcomings. While experimental manipulations used in social psychology suffer from demand effects, vignettes used in experimental philosophy are often highly abstract. Across two pre-registered studies, we developed a new approach by merging them in an online video game setting. Using this novel, experience-based FWB manipulation, we found that decreasing FWB impacted variables such as perceived control and responsibility in both studies. While the experience-based manipulation influenced participants' beliefs in free will within the context of the experience ("Within the context of the scenario, would the agent believe in free will?") in the first study, this manipulation effect did not transfer to participants' general FWB ("Do you believe in free will?") in the second study. Overall, our findings suggest a way forward in studying laypeople's beliefs in free will.
社会心理学和实验哲学的研究调查了人们的自由意志信念（FWB）。他们使用不同的方法（即实验操作和情境研究）来研究 FWB 与其他概念的关系，以及改变 FWB 是否会对社会行为等下游过程产生影响。然而，这两种方法都有其缺点。社会心理学中使用的实验操作受到需求效应的影响，而实验哲学中使用的情境通常非常抽象。在两项预先注册的研究中，我们通过将它们合并到在线视频游戏环境中开发了一种新方法。使用这种新颖的基于经验的 FWB 操作，我们发现降低 FWB 会影响两个研究中的变量，例如感知控制和责任。虽然基于经验的操作会影响参与者在情境背景下对自由意志的信念（“在情境背景下，代理人会相信自由意志吗？”）在第一项研究中，但这种操作效应不会转移到参与者对自由意志的一般信念（“你相信自由意志吗？”）在第二项研究中。总体而言，我们的研究结果为研究人们对自由意志的信念提供了一种方法。
