People believe they have more free will than others
Emily Pronin a,b,1 and Matthew B. Kugler a
- Author Affiliations
aDepartment of Psychology and
bWoodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540
Edited* by Richard E. Nisbett, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, and approved November 15, 2010 (received for review August 13, 2010)
Abstract
Four experiments identify a tendency for people to believe that their own lives are more guided by the tenets of free will than are the lives of their peers. These tenets involve the a priori unpredictability of personal action, the presence of multiple possible paths in a person's future, and the causal power of one's personal desires and intentions in guiding one's actions. In experiment 1, participants viewed their own pasts and futures as less predictable a priori than those of their peers. In experiments 2 and 3, participants thought there were more possible paths (whether good or bad) in their own futures than their peers’ futures. In experiment 4, participants viewed their own future behavior, compared with that of their peers, as uniquely driven by intentions and desires (rather than personality, random features of the situation, or history). Implications for the classic actor–observer bias, for debates about free will, and for perceptions of personal responsibility are discussed.
agency, attribution, psychology, self–other, introspection
Footnotes
1To whom correspondence should be addressed.
E-mail: epronin@princeton.edu.
Author contributions: E.P. and M.B.K. designed research; E.P. performed research; E.P. analyzed data; and E.P. and M.B.K. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
↵*This Direct Submission article had a prearranged editor.
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