People believe they have more free will than others

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.

Considering the Situation: Why People are Better Social Psychologists than Self-psychologists

“…Other people, in contrast, are perceived as being driven by fixed features of their personalities, random factors in situations, and the imperatives of their past history (Pronin & Kugler, 2010). In other words, people believe they proactively decide which action to pursue; they also believe others are more reactive to the situational demands (see also Savani, Markus, Naidu, Kumar, & Berlia, 2010, for a cultural perspective on this pattern of perceptions).…”

“…In predictions about themselves, people tend to emphasize their own agency. People believe their actions are the result of their intentions, plans, and aspirations; they tend to believe their free will guides their own actions (Pronin & Kugler, 2010) and that base rates are not applicable to selfpredictions (Epley & Dunning, 2000). In fact, when asked to predict the likelihood they or another student would donate money, cheat on a test, etc., in the near future, eye tracking technology demonstrated that people looked to informative base rates when making social predictions far more than when making self-predictions (Balcetis, 2009).…”

What is unrealistic optimism?

“…For example, some authors have argued that people overestimate the importance of their intentions and the amount of control they have relative to others, and that this is in part what underlies unrealistically optimistic expectations for the future (cf. McKenna, 1993, Pronin and Kugler, 2010, Shepperd et al, 2002). In as far as there are other unjustified or ill-considered beliefs underlying optimistic predictions, these inherit the irrationality.…”

It’s Not My Fault: Postdictive Modulation of Intentional Binding by Monetary Gains and Losses

“…The belief that our actions and external events are under control of conscious will is pervasive, and it is rarely doubted [1]. This belief is guided by a feeling that one’s intentional actions caused specific events in the outside world (sense of agency) [2].…”