[Open Mind]

Encouraging a Belief in Determinism Increases Cheating
- Kathleen D. Vohs (University of Minnesota) Jonathan W. Schooler2 (University of British Columbia)
http://www.csom.umn.edu/assets/91974.pdf

Dr Kathleen Vohs '......... We conducted two experiments to test whether a belief in free will or determinism would influence ethical behaviour -- in this case, cheating. In the first experiment, participants -- 30 undergraduate students -- read either a text that encouraged belief in determinism, or a neutral text, before doing tasks where it was possible to cheat. In the second experiment, 122 students were assigned to various conditions: some read a series of statements that promoted either free will, others read deterministic statements, and others again read neutral statements.........

........In both experiments we found that weakening free will beliefs reliably increased cheating. In the first, there was a situation where people could passively allow themselves to benefit from a mistake -- similar to receiving too much change -- and here there was a strong negative relationship between weaker free will beliefs and cheating. This means that the more that participants reported being skeptical of the notion of free will, the more dishonesty they exhibited. . In the second experiment we measured active cheating in a situation where participants could pay themselves for each correct answer on a difficult test......

To preserve anonymity in the second experiment we did not measure the amount of money each individual took, but we do know that the average take-home pay was far greater for participants in the deterministic condition than for those in other conditions -- including two in which participants scored and shredded their own tests. It is worth noting also that participants who read deterministic statements claimed to have solved more problems correctly than those in comparison condition who read the same deterministic statements but whose true scores were known. In other words, anonymity increased the effect of deterministic beliefs. .......

........... We have to understand better why dismissing free will leads to amoral behaviour. Does it induce a certain passivity, a "why bother?" mentality, by undermining our sense that we are moral agents. Or perhaps, as Sartre suggested, does it simply provide the ultimate excuse to behave as one likes? .......'

MercatorNet - Belief in free will is diminishing and cheating is on the increase. A study shows the two are connected.