Feb 21 2010
Gaps in Free Will
Do human beings have free will? Well, what do you mean by will and what type of freedom? Seriously.
Students of psychology understand there are a number of things that severely challenge the notion of free will. First and foremost among these is the fact that we are social creatures that have been shaped by others and continue to be influenced by them. Socialization, enculturation, myriad types social learning experiences and events…. Social context has a strong influence on our behavior — even cognitive behavior — an influence we are largely ignorant of.
Recent research into altruism, of all things, demonstrates how our behavior can be influenced outside of conscious awareness.
I wrote, “of all things,” because by definition altruistic behavior requires putting aside selfishness to help others. Which in a sense implies free will, for how else to you put aside selfishness?
As reported in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, and as it appeared in this EurakAlert news bulletin — Pay it forward: Elevation leads to altruistic behavior — the simple act of watching a video clip of other people expressing an inspired, caring attitude can change the likelihood that a person will choose to behavior altruistically.
The results revealed that participants who watched the uplifting TV clip were more likely to volunteer for another research study than volunteers who saw the neutral TV clip, suggesting that elevation may make us more willing to help others. However, anybody can say they will volunteer for a subsequent study or would be willing to help another person. The researchers wanted to see if elevation can result in actual helping behavior…..
The results of this second experiment were striking — the participants who viewed the uplifting TV clip spent almost twice as long helping the research assistant than participants who saw the neutral TV clip or the comedy clip, indicating that elevation may lead to helping behavior.
Additionally, when it comes to free will — the question whether I am ultimately free to do x or y, this important issue also surfaces: Where did and does the “I” come from? The whole notion of free will rests upon an illusion of pure agency. And in the case of altruism, how truly altruistic is it if the individual behaving unselfishly doesn’t have a fully autonomous self in the first place?
No man or woman is a psychological island. Beneath the sea of conscious awareness lies a substrate of social connectedness. One that shaped the present self and still influences it today.
