Vohs and Schooler (2008)

The researchers were looking at moral behaviour in an attempt to determine how much of this kind of behaviour is governed by a person’s genetics, i.e. the things that they cannot control, and by their previous experiences, also thought to be largely out of a person’s control.

If people believe that their behaviour is determined by things that they have no say over, they might consequently feel like they are not responsible for their actions – this is commonly known as determinism. This means that behaviour is influenced by things like a person’s genes or their environment, over which they may have little or no control.

Vohs and Schooler argued that if a person believes that their behaviour is pre-determined then moral behaviour (i.e. that which is seen to be acceptable) would reduce.

Aim

The aim of the study was to find out if determinism would encourage people to cheat.

Method

• 13 female and 17 male university students acted as participants. They were randomly allocated to the control or experimental group and each was tested individually
• The experimental group read a passage about how people have no free will and that behaviour is determined by the brain (referred to in the passage as ‘anti-free will’)
• The control group read about consciousness but with no mention at all of free will
• The independent variable was the passage that was read
• All of the participants were then set a task where they could cheat by using a special programme to solve maths problems that they were meant to be solving independently
• Belief about free will was measured before the start of the experiment and after it had been completed by use of a questionnaire
• In order to measure cheating, the researchers recorded how many space bar presses took place, as this was the way in which participants avoided being told the answer and therefore how much they cheated. The amount of space bar presses was the dependent variable

Results

Mean scores for cheating were

• Experimental condition (anti-free will passage) – 14
• Control condition (consciousness passage) – 9

Participants who read the passage about anti-free will therefore showed lower belief in free will than those in the control group. The passage is therefore thought to have influenced those participants’ views on determinism.

The results also showed a negative correlation, as the higher the cheating score, the lower the belief in free will.

Conclusions

Behaviour became less moral when free will was challenged; this led to higher levels of cheating by the participants who had read about ‘anti-free will’.

Strengths of the study

• The implications of the study can be applied in real life as the notion of free will can be explored in enabling more people to behave in a more moral way, increasing pro-social behaviours.

Weaknesses of the study

• The experiment was completely artificial, meaning that similar results may not be found in a real-life situation
• It was also argued that instructions were not clear and so this could have influenced the results