Belief in free will fosters honesty

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Jan. 30 (UPI) -- Canadian and U.S. researchers found those with a stronger belief in free will were more likely to behave honestly.

Psychologists Jonathan Schooler of the University of British Columbia and Kathleen Vohs of the University of Minnesota gave college students a mathematics exam -- telling the subjects that a computer glitch could cause the answers to appear on the screen but hitting the space bar would make the answers disappear. Some of the students were taught that science disproves the notion of free will and that the illusion of free will was a mere artifact of the brain's biochemistry whereas others got no such indoctrination.

Vohs and Schooler went further and had the subjects solving problems without supervision, scoring themselves and also "rewarding" themselves $1 for a correct answer by walking over to a manila envelope to help themselves.

Previously the participants had read essays either bolstering or reducing belief in free will. "The results were just as robust ... those with a stronger belief in their own free will were less apt to steal money than were those with a weakened belief."

The findings were published in Psychological Science.