ArticleBritish journal of psychology (London, England : 1953)2022
Automatic or controlled: How does disbelief in free will influence cognitive functioning?
Article in British journal of psychology (London, England : 1953), 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Agency, justice, and morality: exploring the intersection of belief in free will, the just world hypothesis, and health behavior.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Review
- Do People Believe They Are Less Predictable Than Others? Three Replications of Pronin and Kugler's (2010) Experiment 1.International review of social psychology · 2024Article
- Automatic or controlled: How does disbelief in free will influence cognitive functioning?British journal of psychology (London, England : 1953) · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Most people believe in free will. Past research has indicated that reducing this belief has numerous downstream consequences including everyday outcomes as well as neural and cognitive correlates associated with a reduction of self-control. However, the exact mechanisms through which a reduction in free will belief affects self-control are still a matter of investigation. In the present registered report, we used a task switching paradigm to examine whether reducing belief in free will makes people less controlled or whether it enhances their reliance on automatic impulses. Using Bayesian sequential analysis, we failed to conceptually replicate the previous link between free will belief and cognitive control. Our registered report plan mostly accumulated substantial evidence supporting the null hypothesis. That is, diminished belief in free will does neither impact control nor automaticity. Theoretical implications of this finding are discussed.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.