ArticleThe British journal of social psychology2026
Free will belief predicts everyday punitiveness across 44 countries.
Article in The British journal of social psychology, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Meditation, free-will beliefs, and sentencing attitudes: an exploratory pilot study in India.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Challenging the prescientific frameworks of criminal justice: neurobiology and criminolytic interventions in the legalome era.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Belief in free will has been linked to more punitive and retributive responses to wrongdoing. While past research has focused on North American samples and criminal contexts, this study tested whether free will belief predicts punitiveness across diverse cultural contexts and focuses on more everyday moral transgressions. We surveyed 8917 participants from 44 countries using a validated measure of free will belief and a vignette-based measure of punitiveness. Multilevel analysis revealed that individuals with stronger free will beliefs were more punitive towards everyday moral transgressions. These findings suggest that free will belief is a cross-culturally robust predictor of punitiveness towards everyday moral transgressions. Implications are discussed for the potential benefits of mitigating free will belief in specific contexts.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.