Mental control and attributions of blame for negligent wrongdoing.

Third-personal judgments of blame are typically sensitive to what an agent knows and desires. However, when people act negligently, they do not know what they are doing and do not desire the outcomes of their negligence. How, then, do people attribute blame for negligent wrongdoing? We propose that people attribute blame for negligent wrongdoing based on perceived mental control, or the degree to which an agent guides their thoughts and attention over time. To acquire information about others' mental control, people self-project their own perceived mental control to anchor third-personal judgments about mental control and concomitant responsibility for negligent wrongdoing. In four experiments (N = 841), we tested whether perceptions of mental control drive third-personal judgments of blame for negligent wrongdoing. Study 1 showed that the ease with which people can counterfactually imagine an individual being non-negligent mediated the relationship between judgments of control and blame. Studies 2a and 2b indicated that perceived mental control has a strong effect on judgments of blame for negligent wrongdoing and that first-personal judgments of mental control are moderately correlated with third-personal judgments of blame for negligent wrongdoing. Finally, we used an autobiographical memory manipulation in Study 3 to make personal episodes of forgetfulness salient. Participants for whom past personal episodes of forgetfulness were made salient judged negligent wrongdoers less harshly compared with a control group for whom past episodes of negligence were not salient. Collectively, these findings suggest that first-personal judgments of mental control drive third-personal judgments of blame for negligent wrongdoing and indicate a novel role for counterfactual thinking in the attribution of responsibility. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Natural Compatibilism, Indeterminism, and Intrusive Metaphysics.

The claim that common sense regards free will and moral responsibility as compatible with determinism has played a central role in both analytic and experimental philosophy. In this paper, we show that evidence in favor of this "natural compatibilism" is undermined by the role that indeterministic metaphysical views play in how people construe deterministic scenarios. To demonstrate this, we re-examine two classic studies that have been used to support natural compatibilism. We find that although people give apparently compatibilist responses, this is largely explained by the fact that people import an indeterministic metaphysics into deterministic scenarios when making judgments about freedom and responsibility. We conclude that judgments based on these scenarios are not reliable evidence for natural compatibilism.

Does encouraging a belief in determinism increase cheating? Reconsidering the value of believing in free will.

A key source of support for the view that challenging people's beliefs about free will may undermine moral behavior is two classic studies by Vohs and Schooler (2008). These authors reported that exposure to certain prompts suggesting that free will is an illusion increased cheating behavior. In the present paper, we report several attempts to replicate this influential and widely cited work. Over a series of five studies (sample sizes of N = 162, N = 283, N = 268, N = 804, N = 982) (four preregistered) we tested the relationship between (1) anti-free-will prompts and free will beliefs and (2) free will beliefs and immoral behavior. Our primary task was to closely replicate the findings from Vohs and Schooler (2008) using the same or highly similar manipulations and measurements as the ones used in their original studies. Our efforts were largely unsuccessful. We suggest that manipulating free will beliefs in a robust way is more difficult than has been implied by prior work, and that the proposed link with immoral behavior may not be as consistent as previous work suggests.

Evidências de validade do Inventário do Livre-Arbítrio (ILA) para a população brasileira / Validity evidence of the Free Will Inventory for the Brazilian population / Evidencias de validez del Inventario de Libre Albedrío en la población brasileña

O objetivo deste estudo foi buscar evidências de validade e fidedignidade do Inventário do Livre-Arbítrio (ILA) para a população brasileira, além de traduzir e adaptá-lo para a língua portuguesa. Este é um instrumento dividido em duas partes. A primeira parte busca investigar força das crenças no livre-arbítrio, determinismo e dualismo. A segunda parte busca investigar relações entre esses construtos e a responsabilidade moral. Participaram deste estudo 316 participantes com idades entre 18 e 77 anos que responderam, por meio de uma plataforma on-line, a um questionário sociodemográfico e ao ILA. Tal qual na escala original, a análise fatorial exploratória revelou a existência de três fatores: livre-arbítrio, determinismo e dualismo. Os alfas de Cronbach das subescalas foram, respectivamente, 0,81; 0,75; 0,85. O ILA apresentou boas propriedades psicométricas para população brasileira, recomendando-se seu uso para pesquisas futuras no campo da psicologia social. (AU)

The objective of this study was to search for validity and reliability evidence of the Free Will Inventory (FWI) for the Brazilian population, in addition to translating and adapting it into Portuguese. This instrument is divided into two parts. The first part seeks to investigate strength of beliefs in free will, determinism and dualism. The second part seeks to investigate relationships between these constructs and moral responsibility. A total of 316 participants between 18 and 77 years of age responded via an online platform to a socio-demographic questionnaire and the FWI. As in the original scale, the exploratory factor analysis revealed the existence of three factors: free will, determinism and dualism. Cronbach's alphas of the subscales were, respectively, 0.81; 0.75; 0.85. The FWI presented good psychometric properties for the Brazilian population, and use is recommended for future research in the field of social psychology. (AU)

El objetivo de este estudio fue buscar evidencias de validez y confiabilidad del Inventario de Libre Albedrío (ILA) en la población brasileña, y también traducirlo y adaptarlo para la lengua portuguesa. Este es un instrumento dividido en dos partes. La primera parte investiga la fuerza de creencias en el libre albedrío, determinismo y dualismo. La segunda parte investiga las relaciones entre esos constructos y la responsabilidad moral. Participaron de este estudio 316 personas con edades entre 18 y 77 años respondiendo de manera online a un cuestionario sociodemográfico y al ILA. Como en el estudio original, el análisis factorial exploratorio reveló la existencia de tres factores: libre albedrío, determinismo y dualismo. El alfa de Cronbach de las sub-escalas fueron respectivamente, 0,81; 0,75; 0,85. El ILA presentó buenas propiedades psicométricas en la población brasileña, recomendándose su uso en investigaciones futuras en el campo de la psicología social. (AU)

The free will inventory: measuring beliefs about agency and responsibility.

In this paper, we present the results of the construction and validation of a new psychometric tool for measuring beliefs about free will and related concepts: The Free Will Inventory (FWI). In its final form, FWI is a 29-item instrument with two parts. Part 1 consists of three 5-item subscales designed to measure strength of belief in free will, determinism, and dualism. Part 2 consists of a series of fourteen statements designed to further explore the complex network of people's associated beliefs and attitudes about free will, determinism, choice, the soul, predictability, responsibility, and punishment. Having presented the construction and validation of FWI, we discuss several ways that it could be used in future research, highlight some as yet unanswered questions that are ripe for interdisciplinary investigation, and encourage researchers to join us in our efforts to answer these questions.

Neuroprediction, Violence, and the Law: Setting the Stage.

In this paper, our goal is to (a) survey some of the legal contexts within which violence risk assessment already plays a prominent role, (b) explore whether developments in neuroscience could potentially be used to improve our ability to predict violence, and (c) discuss whether neuropredictive models of violence create any unique legal or moral problems above and beyond the well worn problems already associated with prediction more generally. In "Violence Risk Assessment and the Law", we briefly examine the role currently played by predictions of violence in three high stakes legal contexts: capital sentencing ("Violence Risk Assessment and Capital Sentencing"), civil commitment hearings ("Violence Risk Assessment and Civil Commitment"), and "sexual predator" statutes ("Violence Risk Assessment and Sexual Predator Statutes"). In "Clinical vs. Actuarial Violence Risk Assessment", we briefly examine the distinction between traditional clinical methods of predicting violence and more recently developed actuarial methods, exemplified by the Classification of Violence Risk (COVR) software created by John Monahan and colleagues as part of the MacArthur Study of Mental Disorder and Violence [1]. In "The Neural Correlates of Psychopathy", we explore what neuroscience currently tells us about the neural correlates of violence, using the recent neuroscientific research on psychopathy as our focus. We also discuss some recent advances in both data collection ("Cutting-Edge Data Collection: Genetically Informed Neuroimaging") and data analysis ("Cutting-Edge Data Analysis: Pattern Classification") that we believe will play an important role when it comes to future neuroscientific research on violence. In "The Potential Promise of Neuroprediction", we discuss whether neuroscience could potentially be used to improve our ability to predict future violence. Finally, in "The Potential Perils of Neuroprediction", we explore some potential evidentiary ("Evidentiary Issues"), constitutional ("Constitutional Issues"), and moral ("Moral Issues") issues that may arise in the context of the neuroprediction of violence.

Temperament and intuition: a commentary on Feltz and Cokely.

In this paper, we examine Adam Feltz and Edward Cokely's recent claim that "the personality trait extraversion predicts people's intuitions about the relationship of determinism to free will and moral responsibility" (INSERT REFERENCE). We will first present some criticisms of their work before briefly examining the results of a recent study of our own. We argue that while Feltz and Cokely have their finger on the pulse of an interesting and important issue, they have not established a robust and stable connection between extraversion and compatibilist-friendly intuitions.