Free will

===Experimental psychology===
{{See also|Cognitive science|Cognitive psychology|Neuroscience}}
[[Experimental psychology]]'s contributions to the free will debate have come primarily through social psychologist [[Daniel Wegner]]'s work on conscious will. In his book, ''The Illusion of Conscious Will,''<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|url=https://zodml.org/sites/default/files/%5bDaniel_M._Wegner%5d_The_Illusion_of_Conscious_Will.pdf|title=The Illusion of Conscious Will|last=Wegener|first=Daniel Merton|publisher=MIT Press|year=2002|isbn=978-0-262-23222-7|access-date=2018-12-12|archive-date=2018-12-12|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181212162904/https://zodml.org/sites/default/files/%5bDaniel_M._Wegner%5d_The_Illusion_of_Conscious_Will.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> Wegner summarizes what he believes is [[empirical evidence]] supporting the view that human perception of conscious control is an illusion. Wegner summarizes some empirical evidence that may suggest that the perception of conscious control is open to modification (or even manipulation). Wegner observes that one event is inferred to have caused a second event when two requirements are met:
# The first event immediately precedes the second event, and
# The first event is consistent with having caused the second event.
For example, if a person hears an explosion and sees a tree fall down that person is likely to infer that the explosion caused the tree to fall over. However, if the explosion occurs after the tree falls down (that is, the first requirement is not met), or rather than an explosion, the person hears the ring of a telephone (that is, the second requirement is not met), then that person is not likely to infer that either noise caused the tree to fall down.

Wegner has applied this principle to the inferences people make about their own conscious will. People typically experience a thought that is consistent with a behavior, and then they observe themselves performing this behavior. As a result, people infer that their thoughts must have caused the observed behavior. However, Wegner has been able to manipulate people's thoughts and behaviors so as to conform to or violate the two requirements for causal inference.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{cite journal | doi = 10.1037/0003-066X.54.7.480 | last1 = Wegner | first1 = D.M. | last2 = Wheatley | first2 = T. | year = 1999 | title = Apparent mental causation: sources of the experience of will | journal = American Psychologist | volume = 54 | issue = 7| pages = 480–91 | pmid=10424155| citeseerx = 10.1.1.188.8271 }}</ref> Through such work, Wegner has been able to show that people often experience conscious will over behaviors that they have not, in fact, caused&nbsp;– and conversely, that people can be led to experience a lack of will over behaviors they did cause. For instance, [[priming (psychology)|priming]] subjects with information about an effect increases the probability that a person falsely believes is the cause.<ref>{{Cite journal
| doi = 10.1016/j.concog.2004.11.001
| pmid = 16091264
| year = 2005
| last1 = Aarts | first1 = H.
| last2 = Custers | first2 = R.
| last3 = Wegner | first3 = D.
| title = On the inference of personal authorship: enhancing experienced agency by priming effect information.
| volume = 14
| issue = 3
| pages = 439–58
| journal = Consciousness and Cognition
| s2cid = 13991023
}}</ref> The implication for such work is that the perception of conscious will (which he says might be more accurately labelled as 'the emotion of authorship') is not tethered to the execution of actual behaviors, but is inferred from various cues through an intricate mental process, ''authorship processing''. Although many interpret this work as a blow against the argument for free will, both psychologists<ref>{{cite journal|last=Kihlstrom|first=John|title=An unwarrantable impertinence|journal=Behavioral and Brain Sciences|year=2004|volume=27|pages=666–67|doi=10.1017/S0140525X04300154|issue=5|s2cid=144699878}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author1=John Baer |author2=James C. Kaufman |author3=Roy F. Baumeister |title=Are We Free? Psychology and Free Will|year=2008|publisher=Oxford University Press.|location=New York|isbn=978-0-19-518963-6|pages=155–80|url=http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~kihlstrm/AutomaticityJuggernaut.htm}}</ref> and philosophers<ref>{{cite journal|last=Nahmias |first=Eddy |title=When consciousness matters: a critical review of Daniel Wegner's The illusion of conscious will |journal=Philosophical Psychology |year=2002 |volume=15 |issue=4 |doi=10.1080/0951508021000042049 |url=http://www2.gsu.edu/~phlean/papers/When_Consciousness_Matters.pdf |pages=527–41 |s2cid=16949962 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110813113509/http://www2.gsu.edu/~phlean/papers/When_Consciousness_Matters.pdf |archive-date=2011-08-13 }}</ref><ref name=Power>{{cite book|last=Mele|first=Alfred R.|title=Effective Intentions: The Power of Conscious Will|year=2009|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=US|isbn=978-0-19-538426-0|url=http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/academic/pn/9780199764686.do?sortby=bookTitleAscend|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111113052610/http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/academic/pn/9780199764686.do?sortby=bookTitleAscend|archive-date=2011-11-13}}</ref> have criticized Wegner's theories.

[[Emily Pronin]] has argued that the subjective experience of free will is supported by the [[introspection illusion]]. This is the tendency for people to trust the reliability of their own introspections while distrusting the introspections of other people. The theory implies that people will more readily attribute free will to themselves rather than others. This prediction has been confirmed by three of Pronin and Kugler's experiments. When college students were asked about personal decisions in their own and their roommate's lives, they regarded their own choices as less predictable. Staff at a restaurant described their co-workers' lives as more determined (having fewer future possibilities) than their own lives. When weighing up the influence of different factors on behavior, students gave desires and intentions the strongest weight for their own behavior, but rated personality traits as most predictive of other people.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Pronin|first=Emily|title=Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. 41|editor=Mark P. Zanna|chapter=The Introspection Illusion |volume=41|publisher=Academic Press|pages=42–43|year=2009|isbn=978-0-12-374472-2|doi=10.1016/S0065-2601(08)00401-2}}</ref>

Caveats have, however, been identified in studying a subject's awareness of mental events, in that the process of introspection itself may alter the experience.<ref name=Pockett>{{cite book|title=Does Consciousness Cause Behavior? |chapter=The neuroscience of movement |author=Susan Pockett |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G5CaTnNksgkC&pg=PA19 |page=19 |editor1=Susan Pockett |editor2=WP Banks |editor3=Shaun Gallagher |publisher=MIT Press |year =2009 |isbn=978-0-262-51257-2|quote=...it is important to be clear about exactly what experience one wants one's subjects to introspect. Of course, explaining to subjects exactly what the experimenter wants them to experience can bring its own problems–...instructions to attend to a particular internally generated experience can easily alter both the timing and the content of that experience and even whether or not it is consciously experienced at all.}}</ref>

Regardless of the validity of belief in free will, it may be beneficial to understand where the idea comes from. One contribution is randomness.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Ebert | first1 = J.P. | last2 = Wegner | first2 = D.M. | year = 2011 | title = March 1). Mistaking randomness for free will | url =https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/1/9029778/1/Ebert%2c%20J.%20P.%2c%20and%20D.%20M.%20Wegner.%20Mistaking%20randomness%20for%20free%20will.%20Consciousness%20and%20Cognition%2020%20%282011%29%20965-971.pdf | journal = Consciousness and Cognition | volume = 20 | issue = 3| pages = 965–71 | doi = 10.1016/j.concog.2010.12.012 | pmid = 21367624 | s2cid = 19502601 }}</ref> While it is established that randomness is not the only factor in the perception of the free will, it has been shown that randomness can be mistaken as free will due to its indeterminacy. This misconception applies both when considering oneself and others. Another contribution is choice.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Feldman | first1 = G. | last2 = Baumeister | first2 = R.F. | last3 = Wong | first3 = K.F. | year = 2014 | title = July 30). Free will is about choosing: The link between choice and the belief in free will | journal = Journal of Experimental Social Psychology | volume = 55 | pages = 239–45 | doi = 10.1016/j.jesp.2014.07.012 }}</ref> It has been demonstrated that people's belief in free will increases if presented with a simple level of choice. The specificity of the amount of choice is important, as too little or too great a degree of choice may negatively influence belief. It is also likely that the associative relationship between level of choice and perception of free will is influentially bidirectional. It is also possible that one's desire for control, or other basic motivational patterns, act as a third variable.