Acquiring knowledge by Googling gives people a greater illusion of understanding than passively reading the same information, especially when the search results feature snippets

Understanding Why Searching the Internet Inflates Confidence in Explanatory Ability. Emmaline Drew Eliseev, Elizabeth J. Marsh. Applied Cognitive Psychology, March 11 2023. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.4058

Abstract: People rely on the internet for easy access to information, setting up potential confusion about the boundaries between an individual's knowledge and the information they find online. Across four experiments, we replicated and extended past work showing that online searching inflates people's confidence in their knowledge. Participants who searched the internet for explanations rated their explanatory ability higher than participants who read but did not search for the same explanations. Two experiments showed that extraneous web page content (pictures) does not drive this effect. The last experiment modeled how search engines yield results; participants saw (but did not search for) a list of hits, which included “snippets” that previewed web page content, before reading the explanations. Participants in this condition were as confident as participants who searched online. Previewing hits primes to-be-read content, in a modern-day equivalent of Titchener's (1921) example of a brief glance eliciting false feelings of familiarity.

Despite the wide educational use of Milgram’s studies to increase people’s awareness of the risks inherent to blind obedience, it may be that this knowledge only serves to evaluate other’s behaviors, and not oneself

The blind obedience of others: a better than average effect in a Milgram-like experiment. Laurent Bègue & Kevin Vezirian. Ethics & Behavior, Mar 15 2023. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508422.2023.2191322

Abstract: In two highly powered studies (total N = 1617), we showed that individuals estimated that they would stop earlier than others in a Milgram-like biomedical task leading to the death of an animal, confirming the relevance of the Better than Average Effect (BTAE) in a new research setting. However, this effect was not magnified among participants displaying high self-esteem. We also showed that participants who already knew obedience studies expected that others would be more obedient and would administer more damaging treatment to the target. However, knowledge of Milgram’s studies was unrelated to a higher estimate of their own behavior (study 1), and was even linked to the prediction that they would stop earlier (study 2, preregistered). Despite the wide educational use of Milgram’s studies to increase people’s awareness of the risks inherent to blind obedience, it may be that this knowledge only serves to evaluate other’s behaviors, and not oneself.

The worn-out idea of "stereotype threat" suffers another defeat in a failed replication, playing no role in women's lower level of political knowledge

Does Stereotype Threat Contribute to the Political Knowledge Gender Gap? A Preregistered Replication Study of Ihme and Tausendpfund (2018). Flavio Azevedo, Leticia Micheli, Deliah Sarah Bolesta. Journal of Experimental Political Science, March 16 2023. https://doi.org/10.1017/XPS.2022.35

Abstract: The gender gap in political knowledge is a well-established finding in Political Science. One explanation for gender differences in political knowledge is the activation of negative stereotypes about women. As part of the Systematizing Confidence in Open Research and Evidence (SCORE) program, we conducted a two-stage preregistered and high-powered direct replication of Study 2 of Ihme and Tausendpfund (2018). While we successfully replicated the gender gap in political knowledge – such that male participants performed better than female participants – both the first (N = 671) and second stage (N = 831) of the replication of the stereotype activation effect were unsuccessful. Taken together (pooled N = 1,502), results indicate evidence of absence of the effect of stereotype activation on gender differences in political knowledge. We discuss potential explanations for these findings and put forward evidence that the gender gap in political knowledge might be an artifact of how knowledge is measured.

Discussion

Ihme and Tausendpfund (Reference Ihme and Tausendpfund2018) have proposed that the activation of negative gender stereotypes accounts for the variance of the political knowledge gender gap. In our independent and well-powered direct replication, we find no evidence that activation of gender stereotypes affects participants’ performance in a political knowledge test. Indeed, we find evidence of absence of this effect.

We note that some elements of our study design diverged from the original study and could have contributed to the observed non-replication. Our study was conducted with American students and working adults, whereas the original study included German students. As the United States has achieved relatively lower gender parity than Germany in political empowerment (World Economic Forum 2021), one could argue that negative stereotypes about women might be more salient for Americans than Germans, undermining women’s cognitive performance even in the absence of stereotype activation (e.g., in the control condition). Although we cannot rule out that some populations might be more vulnerable to gender stereotyping than others, we have reduced cultural biases as much as possible by devising a political knowledge test that was – at the same time – similar to the one used in the original study regarding the level of difficulty, as our data suggest, and relevant to the American political context. A comparison of the effect of stereotype threat on gender differences in political knowledge across countries with varying levels of gender equality would be beneficial for a better understanding of potential cultural differences in stereotype threat. Second, as a direct consequence of including working adults in our sample, it was necessary to adapt the measure of field of study to encompass the field of work. We argue, however, that this should not have contributed to the unsuccessful replication. If our measure of field of study/work would inadvertently make participants aware of their affiliation with a Politics or Non-Politics group, the effects of gender stereotype activation on performance would presumably become more salient. Instead, our results show that the field of study/work did not influence the results (Tables S16–S17). An argument can be made, however, that the extensive list of topics in our study reduced participants’ self-identity with Politics. Nevertheless, adding participants’ attributed importance of Politics to their study/work as a covariate in the analyses did not change results (Tables S18–S19). We have also conducted further tests restricting our sample to young and educated adults to achieve a sample more similar in composition to the respondents in the original study, but we could still not replicate the effect of stereotype activation on the gender gap in political knowledge (Table S20).

We note that our failure to replicate the effect of stereotype threat on gender differences in political knowledge is consistent with recent research efforts challenging the effect of stereotype threat on academic performance more broadly. Stoet and Geary (Reference Stoet and Geary2012) showed that only 30% of efforts aiming to replicate the gender gap in mathematical performance do succeed. In addition, a meta-analysis investigating the effect of gender stereotype threats on the performance of schoolgirls in stereotyped subjects (e.g., science, math) indicated several signs of publication bias within this literature (Flore and Wicherts Reference Flore and Wicherts2015). Given these results, it is plausible that the effect of gender stereotype activation might be small in magnitude and/or might be decreasing over time (Lewis and Michalak Reference Lewis and Michalak2019).

Furthermore, we find robust evidence of a gender gap in political knowledge even after controlling for political interest. Our results validate previous accounts that the gender gap on political knowledge may be an artifact of how knowledge is conceptualized and measured and of different gender attitudes toward standard tests. In line with previous research stating that the political knowledge gap might be artificially inflated by a disproportionate amount of men who are willing to guess rather than chose the “don’t know” option – even if that might lead to an incorrect answer (Mondak and Anderson Reference Mondak and Anderson2004) – we find that female participants attempted to answer less questions and used the “don’t know” response option in the political knowledge test more frequently than their male counterparts whereas men guessed their answers more frequently than women, resulting in a larger amount of incorrect answers (Tables S8–S14). This suggests factors other than knowledge might contribute to the gender gap in political knowledge (Mondak Reference Mondak1999). For example, gender differences in risk taking and competitiveness (Lizotte and Sidman Reference Lizotte and Sidman2009) as well as in self-confidence (Wolak Reference Wolak2020) and self-efficacy (Preece Reference Preece2016) may lead women to second-guess themselves and be less prone to attempt answering the questions of which they are unsure. Meanwhile, higher competitiveness and confidence in males might lead them to guess and “gain the advantage from a scoring system that does not penalize wrong answers and rewards right ones” (Kenski and Jamieson Reference Kenski, Jamieson and Jamieson2000, 84). Measurement non-invariance, too, appears to detrimentally affect the interpretation and validity of political knowledge scales across several sociodemographics. For example, Lizotte and Sidman (Reference Lizotte and Sidman2009) and Mondak and Anderson (Reference Mondak and Anderson2004) have shown political knowledge instruments violate the equivalence assumption for gender, while Abrajano (Reference Abrajano2015) and Pietryka and MacIntosh (Reference Pietryka and MacIntosh2013) found non-invariance across age, income, race, and education. In our own replication attempt, we also found evidence of measurement non-invariance using item response theory and showed that the magnitude of the gender systematic bias appears to be contingent on respondents’ knowledge levels such that lack of equivalence by gender is stronger at average scores and weaker at the extremes of the political knowledge continuum (see Table S21 and Figure S1).

As Politics has been essentially a male-dominated field since its creation, it should not come as a surprise that current measures of political knowledge tend to favor what men typically know. Previous studies have shown that the mere inclusion of gendered items on scales of political knowledge lessens the gender gap (Barabas, Jerit, Pollock, and Rainey Reference Barabas, Jerit, Pollock and Rainey2014; Dolan Reference Dolan2011). The investigation and validation of measures of political knowledge that capitalize on the fact that men and women might not only know different things but also may react in different ways to standard tests is paramount for a more accurate understanding of the gender gap in political knowledge and its bias.

Finally, we note that measurement issues are not unique to political knowledge and in fact are pervasive in Political Science with consequences for how we measure populism (Van Hauwaert, Schimpf, and Azevedo Reference Van Hauwaert, Schimpf and Azevedo2018, Reference Van Hauwaert, Schimpf and Azevedo2020; Wuttke, Schimpf, and Schoen Reference Wuttke, Schimpf and Schoen2020), operational ideology (Azevedo and Bolesta Reference Azevedo and Bolesta2022; Azevedo, Jost, Rothmund, and Sterling Reference Azevedo, Jost, Rothmund and Sterling2019; Kalmoe Reference Kalmoe2020), and political psychological constructs such as authoritarianism, racial resentment, personality traits, and moral traditionalism (Azevedo and Jost Reference Azevedo and Jost2021; Bromme, Rothmund, and Azevedo Reference Bromme, Rothmund and Azevedo2022; Pérez and Hetherington Reference Pérez and Hetherington2014; Pietryka and MacIntosh Reference Pietryka and MacIntosh2022). If the basic measurement properties of widely used constructs are flawed, it is likely that insights from research will be biased. Valid, invariant, and theoretically derived instruments are urgently needed for the reliable accumulation of knowledge in Political Science.

Both left and right agree that it's the bad, divisive stuff that goes viral on social media that least deserves it, while the good stuff is not amplified as it should be

Rathje, Steve, Claire Robertson, William J. Brady, and Jay J. Van Bavel. 2022. “People Think That Social Media Platforms Do (but Should Not) Amplify Divisive Content.” PsyArXiv. October 11. doi:10.31234/osf.io/gmun4

Abstract: There is widespread debate about how to improve or regulate social media algorithms. We review the type of content that is most likely to spread widely, or go “viral” on social media, and describe how people’s perceptions of what goes viral does not match their preference about what should go viral. We recruited a nationally representative sample of US participants and surveyed them about their perceptions of social media virality (n = 511). In line with prior research, people believe that divisive content, moral outrage, negative content, high-arousal content, and misinformation are all likely to go viral online. However, people reported that this type of content should not go viral on social media. Instead, people reported that many forms of positive content – such as accurate content, nuanced content, and educational content – are not likely to go viral, even though they think this content should go viral. Importantly, these perceptions were widely shared, and were only weakly related to political orientation, social media usage, and demographic variables. In sum, there is broad consensus around the type of content people think social media platforms should and should not amplify, which can help inform solutions for improving social media.

Married women with children experience greater intrasexual competition than their male counterparts

Married women with children experience greater intrasexual competition than their male counterparts. Joyce F. Benenson & Henry Markovits. Scientific Reports volume 13, Article number: 4498. Mar 18 2023. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-31816-0

Abstract: Human males are considered to be more competitive than females. However, females must also compete for resources necessary for their own and their offsprings’ survival. Since females use more indirect forms of competition than males, comparing observable forms of competition may be misleading. One critical driver of competition is resource asymmetry. Since competition occurs primarily within sex, reactions to resource asymmetry with same-sex peers should provide an important measure of competitiveness. We asked 596 married participants, 25–45 years of age with at least one child from three different countries to evaluate how same-sex individuals they know would react to a target individual who had a valuable resource that the same-sex individuals did not have. Half the participants evaluated reactions to same-sex targets, while the other half evaluated reactions to other-sex targets. Participants reported that women would react more negatively than men to resource asymmetry with same-sex targets, but not other-sex targets. These results suggest that women may be even more competitive than men in contexts when important resources related to reproductive success are at stake.

Discussion

Are men more competitive than women? Answering this question is complicated by the fact that men and women pursue differing goals and employ different competitive strategies. In this study, we examined reported reactions to married women and men with children who vary in specific resources. Results of the present study show that participant-observers from three nations reported that based on their experiences, the women that they knew would respond more negatively to a same-sex target with a valuable characteristic than would men in the same situation. In other words, women react more negatively to resource asymmetry among same-sex peers than men do, but not to resource asymmetry with other-sex peers. In fact, participant-observers report that women are actually less negative than men are towards other-sex peers. Thus, it is not the case that women are more distressed than men by resource asymmetry in general, rather this difference is only present with same-sex peers. These results suggest that the motivation for competition over resources is greater in 25–45-year-old married women with children than in their male counterparts. This extends findings from previous studies that have found few self-reported sex differences in tendencies to compete over mates28,29 or observational studies suggesting when payoffs are high women may compete more than men32,34 to include women and men who are married with children and know others who differ in their physical and social assets.

The implications of the results for understanding human society are important in that they indicate that while women and men employ different competitive strategies and often pursue different goals, women may have an even greater motivation to compete with same-sex peers than men. Thus, it seems reasonable that women may be more envious than men of same-sex peers who are better able to care for their children. This is particularly pertinent when resources involved in competition directly impact same-sex individuals’ and their offspring’s survival. In contrast male-male competition is more likely to impact only sporadic mating behaviors14,94. Further study of competition between mothers seems warranted, as others have recommended95,96. Importantly, these results also demonstrate that women are more positive than men with respect to resource differentials in the other sex. Thus, from a man’s perspective, women are less competitive with men than men are, which might provide a further explanation for the often-cited conclusion that women are the less competitive sex. Although the more negative reactions to resource asymmetry could be interpreted as a form of inequity aversion, this would not change their role as a motivator of competition97. Nonetheless, it would be unlikely that inequity aversion would apply more towards one sex than the other.

Both women and men reported that resource differentials in characteristics that benefitted men would produce more negative reactions compared to characteristics that benefitted women. Although we did not predict this, it is possible that male advantageous characteristics are more consistent with classic measures of group status such as dominance and prestige69 or socioeconomic status98, which have been shown to be desired by and benefit both women and men in terms of survival99. Further, these group status characteristics that may be associated more with men than women may also provoke more negative reactions because universally men hold higher status than women100. More research is needed that focuses on characteristics that may be particularly beneficial to women9.

Limitations of our study include that we had participants from only three countries, and other countries may produce different results. Likewise, all of our participant-observers had access to computers which clearly is not representative of simple societies. A more diverse and larger sample would further buttress the validity of the findings. We also did not include participants or targets who did not identify as women or men, so we cannot generalize these results to non-binary individuals.

Finally, in this study we used a very simple definition of resource differential: possession of a single positive characteristic that has been shown to be beneficial and hence should be desired by others. Although more complex definitions abound, we feel that this nonetheless captures the essential component of competitiveness. Thus, to the extent that intolerance of resource differentials is a major driver of competitiveness, one that is independent of whatever strategy might be employed to attain the resource, our results suggest that at the least between 25 and 45 years of age, married women with children may be more competitive than their male counterparts. While this conclusion requires confirmation using different measures, these results provide a further challenge to the validity of traditional sexual selection theory in which human males are considered more competitive than females.

Openness is unrelated to any type of resistance against opposing political views; conscientious individuals are hesitant to actively resist incongruent opinions; agreeable individuals avoid political information that challenge their beliefs

Dispositioned to resist? The Big Five and resistance to dissonant political views. Chiara Valli, Alessandro Nai. Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 207, June 2023, 112152. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2023.112152

Highlights

• Openness is unrelated to any type of resistance against opposing political views.

• Conscientious individuals are hesitant to actively resist incongruent opinions.

• Extraverts defend their political attitudes by bolstering their preexisting views.

• Agreeable individuals avoid political information that challenge their beliefs.

• Neurotic individuals experience negative affect to oppositional political views.

Abstract: This article investigates how dispositional traits influence the way individuals resist dissonant political information. More specifically, the relationship between the Big Five personality traits and four resistance strategies (avoidance, contesting, empowering, and negative affect) is explored. To do so, we present new evidence from an online survey where respondents from a Swiss sample (N = 936) were exposed to tailored counterarguments on a political initiative and asked to report their cognitive, behavioral, and affective responses to the dissonant messages. Against our expectations, openness is unrelated to any type of resistance. Conscientious individuals are hesitant to actively resist counter-attitudinal political information, while extraverts defend their attitude by bolstering their preexisting views. Similar tendencies are visible for agreeable respondents, although these individuals primarily rely on avoiding dissonant political content. Individuals high on neuroticism exhibit a strong emotional response by reacting with negative affect to oppositional political information.

Keywords: PersonalityBig FivePolitical disagreementResistanceConflict behavior

5. Discussion

Following research that showed that people's reaction to social conflict and, importantly, opposing political views varies with their predispositions, this study examined the role of personality in people's resistance against incongruent political opinions. To do so, we exposed participants to a tailored counterargument on a political issue and analyzed their responses in form of four distinct types of resistance strategies, namely contesting, avoidance, empowering, and negative affect.

In line with a recent study on the effect of personality on the evaluation of political counterarguments, and opinion change (Nai et al., 2023), we did not find any association between openness and resistance to opposing political views. Given that openness is one of the personality traits most often related to political behavior (e.g., Mondak, 2010), we suspect that these nonsignificant results are a product of competing lower-level facets, however. Future research should, thus, replicate these findings with longer inventories that allow a more “granular identification of motivational, emotional, and behavioral tendencies” (Xu et al., 2021, p.755).

Conscientious individuals were relatively cautious about resisting opposing political views and were especially unlikely to experience negative affect. While we cannot rule out that these results come from a response bias – that is, conscientious individuals are more wary to “openly” challenge opposing positions because they want to comply with social norms –, their lack of engagement might reflect their tendency to inhibit their impulses. Because conscientious individuals are susceptible to directions from authority figures (Alkiş & Taşkaya Temizel, 2015), they might have also responded to the source of the counter-attitudinal message, which we operationalized as an official referendum committee. Future research should explore these source cues more carefully.

Next, we find that extraverted individuals resist opposing political views by bolstering their prior political views. A closer look at the index of empowering strategies reveals that this effect is driven by social validation (i.e., reminding oneself that significant others share the same opinion). Because extraverts are social in nature, they might seek reassurance from their social environment when their opinions are challenged. This idea seems to align with earlier research that suggests that extraverts are significantly affected by the opinions of their peers (Alkiş & Taşkaya Temizel, 2015).

Similar to extraverts, agreeable individuals value the ideas of their social circle (Alkiş & Taşkaya Temizel, 2015). In line with this, our data shows that agreeable individuals remind themselves that others in their environment share their views. However, if they can, they will avoid confrontation with alternative political information. Out of the Big Five, agreeable individuals also seem the most resistant. Although surprising, this finding somewhat aligns with previous studies that emphasized the importance of conflict-orientation in understanding people's reactions to political disagreement (e.g., Testa et al., 2014).

Although neurotic individuals react to opposing views with negative affect, they do not seem to avoid such confrontation. Instead of withdrawing from the confrontation – which we hypothesized – we have indications that they engage with the opposing views through contesting and empowering strategies, even if only marginally. Thus, the expected mechanism might be reversed: neurotic individuals become activated precisely because they find counter-attitudinal views emotionally upsetting. This logic aligns with previous findings that show that the strongest motive for neurotic individuals to comment on news stories is when the story affects them emotionally (Barnes et al., 2018).

5.1. Limitations

This article does not come without limitations: first, several resistance strategies were assessed with short forms of established scales. Although most measurements showed good reliability, shorter measurements can impede construct validity. Second, we relied on self-reported measures, which might be subject to response bias. We urge future research to replicate these findings using longer, established measurements and, where possible, thought-listing techniques to examine people's response to controversial information. Next, we used a relatively short 10-item personality battery to examine the Big Five, which fails to capture the subdimensions of the personality traits. Last, we specifically focused on resistance to opposing political views and thereby, neglected the possibility of more positive responses.

5.2. Implications

Arguing for the importance of cross-cutting exposure for a functioning democracy, most of the literature focused on how personality influences people's willingness to expose themselves to political disagreement. The findings of this study emphasize the need to go beyond the question of who is exposed to incongruent information and ask how these individuals react to that information. From a theoretical perspective, this study, thus, adds to the literature by looking at an additional step in the information processing sequence which begins with the exposure to a communication, continues with the processing and is followed by the evaluation of that information (Minson & Chen, 2022, p. 94). In terms of personality research more broadly, this study again illuminates the predictive power of personality and highlights that these stable characteristics influence behavioral and attitudinal tendencies above and beyond specific situational contexts (e.g., organizational conflict).

From a broader societal perspective, this study can shed new light on the psychological mechanism related to political extremism, including recent events such as the violent occupation of government buildings in the US and Brazil. In a world increasingly defined by political contrasts and ideological oppositions, knowing why and under which conditions citizens resist incongruent political views likely matters for scholars, public officials, and democracy practitioners alike.

Connection between control perceptions and the tendency to moralize and hold people responsible for their actions: Conservatives around the world perceived they had more control over their lives relative to liberals

Age Differences in Free Will and Control Perceptions Across the Lifespan and Around the World. William J. Chopik, Joshua A. Confer, Matt Motyl. Current Research in Ecological and Social Psychology, March 15 2023, 100093. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cresp.2023.100093

Highlights

• Free will and control perceptions vary across development and cultures.

• Few studies examined cultural variation in age differences in these characteristics.

• We found that older adults perceived less control across cultures.

• Cultural and individual characteristics occasionally moderated age differences.

Abstract: Variation in free will and control perceptions has been examined across the development of young children, adults, and in several different countries. In two studies (three samples; total N = 492,134), older adults believed less in free will, fatalistic determinism, and perceived less control over their lives compared to younger adults. In Study 2 (Samples 1 [48 countries] and 2 [99 countries]), control perceptions were highest among individuals who lived in countries that were more indulgent (versus restricted). Country-level characteristics often moderated the link between age and control perceptions, although variation in age differences was relatively small. The current studies are the largest and most comprehensive investigations of demographic and cultural differences in free will and control perceptions. The findings are discussed in the context of the mechanisms that drive changes in free will and control perceptions across the lifespan and across cultures.

General Discussion

Although most people believe in free will and perceive that they have control over their lives, these perceptions likely vary across several dimensions. Across three samples (N = 492,134), we found that free will and control perceptions were higher among young adults and lower among older adults. Men, conservatives, educated individuals, and those with higher religious attendance tended to report having more control over their lives. In Study 2, people from countries higher in indulgence reported higher control perceptions. Country-level characteristics often moderated the link between age and free will beliefs, but these associations were often very small. These studies represent the largest and most comprehensive examinations of lifespan and cultural differences in free will and control perceptions conducted to date.

Demographic Differences in Free Will and Control Perceptions

Across the three samples, older adults perceived less free will and control over their lives. This finding could be attributable to the fact that as people age, they begin to learn and acknowledge the wide-ranging constraints on one's mind and behavior (see Chernyak et al., 2013; Gergely et al., 2002). There is a continuation of learning about constraints placed on one's behavior, such as those imposed by social institutions (i.e., workplace rules and norms), and that these, in turn, drive individual and social development (Roberts, Wood, et al., 2005). However, it was an open question about whether perceptions of control and free will also mapped on to age differences in these perceived constraints across life.

We also investigated how demographic characteristics were associated with variation in free will and control perceptions. Many findings from our studies support the connection between control perceptions and the tendency to moralize and hold people responsible for their actions. For example, we find that conservatives around the world perceived they had more control over their lives relative to liberals. This is likely connected to conservatives’ emphasizing the role of personal responsibility and downplaying the role of external constraints on one's behavior (Eidelman et al., 2012; Skitka & Tetlock, 1992, 1993). Indeed, Everett et al. (2020)’s recent research demonstrates how conservatives’ moralizing attitudes heightens their free will perceptions relative to liberals. In line with this idea, we also found that, compared to women, men also reported higher control perceptions on average. This may likewise be attributed to the tendency of men to moralize and support retribution (Helgeson & Fritz, 1999), which is associated with a higher perception of moral responsibility (Caspar et al., 2017; Krueger et al., 2014; Shariff et al., 2014). Lastly, higher religious attendance was associated with greater perceptions of control/free will in Study 1 and Sample 2 of Study 2. This supports the idea that many religions promote free will and control through the encouragement of choice and taking responsibility for decisions (and their outcomes) (see Baumeister et al., 2010; McCullough & Willoughby, 2009).

As for education, our results were not as clear. Study 1 suggested that educated adults believe less in free will, while Study 2’s samples showed highly educated people perceive more control over their lives. In this specific case, it is worth noting that there are likely plenty of people who can hold disbelief in free will but nevertheless think they have control over the outcomes of their lives (the two are only modestly positively correlated). In Study 1, although older adults believed less in free will, they were also less likely to endorse beliefs about fatalistic determinism and that the universe is a random place. Although highly educated adults may be more likely to endorse a deterministic-scientific worldview (and therefore believe less in free will), they may also be in a position to overcome various constraints (i.e., financial) and therefore have a higher perception of how much freedom and control they have over their lives. However, the current studies cannot answer these questions definitively.

Cultural Differences in Control Perceptions

The analysis of cross-cultural variation in control perceptions in Study 2 provided several surprising findings. The most counter-intuitive was that individualism/collectivism was not a consistent predictor of control perceptions (although it showed the opposite pattern than would be expected—people living in individualistic societies reported lower perceptions of control over their lives). This was a puzzling result as we expected individualistic cultures, who are thought to emphasize individual autonomy, would stress individual autonomy and engender people with perceptions that they have control over their lives. Indeed, these results seem to contrast with Chernyak et al. (2013)’s finding that older children from the United States (an ‘individualistic’ culture) believe more in their freedom of choice relative to their counterparts in Nepal (a ‘collectivist’ culture). It appears it is still up for debate whether focusing more on one's individual autonomy and choices translates into feeling a freer will. Over time, individuals may realize that they possess (or lack) conscious influence on their decisions due to overcoming (or submitting to) constraints. This violation of expectations may lead to particularly low levels of free will among people from individualistic cultures. Nonetheless, because this is only speculation (and the effect was not present in Sample 1), and we encourage future researchers to further examine this finding.

Importantly, it should also be noted that the individualistic/collectivist dichotomy is often an oversimplification (or, according to some, a misrepresentation) of cultures (Talhelm, 2019). For example, regions around the world generally contain areas that have both individualistic/collectivistic influences (Vignoles et al., 2016). Some values serve both the individual and the collective (Schwartz, 1990), and collectivist cultures display a vigilance of in-group members that is indicative of attributing individual responsibility to people's actions (Liu et al., 2019). Given these critiques of individualism/collectivism, we also encourage researchers to examine different conceptualizations and taxonomies of cultural differences (e.g., Schwartz taxonomies, the other GLOBE characteristics) and how they might be associated with free will and control perceptions.

In Study 2, people from more restrained countries possessed lower perceptions of control. This finding seems to contrast with Baumeister et al. (2010)’s suggestion that belief in free will and control represent the ability to avoid behaviors and temptations that are deemed unacceptable by society. One might expect that more restrained countries think they have more control over their actions and the consequences of those actions. However, our results suggest the opposite. This may be interpreted through how citizens perceive these societies to be constraining their individual freedom. More restrained countries likely have many customs, norms, and laws that condemn or commend various desires, impulses, and behaviors. Perhaps individuals from restrained countries feel the weight of these regulations or are more often reminded of the impulses pulling on their decisions. An individual living in a more indulgent society may not feel compelled by any of these forces, and hence, may feel freer to do as they please.

In addition to overall cultural differences in free will belief, several cultural variables moderated associations between age and control perceptions in Study 2. The sharper age differences could result from people in these cultures reflecting more on constraints (e.g., countries high in restraint and femininity) or being confronted with constraints that violate their perceptions of agency over time (e.g., countries high in individualism). It should be noted that these variables rarely and inconsistently moderated age differences. Because the link between age and control perceptions was largely consistent across cultural contexts in adulthood, this may suggest that cultures engender specific beliefs in control earlier in life. Moreover, as people from different cultures age, they may universally experience the force of constraints placed upon their lives and their control perceptions could decline in a largely homogenous way. Although people around the world may face different constraints, the result appears to be that any constraints—irrespective of their cultural specificity—likely lowers perceptions of control as people grow into adulthood and old age.

Limitations and Future Directions

The studies had many strengths. For example, we analyzed three large data sets from relatively diverse participants and countries using multiple measures of our umbrella construct—free will and control perceptions. We also integrated data from multiple sources, including information on how countries varied economically and socially.

Nevertheless, there are some limitations worth acknowledging. First, the data from the three samples were cross-sectional. This limitation leaves open the possibility that we captured differences in free will and control perceptions between members of different birth cohorts rather than lifespan differences. In other words, it would be the difference between (a) concluding that people born more recently in history have higher free will or control perceptions and (b) concluding that these beliefs and perceptions decline across the lifespan. The danger in this ambiguity is that different birth cohorts are exposed to different sociocultural norms that might influence their perceptions or any other psychological characteristic (Roberts et al., 2010; Stewart & Healy, 1989). Worth noting, because the age differences were so consistent across data sets, cultures, and cultural variables, our data are more likely to lend itself to the developmental interpretation—that free will and control perceptions decline across age and that they are relatively resilient to the modeling of cultural factors (Bleidorn et al., 2013; McCrae et al., 2000; McCrae et al., 1999). Formally modeling year of data collection in the analyses yielded conflicting results—free will beliefs tended to be lower in more recent years in Study 1 but control perceptions tended to higher in more recent years in Study 2 (a replication and extension of Inglehart et al., 2008).

The pattern seen in Study 2 more squarely aligns with studies examining birth cohort differences in perceived control. For example, in cohort sequential studies, more recent cohorts in the U.S. and Germany tend to perceive fewer constraints, and this is particularly true for people's perceptions of the degree to which luck and fate govern their lives (Drewelies et al., 2018; Gerstorf et al., 2019). However, there is some evidence to suggest that more recent cohorts of U.S. college students might be shifting toward more external evaluations of control (i.e., less internal perceptions of control; Twenge et al., 2004). The exact pattern of cohort differences might also be moderated by age, such that more recent cohorts of older adults perceive fewer constraints but more recent cohorts of younger adults perceive less control over their lives, some of which might be attributable to economic differences between the cohorts and across the lifespan (Drewelies et al., 2018).5 Ultimately, formal tests of these questions in the current data was not possible and beyond the current scope of the paper. Future research should follow different cohorts of individuals over time to appropriately separate cohort and developmental effects on free will and control perceptions. A more direct test might be to experimentally manipulate many of the processes we have proposed to see if they affect free will and control perceptions, whether these processes involve culture (Oyserman & Lee, 2008) or lifespan development (Fung et al., 1999).

Second, cultures are not static in their characteristics and can change considerably over time. Relevant to the current studies, this means that cultures are influencing people differently as they—both cultures and individuals—age. This makes it unclear if differences in free will and control perceptions can be just attributed to individuals aging across time, or our cultures becoming more similar/different across time (Chopik, 2020; Grossmann & Varnum, 2015; Santos et al., 2017; Varnum & Grossmann, 2017). Again, we were only able to superficially model this possibility by including the year of data collection in our analyses, but cultures likely change at much slower rates that what was captured in these samples. Future research can model broader, macro-level changes in cultures to see how temporal variation at a region level might affect individual decision making and perceptions.

Finally, the age-related differences in free will and control perceptions varied dramatically across samples, ranging from moderate in size to relatively small. This can also be said of the moderating role of individual and cultural characteristics. It was generally the case that, despite significant moderation being present, decomposing the interactions revealed relatively similar effects across different levels of the moderating variables. Although the effects were relatively small, we thought it was important to provide some reasonable expectations about effect sizes for future research. It is also worth noting that we chose age as a relatively imperfect measure of a process we thought unfolds across life (e.g., that people witness events or have experiences that challenge their existing thoughts about control and free will). Examining these questions using more proximal measures or even under experimental conditions might more carefully test the processes we outlined or establish a clearer causal chain. Whether or not manipulating free will and control perceptions on their own translates into judgments of others and pro(anti)-social behavior is another question entirely—a possibility that researchers have been critical of recently (Crone & Levy, 2019; Monroe et al., 2017; Nadelhoffer et al., 2020). In the meantime, evaluating whether personally witnessing or experiencing exogenous forces put upon one's will and control affects perceptions is an important issue to examine. For example, does experiencing a life event not directly under one's control affect how they think about control and free will? Some evidence suggests that it may be possible (Luhmann et al., 2020), but it has largely been untested so far.