Destined to Cheat?
Here's how they set up the experiment. They gave college students a mathematics exam, but the test was really a sham. The math problems appeared on a computer screen, and they told the subjects that, because of a computer glitch, the answers would appear on the screen as well. To prevent the answers from showing up, the students had to hit the space bar as soon as the problems appeared. In fact, the scientists were observing to see if the participants surreptitiously used the answers instead of solving the problems honestly on their own.
Prior to the math test, the scientists had used a well-established method to "prime" the subjects' beliefs regarding fate and free will. Basically, some of the students were taught that science had disproven the notion of free will, and that the illusion of free will was a mere artifact of the brain's biochemistry. Others got no such indoctrination. When they ran the cheating experiment, the results were clear: those with weaker convictions about their power to control their own destiny were much more apt to cheat when given the opportunity.
This is what moral philosophers call "passive cheating." It's the equivalent of having a sales clerk give you too much change and not choosing to give it back. Vohs and Schooler wanted to go a step further, to see if they could get people to cheat with unmistakable intention and effort. So in a second study they set up a different deception: they had the subjects take a very difficult cognitive test, and they put them on the honor system. That is, the subjects solved a series of problems without supervision, then scored themselves. They also "rewarded" themselves $1 for each correct answer, and in order to collect the reward they had to walk across the room and help themselves to money in a manila envelope. So there was nothing the least bit passive or ambiguous about this dishonesty; it was lying and stealing, plain and simple.
As with the first experiment, the psychologists had previously primed them to believe in either free will or fate. And the results were just as robust. As reported in the January issue of the journal Psychological Science, those with a stronger belief in their own power and control were less apt to steal money than were those with a weakened belief.
I don't know about you, but I find this disturbing. There is strong evidence that since the 1960s people have had a steadily diminishing sense of control over their own lives. The genetic revolution—including the recent decoding of the genome—has strongly reinforced this deterministic world view. There has been a concurrent and well-documented increase in cheating over the same period. Could the two be connected?
Back to alcoholism: addicts are notorious liars and cheaters. They need no added motivation to be fatalistic or dishonest. This isn't to say that we as a society should deny the genetic model of addiction if at the end of the day the scientific evidence points that way. But these findings might help explain why the most effective treatments for alcohol and drug abuse demand that people be honest with themselves and take personal responsibility for staying on the wagon.
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Member Comments
Posted By: PassionateRN @ 05/05/2008 6:53:16 PM
Comment: This same consistent loss of control over ones destiny has been the basic force that drives the "so called hostility" that has existed in the Black race for many years. Maybe Dr Wright was really just trying to get the powers that be to understand this same issue long before your news flash of today...................."different is not difficient."
Posted By: kcarizona @ 02/10/2008 4:28:36 AM
Comment: We tried to prohibit alcohol and it was a brilliant disaster with Al Capone style thugs running wild. People wanted alcohol and dammit don't tell an American they can't, you have to admire that. Along the very same lines Pot has been illegal since i was brought into this world and now that i am older i have to ask why???
Alcohol and Pot both have danger about them but that is solved by regulation but it makes no sense to see the social injustice to keep it illegal. As far as danger i would say alcohol is faaaaar more dangerous than pot. If we standardized, taxed and made it available i would not want it but the people who did could operate within legality and freedom and rules and not some wild prohibitionary failed enforcement program. Ask around leaders. America doesn't get the logic and will continue to defy your laws because that is what we do we are Free to reason and act within our own logical observations. But back to the tax thing DAMM how much money goes to mafia and evil Al Capone gangsters instead of the state treasury that we could use that $ to build, grow and advance instead of digging into failed positions.
But IF you really want to go to WAR ON DRUGS (and i wonder if you do-i know i do) than go general. general i would suggest you legalize pot and attack the rest especially METH. hey general with all do respect how many more children and families are going to die at the venoumous bite of the METH monster that is terrorizing our people and is loose on the streets. WHO IS THE GENERAL IN CHARGE OF FIGHTING DRUGS. With all do respect you need to resign and as a good soilder fall on your sword as you have lost the war on drugs. We need a new general who will GO TO THE SOURCE and blow the hell out of the real terrorists - terrorizing our streets, creating psychopathic killers who have been up 5 days and are zombie killers - that is no exageration. God bless America as we fight our own battles on our own land in our own neighborhoods. Get the s### out of our streets. National Guard? What are we waiting for?? Economic stimulus how about getting the junk out of the junkies so they can work and not burden the social system with all of their drug related disabilities.
Posted By: William.Demuth @ 02/07/2008 8:46:10 AM
Comment:
This has been self evident to Atheists and free thinkers for centuries.
Belief in an inevitable outcome is the historic foundation of monotheistic religion and other political extremisms that have been used by charlatans and social parasites to warp the minds of their followers into being able to commit billions of atrocities since the dawn of man.
When absolute belief systems indoctrinate the weak or uneducated mind, the result is zealotry.
Be they pedophile priests, morally bankrupt televangelists, the supervisors of Auschwitz, the pilots of 9-11, the Poll Potts death squads, or the Israeli West Bank settlers, extremists who fundamentally believe forces other than free will drive our destiny are dragging our world into an epoch of moral relativism that will ultimately kill us all. Their beliefs that their leaders are divine and thus morally righteous have sown the seeds of our destruction. Whether the bloody results be witch trials or suicide bombings, the results of fools being led to believe that divine forces drive our actions has gone on for far to long.
Predeterminism is an abomination against the intellect of man. Nothing and no one independently determines our destinies either collectively or individually. Our destinies as individuals, and the collective destiny of our human society will be determined by the individual choices and actions of ourselves and our fellow human beings.
We can no longer tolerate those amongst us who foolishly hide behind the dogmatic illusion of "happily ever after" while committing heinous acts against their fellow man.