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."
Destined to Cheat?
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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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