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Self-Theories: The Construction of Free Will

Carol Dweck & Daniel Molden

In: Are We Free?  Psychology and Free Will   Eds. Baer, J., Kaufman, J. & Baumeister, R.

The authors divide peoples’ attitudes to their control over their affairs and ability to control their environment into two categories. People with an ‘entity theory’ have the view that personal attributes, such as personality and intelligence, are fixed and not subject to personal development. People with an ‘incremental theory’ think that their abilities can be developed through their own efforts (1. Dweck, 1999, 2. Dweck & Leggett, 1988).

Studies suggest that incremental theorist do better than entity theorists in their personal development (3. Dweck & Molden, 2005, 4. Molden & Dweck). Entity theorists tend to withdraw effort and avoid tasks once they have failed. Incremental theorists attempt an improved approach to the problem task. In a study (5. Blackwell et al, 2007) entity and incremental theorists who started a high school maths course with the same standards soon showed a situation where the incrementalists pulled ahead, with the gap continuing to widen over the duration of the course. This distinction was related to the incrementalists willingness to renew efforts after a setback. A further study (6. Robins and Pals, 2002) showed that during their college years, entity theorists had a steady decline in their feeling of self-worth, relative to incremental theorists. A further study (7. Baer, Grant & Dweck, 2005) linked some cases of depression to self-critical rumination on supposedly fixed traits by entity theorists. Further studies suggest that incremental theorists had greater resilience to obstacles, were more conscientious in their work, and more willing to attempt challenging tasks.

While both sets of behaviour could still be explained by deterministic algorithms, the studies are certainly consistent with the existence of free will and are supportive of the idea that it is adaptive.

References:-

1.) Dweck, C. (1999)  -  Self-Theories  -  Psychology Press

2.) Dweck, C. & Leggett, E. (1988)  -  A social-cognitive approach to motivation and personality  -  Psychological Review, 95, pp. 256-73

3.) Dweck, C. & Molden, D. (2005)  -  Self-Theories  -  In: Handbook of Competence and Motivation,  Eds. Elliot, A. & Dweck, C.  -  Guildford Press
 
4.) Molden, D. & Dweck, C. (2006)  -  Finding meaning in psychology  -  American Psychologist, 61, pp. 192-203

5.) Blackwell et al (2007)  -  Implicit theories of intelligence  -  Child Development, 78, pp. 246-63 P 6.) Robins, R. & Pals, J. (2002)  -  Implicit self-theories  -  Self and Identity, 1, pp. 313-36

7.) Baer, Grant & Dweck (2005)  -  Personal goals

6.) Deutch, D. - Proceedings of the Royal Society (London) A400 (1985) 97




The Hazards of Claiming to Have Solved the Hard Problem of Free Will

Shariff Azim, Jonathan Schooler, Kathleen Vohs

In: Are We Free? Psychology and Free Will  Eds.  Baer, J., Kaufman, J. & Baumeister, R.

This chapter criticises the methodology of studies by Bargh and others that claim to show behaviour as automatic or determined. This refers to the influence of unconscious priming on behaviour. The authors feel that the behavioural results of experiments by Bargh and others are to a significant extent the result of suggestion by the experimenters, and are in fact only a step away from hypnosis.

They also argue that there is a limitation to the efficacy of the illusion argument. Humans sometimes suffer visual illusions, but this does not mean that all vision is illusory. These experiments show rather artificial conditions in which subjective control is an illusion, but this does not mean that all subjective control is an illusion.

As an aside from the core argument about freewill, supporters of determinism have always been concerned that once knowledge of the deterministic nature of behaviour that they believe in leaked out from academia into the general population, behaviour in society would deteriorate. People would reason that there was no point in trying to behave morally or sensibly, if in fact, they had no control over their actions in any case. Determinists have presented various rather convoluted arguments to get out of this one. However, (1. Vohs & Schooler, 2008) showed that participants who had read a chapter written by Francis Crick suggesting that rational, thinking people had long abandoned the idea of freewill were more likely to cheat in a subsequent Maths exercise, where the possibility of cheating had been built in. A partly valid argument on the determinist side is that people respond to peer pressure and want to be seen to be acting in the interests of the group. However, group pressures are somewhat less than they were in small hunter gatherer groups, and further to that the actions of groups may also be anti-social. In many instances, the pressure thing looks to be more useful in enforcing conformity rather than morals. It seems difficult to get away from the fear that believe in determinism could be bad for society.

References:-

1.) Vohs, K. & Schooler, J.  -  The value of believing in free will




Organism and Machine

Michael Denton

In: Are We Spiritual Machines?  Ed. Jay Richards

Michael Denton’s chapter is critical of the prevailing brain as a machine paradigm. He claims that the underlying design of organic systems is not at all analogous to the design of machines. All the parts of an organism influence each other, in a way which is not true of machines.

Denton says that this principle is well illustrated by the structure of protein, the basic building block of life. The arrangement of the atoms in protein is unlike anything found in machines. In contrast to machines built up out of modular parts that can be replaced by like parts, proteins are characterised by the chaotic nature of their arrangement. This was the impression gained by the first researchers to detect the molecular structure of protein. A later paper says:-

‘Perhaps the most remarkable features of the molecule (protein) are its complexity and its lack of symmetry. The arrangement seems to be almost totally lacking in the kind of regularities which one instinctively anticipates, and it is more complicated than had been predicted by any theory of protein structure.’  ^_____ M. Perutz  -  European Journal of Biochemistry

The structure of protein began to be disclosed in the late 1950s. In the early stages, it was assumed that each amino acid made an individual contribution to the three-dimensional structure of the protein. This assumption was based on the concept of proteins as machines, molecular machines, that were expected to be built up of independent parts that all made a contribution to the whole, but was quite distinct from the contribution of other parts. This idea of a molecular machine is still advanced in text books, but Denton regards it as false.

Research progressively showed that in protein, the contribution of each amino acid was influenced by interactions with many of the other amino acids in the protein. It was discovered that the spatial conformation of each part of the amino acid chain of a protein was the product of a complex web of van der Waal force between electrical dipoles and electro-chemical interactions. These involved almost every section of the amino acid chain. Almost every one of thousands of atoms in the protein macromolecule contributes to the shape of the molecule via interactions with most of the other atoms. The impression is sometimes given that protein components such as the alpha helix can be treated as separate modules, much like components of a machine. In fact, the stability and form of these elements is dependent on van der Waal and microchemical interactions, in turn dependent on larger scale interactions within the protein. The properties of each component within the protein are not fixed, but are dependent on the local conditions within the protein. While a module in a machine, such as a wheel on a car, is still a wheel when it is removed from the car, the same is not true of the component of a protein. The components of proteins are only components when they are interacting with other components. The form and function of each part is determined by the whole and vice versa, in a manner that is alien to human technology.

What is true of proteins is true of other important macromolecules. RNA molecules, like proteins, fold into three-dimensional forms in which all parts are shaped by reciprocal interactions. The constituent parts of these only hold their shape when they are part of the whole molecule. Removed from it they take on another shape, or disassemble into a random chain. P The proteins form into multiprotein complexes, such as the ribosomes that manufacture the proteins, and the cytoskeleton that comprises microtubules, microfilaments and intermediate fibres. The same principle applies as with the component proteins, that the parts have a reciprocal formative influence on one another, and change and no longer exist in their previous form if removed from the whole. The same principle applies to the cell as a whole, the parts only existing as part of the whole, and disintegrating if they are outside the cell for any length of time. This view of proteins, RNA, cell components and the cells themselves suggests that attempts to understand organism in terms of fixed organic components or parts of something like a machine are likely to fail.

At a more general level, this view of organic matter emphasises the superficiality of mainstream consciousness studies in regarding the neuron as a simple switch, and refusing to look at the possible functions of microtubules, other proteins and the quantum forces that bind them.




Determined and Free

David Myers

In: Are We Free?  Psychology and Free Will   Eds. Baer, J., Kaufman, J. & Baumeister, R.

The chapter examines the impact of self-theories on the issue of free will. Of interest is comment on studies that show that humans benefit psychologically when they have greater autonomy and self-determination, relative to more constrained individuals. Instances are prisoners given control over petty matters such as how chairs are placed exhibit less stress, health problems and vandalism. Workers given some autonomy in carrying out tasks have improved morale. Residents of institutions given choice in routine matters appear happier and live longer. Residents in homeless shelters are more likely to adopt a passive/helpless attitude. People who feel they are free and self-determined tend to have more beneficial behaviours such as smoking less, earning more, practising birth control, resisting conformity and delaying gratification. P It could be argued that these actions that are autonomous of petty regulation by third parties may still be the result of a deterministic process in the individual’s brain. However, if it was merely a choice of a deterministic algorithm in the individual’s head and another algorithm in the head of a minor bureaucrat or warden of some kind, it is not apparent why the latter should be stressful to the individual.

References:-

Ryan, R. & Deci, E. (2006)  -  Self-regulation and the problem of human autonomy  -  Journal of Personality, 74, pp. 1557-85




Free Will, Consciousness and Cultured Animals

Roy Baumeister

In: Are We Free? Psychology and Free Will  Eds. Baer, J. Kaufman, J. & Baumeister, R.

Baumeister emphasises that for freewill to exist, there is no need to characterise all human actions as free. Much human activity looks to be deterministic, but free will still exists, if only a small proportion of human activity is caused or influenced by free choice. Freewill is seen as involving an inner process of choosing, rather than merely being an in principle possibility of doing something else.

It is also argued that the concept of freewill does not require us to think of freewill as initiating processes. Brain activity and human behaviour are going on all the time in any case. The question is whether freewill, not always, but just sometimes, alters behaviour. Freewill can be viewed as possibly overriding some other response as in Libet’s ‘free won’t’, which allows the will to inhibit an action that has begun unconsciously, or it can be viewed as choosing amongst a series of options, presumably produced by unconscious brain processing. If such freewill exists, it is argued to be tied to conscious deliberation and decision. Baumeister argues that the complex nature of human life involves the flexibility of a Libet type ‘free won’t’ capable of overriding initial impulses. This type of initial self-control can be extended to involve rational types of choice and deliberation, including the review of likely consequence and scenarios of the outcome of different choices of action.

It seems that many investigators oppose the idea of freewill, because they think that it would mean that some non-physical entity had an influence on the physical world. This pre-supposes that consciousness is non-physical, which is itself a contradiction for the majority of such investigators who believe that there is no such thing as the non-physical.

In contrast, Baumeister proposes that self-control of ‘free won’t’, at any rate, is an energy consuming process (i.e. not a spook). Thus he argues that self-control becomes more difficult to use in one area, if it is already being exerted in another. Thus, notoriously, people trying to give up smoking have difficulty in controlling their temper. Logical reasoning has also been showed to be impaired, by having to exercise self-control at the same time (1. Baumeister et al, 1998  2. Vohs et al, 2006). This suggests that there is an energy constraint on self-control. Baumeister reminds us that contrary to the spook notions of some commentators, brain processes are very energy intensive, consuming a fifth of the body’s energy. His view is that evolution has developed a system for channelling energy into overriding initial behaviours. Experiments have suggested that while the unconscious can do several things in parallel, conscious processes that appear to be required for rational deliberation can only do one thing at a time (3. DeWall, Baumeister and Masicampo, 2006  4. Lieberman et al, 2006). Thus the later stages of evolution produced a new system for making behaviour more adaptive.

References:-

1.) Baumeister et al (1998)  -  Is the active self a limited resource?  -  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, pp. 1252-65

2.) Vohs et al (2006)  -  Decision fatigue exhausts self-regulatory resources

3.) DeWall, Baumeister & Masicampo (2006)  -  Evidence that logical reasoning depends on conscious processing

4.) Lieberman et al (2002)  -  Reflection and reflexion  -  Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 34, pp. 199-249

5.) Donald, M. (2002)  -  A Mind so Rare: The Evolution of Human Consciousness  - Norton