Diminishing a person's belief in free will leads to them feeling less like their true selves, according to recent research published in Social Psychological and Personality Science. In a pair of studies, researchers from Texas A&M University manipulated people's beliefs in free will to see how this would affect the subjects' sense of authenticity, their sense of self.
"Whether you agree that we have free will or that we are overpowered by social influence or other forms of determinism, the belief in free will has truly important consequences," says lead author Elizabeth Seto, a Graduate Student at the Department of Psychology at Texas A&M University.