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STUDY 1 The free will subscale of the Free Will and Determinism scale (FAD; Paulhus & Margesson, 1994; all on 5-point scales from Totally disagree to Totally agree; also used in Study 3): For each statement below, choose a number from 1 to 5 to indicate how much you agree or disagree. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
People have complete control over the decisions they make. People must take full responsibility for any bad choices they make. People can overcome any obstacles if they truly want to. Criminals are totally responsible for the bad things they do.. People do not choose to be in the situations they end up – it just happens. (R) We should avoid punishing people because many of them can’t help doing what they do. (R) Strength of mind can always overcome the body’s desires.
The traditional justice subscale of the Comprehensive Justice Scale (Gromet, Haidt, & Darley, 2013; all rated on 7-point scales from Strongly disagree to Strongly agree): In every nation, there is some disagreement about how society or the law should respond to crime and deviant behavior. Please read each of the following statements and click on a number to show how much you disagree or agree with it. 1. An eye for an eye is the correct philosophy behind punishing offenders. 2. Shaming techniques, like making people wear a sign in public, would be appropriate punishments for some crimes (instead of putting the offender in jail). 3. We should look to the punishments used in the early history of our country for guidance in how to respond to crime today. 4. Public flogging (i.e., whipping) would be an appropriate punishment for some crimes (instead of putting the offender in jail). 5. Amputating an offenders body part (such as a finger or toe) would be an appropriate punishment for some crimes (instead of putting the offender in jail). 6. When a criminal behaves in a sub-human way, he should be treated in a sub-human way. Anxiety Measure adapted from the Gallup Poll (rated on a 5-point scale from Not at all to Extremely): During the past 7 days, how much were you distressed by: 1. Feeling fearful 2. Being suddenly scared for no reason 3. Spells of terror or panic STUDY 3
Page 1: IMPORTANT. Please read: In this study, you will participate with two other workers. For this reason, we ask that you complete this study in one sitting, as a delay on your end would delay the next participant from being able to proceed. If you have five uninterrupted minutes to complete the study right now, please click next to proceed. Page 2: Instructions. Please read carefully: During this study, you are going to participate in two rounds of a decision-making task that will give you the opportunity to earn extra money on this HIT. You will participate with two other Mechanical Turk workers (one for each round). In each round, you and one other worker will have $2.00 to split. In Round 1, you will be paired with another worker, who will decide how to split the money between the two of you. Another worker will be the offerer and you will be the receiver. In Round 2, you will be paired with a different worker, and you will get to decide how to split the money between the two of you. You will be the offerer and a different worker will be the receiver. However much money you receive from the other worker in Round 1, and however much money you allocate to yourself in Round 2 will be distributed as a bonus payment. After each round, you will complete a couple of other tasks and questionnaires. Click next to continue. Page 3: Before you begin, please create an anonymous username to which we can refer to you to the other two workers with whom you will be participating. It must be 4 to 10 characters long. For your privacy, do not use your full name. Page 4: Thank you, NAME INSERTED HERE . Please wait a moment while we assign you a partner. Once you have been assigned a partner, the 'next' button will appear below. Page 5: For Round 1, you have been paired with worker jake2880 . You will be the receiver, and jake2880 will be the offerer.
Click next to complete Round 1. Page 6: Round 1. You and jake2880 have $2.00 to share. In this round, jake2880 will choose how to distribute the money between the two of you. Whatever amount jake2880 allocates to each of you will be granted as a bonus at the conclusion of this study. The 'next' button will appear once jake2880 has decided how much money to allocate to each of you..... Page 7: Round 1. jake2880 : $1.70 NAME INSERTED HERE :
$0.30
jake2880 has allocated $0.30 to you and $1.70 to jake2880. Click next to continue. Page 8: Before you complete Round 2, in which you will be the offerer and a new Mechanical Turk worker will be the receiver, we would like to ask you a few questions. Click next to continue. Page 9: Your partner allocated you $0.30 . Of offerer's who have participated thus far, the average offer is $0.87 . You received $0.57 less than the average receiver. How do you rate your partner's allocation? (all on 7-point scales) 1. How fair was jake2880 's allocation of the money? (Extremely unfair to Extremely fair) 2. How selfish or generous was jake2880 's allocation of the money? (Extremely selfish to Extremely generous) 3. How angry or pleased are you with jake2880 's allocation of the money? (Extremely angry to Extremely pleased) Page 10: For all workers who were allocated less than $0.50, we are providing the opportunity to even the payout between the offerer and the receiver. Because you were allocated only $0.30 , you can reduce the payment of jake2880 to match your own payment. In
your case, you can reduce jake2880 's payment from $1.70 to $0.30 so you will both earn $0.30 . jake2880 will not be informed of your decision until the conclusion of the study. Would you like to lower jake2880 's payment to $0.30 ? Yes No Page 11 (phrasing varied based on punishment choice): At the conclusion of the study, jake2880 will be informed that you chose to/chose not to reduce their payment to $0.30. Because jake2880 was the offerer, they have the opportunity to share a message with you. If jake2880 writes anything, you will see it on the next page. The 'next' button will appear once jake2880 submits their response. Page 12: No choice condition: jake2880 chose to share the following message with you: " i think something went wrong with this survey bcuz it told me in this round that i would get to be an "offerer" and choose an amount to give to the "receiver" but the scrolling bar was stuck at 30 cents. i had no choice but to offer 30 cents " Choice condition: jake2880 chose to share the following message with you: " i think something went wrong with this survey bcuz i had to click to offer 30 cents like three times before it would let me click next. i eventually got it to work though " Page 13: State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI; Spielberger, Gorsuch, Lushene, Vagg, & Jacobs, 1983; adapted by Marteau & Bekker, 1992; all on 5-point scales from Not at all to Very much): Before you move on to Round 2, we would like to know how you are feeling right now, at this very moment. Please respond to each statement on the scale provided. 1. I feel calm 2. I am tense 3. I feel upset 4. I am relaxed 5. I feel content 6. I am worried
Page 14: Punitive-specific Distress (phrasing varied based off punishment choice): Recall that you were given the opportunity to reduce jake2280 's payment from $1.70 to $0.30, and you chose to do so/not to do so. How do you feel about your choice? 1. I feel satisfied 2. I feel guilty 3. I feel pleased 4. I feel positive 5. I feel anxious 6. I feel bad Page 15: Thank you, NAME INSERTED HERE . You will now begin Round 2. In Round 2, you will be the offerer, and you will be assigned a new partner to be the receiver. Click next to complete Round 2. Page 16 Sorry for the inconvenience, but it looks as though all workers currently signed up for this HIT have already been assigned partners. You are excused from participating in Round 2. Click next to complete a few demographic questions and be debriefed.
STUDY 4 Vignette Instructions: We are interested in how people make attributions. On the next page you will be asked to read a scenario. Please pay close attention to the scenario, as you will be asked about it throughout the experiment. Harmful Vignette: Please read and imagine the following scenario: Sam, a special education teacher, wakes up one morning and finds that someone robbed and vandalized his home while he was sleeping. His window is broken, his house is trashed, and all of his valuables are missing. Argument Instructions:
Before you respond to the scenario you just read, we would like you to consider the latest scientific opinion on free will and it's implications. Click Continue to read a brief review of this research. Anti-Free Will Argument Condition: Recent research in psychology and cognitive neuroscience suggests that free will is an illusion. Brain scanning technology has allowed scientists to observe that neural evidence of behavior actually precedes conscious awareness of the behavior. Researchers have also demonstrated that priming participants to think about an event before it occurs causes them to believe they caused the event to happen, when really they had no influence. This explains why people might feel the experience of having free will, because they incorrectly perceive cause-effect relationships when thoughts about a future behavior precede the behavior, when in reality the behavior is determined well before a person has any conscious thought about it. Further, science is coming closer and closer to accounting for all of the variance in human behavior. If scientists have accurate information about biological factors (e.g., genes), environmental factors (e.g., socioeconomic status), and situational factors (e.g., social influences), they are remarkably accurate at predicting individual behavior. Therefore, people do not have the capacity to ignore destructive impulses. Pro-Free Will Argument Condition: Recent research in psychology and cognitive neuroscience suggests that humans actually do have free will. Brain scanning technology has allowed scientists to observe that the conscious experience of deciding to perform a behavior does indeed precede the behavior itself. Researchers have also demonstrated that people are able to override external influences on behavior. This explains why free will may have evolved in the first place: to allow people to ignore instinctual impulses to seek longer-term rewards. This would require the capacity to perceive multiple possible futures and to choose among them to behave in accordance with the desired outcome. Further, scientists are realizing that it will never be possible to predict human behavior. Even if scientists have accurate information about biological factors (e.g., genes), environmental factors (e.g., socioeconomic status), and situational factors (e.g., social influences), they are still remarkably inaccurate at predicting human behavior, because they can never predict whether a human will behave consistently with external forces or choose to override them. Therefore, people have the capacity to ignore destructive impulses. Response Questions (first three on 7-point scales from Not at all to Very much so, last two on 7point scales from Very bad to Very good): Thinking about the scenario you just read, how do you feel about the person who robbed Sam, the special education teacher? 1. To what extent do you feel this person robbed Sam because of their own freely chosen actions? 2. To what extent do you feel this person could have made other choices? 3. To what extent do you feel this person exercised their own free will in choosing to rob Sam?
4. How would you feel about this person spending time in prison for their actions? 5. How would you feel if you were the judge who sentenced this person to prison? The free will subscale from the Free Will and Determinism-Plus scale (FAD; Paulhus & Carey, 2010; all on 5-point scales from Strongly disagree to Strongly agree): For each statement below, choose a number from 1 to 5 to indicate how much you agree or disagree. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
People have complete control over the decisions they make. People must take full responsibility for any bad choices they make. People can overcome any obstacles if they truly want to. Criminals are totally responsible for the bad things they do. People have complete free will. People are always at fault for their bad behavior. Strength of mind can always overcome the body's desires. STUDY 5
Vignette Instructions: Same as Study 4 Harmful Condition: Same as vignette in Study 4 Neutral Condition: Please read and imagine the following scenario: Sam, a special education teacher, wakes up one morning and finds that someone rooted through his recycling bin at the end of his driveway while he was sleeping. There is no mess, but all of his aluminum cans are missing. Time 1 Response Questions (all on 7-point scales from Not at all to Very much so): Imagine that the scenario you just read about actually happened. How do you feel about the person who robbed Sam, the special education teacher? 1. To what extent do you feel this person robbed Sam/(took Sam’s aluminum cans) because of their own freely chosen actions? 2. To what extent do you feel this person could have made other choices? 3. To what extent do you feel this person exercised their own free will in choosing to rob Sam/(take Sam’s aluminum cans)? 4. To what extent should this person be punished for their actions? Argument Instructions: On the next page you will read a paragraph describing the latest scientific opinion on free will and it's implications. PLEASE READ THE INFORMATION CAREFULLY as you will be asked about it later on in the experiment.
Anti-Free Will Argument Condition: Same as in Study 4 Pro-Free Will Argument Condition: Same as in Study 4 Punish for Deterrence Argument Condition: A great deal of time and attention has been put forth to determine whether free will does or does not exist, and further whether the existence of free will is required for moral responsibility. However, recently, philosophers and scientists are realizing that free will is not a requirement for punishment. As can be observed in the most basic psychological studies, even rats’ and pigeons’ behavior can be altered with reinforcement and punishment. These same concepts can be applied to humans. Whether or not humans have free will, and whether or not humans can be held morally responsible, punitive measures may be taken against transgressors purely for the purpose of molding behavior. In fact, in a completely deterministic universe, punishment may be considered one of the environmental factors contributing to human behavior. If humans know that bad behavior will be punished, they will be less likely to perform that bad behavior. Punishment is not an issue of free will or moral responsibility; it is merely a means of discouraging behavior destructive to society. State-Trait Anxiety Inventory Instructions: Before you respond to the scientific argument you just read, you will briefly report your current feelings on the next page. State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI; Spielberger, Gorsuch, Lushene, Vagg, & Jacobs, 1983; adapted by Marteau & Bekker, 1992; all on 7-point scales from Not at all to Very much): Below are a number of statements which people have used to describe themselves. Read each statement and then indicate the most appropriate number for how you feel right now, at this moment. There are no right or wrong answers. Do not spend too much time on any one statement but give the answer which seems to describe your present feelings best. 1. I feel calm 2. I am tense 3. I feel upset 4. I am relaxed 5. I feel content 6. I am worried Time 2 Response Questions (all on 7-point scales from Not at all to Very much so): Now that you have learned about the latest scientific opinion on free will, how do you feel about the person who robbed Sam, the special education teacher? 1. To what extent do you feel this person robbed Sam/(took Sam’s aluminum cans) because of their own freely chosen actions?
2. To what extent do you feel this person could have made other choices? 3. To what extent do you feel this person exercised their own free will in choosing to rob Sam/(take Sam’s aluminum cans)? 4. To what extent should this person be punished for their actions?
