• Question: do people really have free will

    Asked by Humaira on 13 Jun 2023. This question was also asked by ClaudeD.
    • Photo: Steph Acaster

      Steph Acaster answered on 13 Jun 2023:

      A lot of quantitative and scientific psychology looks into the causes of behaviour or factors that can predict behaviour….which would suggest that a lot of our behaviour is determined by various factors (genetics, upbringing, experience, current environment, social influence, cognitive capacity, nutrition, etc). It’s hard to predict because SO many factors are involved, but I think that if you knew enough information about a person, you could at least predict what they are most likely to do in a situation (if you also knew a lot of information about the situation).

      In simple terms, if an action resulted in success 80% of the time, you might be 80% likely to repeat that action next time…

      Because we feel like we choose (this is a qualitative aspect rather than quantitative), we think about free will…and because other people often seem unpredictable, we think about their free will. But, I think there are more influences on our behaviours than we are aware of.

    • Photo: Ashleigh Johnstone

      Ashleigh Johnstone answered on 15 Jun 2023:

      I always find this a really interesting question and I can never come to a final answer, but I think for a lot of people (myself included) it’s really important that we at least think we have free will even if there are other factors 😊

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