The Value of Believing in Free Will

Vohs, K.D. & Schooler, J.W. (2008). The Value of Believing in Free Will. Psychological Science, 19, 1, 49-54.

This study found that weakening people's belief in free-will increased ignoble behaviors, specifically cheating. In the first experiment, a passive cheating paradigm was explored in which a computer "glitch" allowed the correct answer to a question to be flashed onto the screen unless the participant explicitly suppressed it. The experimental group was read a statement encouraging a belief in determinism, while the control condition was read an unrelated statement. Those in the experimental group showed weaker free will beliefs and more frequent cheating.

In the second experiment, an active cheating paradigm was explored. After reading either a pro-free-will statement or an anti-free-will statement, participants were left in the room on the "honor system" and told to reward themselves for their number of correct responses. In this experiment, as in the previous one, participants were under the impression that their anonymity was preserved. Results were similar with the determinism condition showing weaker free will beliefs and higher than average cheating. Thus, people's beliefs regarding their sense of control and self-agency may have social implications.

Acceptance and commitment therapy

Harris, R. (August 2006). Embracing your demons: an overview of acceptance and commitment therapy. Psychotherapy in Australia, 12, 4, 2-8.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is one of the "third-wave" behavioral therapies which emphasizes mindfulness and is intended to be used with a broad range of clinical conditions. The goal of ACT is to create a rich and meaningful life, while accepting the pain that inevitably goes with it. Western psychology has typically operated under the "healthy normality" assumption which states that by their nature, humans are psychologically healthy. That is, they will naturally be happy and content, and suffering is seen as abnormal. However, research shows that psychiatric disorders are exceedingly commonplace, as is nonclinical psyshological suffering, despite our high standards of living. ACT assumes, rather, that psychological processes of a normal human mind are often destructive. They posit that there is a dark side of language and cognition which sits at the root of this suffering. We often struggle with our thoughts and feelings, hoping to change them, avoid them, ameliorate them, and get rid of suffering. In doing so, ACT points at that some of these tactics often create extra suffering for ourselves. These "emotional control strategies" commonly become costly, life-distorting, or harmful. In ACT, there is no attempt to reduce, change, avoid, suppress, or control these private experiences. Instead, mindfulness is encouraged.

ACT commonly employs six techniques: (1) Cognitive Defusion: Learning to perceive thoughts, images, emotions, and memories as what they are, not what they appear to be. (2) Acceptance: Allowing them to come and go without struggling with them. (3) Contact with the present moment: Awareness to the here and now experience with openness, interest, and receptiveness. (4) Observing the self: Accessing a transcendent sense of self, a continuity of consciousness which is changing. (5) Values: Discovering what is most important to one's true self. (6) Committed Action: Setting goals according to values and carrying them out responsibly.

The gateway hypothesis of rostral prefrontal cortex function

Burgess, P.W., Dumontheil, I., & Gilbert, S.J. (2007). The gateway hypothesis of rostral prefrontal cortex (area 10) function. Trends in Cognitive Science, Vol. 11, No. 7.

The rostral prefrontal cortex, area 10, is a particularly large brain region in humans, but its function is still poorly understood, to which this paper provides a nascent hypothesis. Their 'gateway hypothesis' suggests that the rostral PFC serves as a gateway between the internal mental life that exists in the absence of sensory influence (i.e. pure, imaginative cognition) and stimulus-oriented cognition. They maintain that lateral and medial subregions are differentially sensitive to changes in demands for stimulus-oriented or stimulus-independent attending, and together their coordination enables us to attend to either environmental stimuli or to self-generated representations. They highlight initial supporting evidence and discuss goals for future experimentation.

(A more general role is proffered by Koechlin & Hyafil.)

Conflict Monitoring and the ACC

Botvinick, M.M., Cohen, J.D., & Carter, C.S. (December 2004). Conflict monitoring and anterior cingulate cortex: An update. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Vol. 8, No. 12, 539-546.

Activity in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) shows up in a variety of tasks. For example, a transient potential (known as the error-related negativity, or ERN) is elicited from the posterior ACC in response to error commission. And a similar evoked potential, the feedback-related negativity (FRN), occurs in response to error feedback and may derive from the same portion of the cingulate that generates the ERN. These activity patterns during commission of errors led researchers to suggest an 'error detection' function for the ACC.

However, tasks which require overriding of habitual responses and tasks which require selecting among a set of equally permissible responses also yield ACC activation. This led researchers to put forth a 'conflict detection' theory of ACC function, with the structure being especially responsible for selecting between competing motor responses.

However, recent studies have proposed other unifying theories to explain the role of the ACC beyond just error detection and conflict monitoring. Some suggest the ACC serves to evaluate action outcomes, performing cost-benefit analyses on possible outcomes and using reward-related information to guide action selection. This 'action-outcome evaluation' view is particularly consonant with other research connecting the mesencephalic dopamine system with the ACC in reinforcement learning.