14 DAY TRIAL // For years, motivational speakers have been proclaiming that people how feel in control of their lives are more successful, and also more capable of fulfilling their dreams. This concept is tightly associated with having free will. Researchers took a look at the two recently, to assess the true nature of this link.
They focused on determining whether free will, motivation and feelings of control indeed influence the way we behave in our daily lives, informing our decisions and actions every step of the way.
During the new investigation, it was determined that the readiness to act that is characteristic to our brains is severely impaired if people are made to doubt they have control over the actions.
The crippling occurs even before we become aware of the fact that we intend to move, say investigators from the University of Ghent and the University of Padova, in Italy. Details of the research will appear in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
“Folk psychology tells us if you feel in control, you perform better. What is crucial is that these effects are present at a very basic motor level, a deep level of brain activity,” explains experimental psychologist Dr. Davide Rigoni, who is now based at the University of Marseille, in France.
He conducted the work with University of Ghent experts Dr. Marcel Brass and Dr. Simone Kuhn and with Dr. Giuseppe Sartori from the University of Padova, PsychCentral reports.
Their study initially determined that free will beliefs seem to affect preconscious aspects of motor control, but the team also wanter to determine the mechanisms this process employs.
For this purpose, they analyzed negative electrical waves of “readiness potential,” which are well-known neural markers that announce voluntary action. Milliseconds before motor electrical signals are sent to the relevant brain areas for processing, this potential fires through neurons, readying them.
This type of readiness is modulated by intention, but it operated completely out of conscious control. As such, the team hypothesized that its strength and intensity might be related to a person's belief or disbelief in their own free will.
The group measured the intensity of this signal as participants were hooked up to electroencephalograph (EEG) machines, which measured the electrical activity patterns in the brain.
Test subjects in a group that was told no free will existed exhibited lower levels of activity of their readiness potential, whereas those in a group who was told nothing exhibited normal activity levels.
“If we are not free, it makes no sense to put effort into actions and to be motivated,” Rigoni says.