Belief in free will: Integration into social cognition models to promote health behavior
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Date
2022-11-07
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Taylor & Francis
Abstract
The question of whether free will exists has been debated
extensively for centuries. Instead of debating this complex
issue, recent work in psychology has sought to understand
the consequences of beliefs in free will. That is, how are
people’s behaviors influenced when they either believe or
do not believe in free will? Amongst many outcomes,
research has identified free will beliefs to influence achieve ment, perseverance, and aggressiveness. We believe that
beliefs in free will could also exert influence on health beha viors. Health promotion from a psychological perspective has
typically adopted social cognitive models to understand and
predict health behaviors. We contend that free will beliefs
could be included in these models to understand and change
health behavior. We provide examples of how a popular
social cognition theory, the theory of planned behavior,
could be aligned with beliefs in free will. We suggest that
the relationship between free will beliefs and theory con structs (attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral con trol, intention) could be positive in health enhancing
behaviors and negative in health risk behaviors.
Experimentally testing these relationships is needed in future
research. This may provide further insights into the conse quences of free will and contribute to the explanation of
health behavior
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Keywords
Free will; theory of planned behavior; health behavior; determinism; social cognition