Chap 3 Nahmias

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Chapter 3The Threat of Social Psychology

Eddy Nahmias

1. IntroductionThe account of free will I have developed is naturalistic. Since free will is constituted by a

set of cognitive abilities, it is open to empirical investigation. It should therefore be possible to

develop scientific explanations for the evolution and development of the cognitive abilitiesassociated with free will, such as introspection on ones motivational states (see Appendix).

Scientific theories and experiments may also indicate that these cognitive abilities are limited inhumans or that they work in ways that conflict with the proposed conception of free will. For

instance, if, as I have suggested, free will involves certain types of abilities and causal processes

required for self-knowledge, then, to the extent these abilities or processes are called into questionby scientific theories, such theories threaten free will.

In this sense scientific theories and the causal processes they describe can pose serious

threats to free will, but, as I argued in Chapter 1, these threats should be clearly distinguished from

the traditional problem thought to be posed by causal determinism. The scientific theories inquestionthose that suggest we are caused to act in ways that conflict with our having knowledge

of and control over our actionsneed not rely on the truth of determinism; they may invoke

causal processes that are irreducibly probabilistic.1

Or they may turn out to be deterministic. Butif so, they would be threatening not because they are deterministic but rather because of the types

of causal accounts they propose. That is, their causal accounts conflict with free will, if they do,

not because of their formdeterministic versus probabilisticbut because of their contenttheir claims that we do not in fact possess the abilities required for free will, abilities most

libertarians as well as compatibilists accept as necessary (if not sufficient). In this context, what

may be metaphysically possible (i.e. universal causal determinism) is less threatening than whatmay be psychologically actual.

In this chapter I will focus on a set of theories and experiments from social psychology andexamine the various ways their content conflicts with the theory of free will developed in earlier

chapters. Put most starkly, the conflict is this: for us to have free will requires that we can knowwhat motivational factors influence us and that we can, through conscious deliberation, know what

we really want and influence what we do accordingly; but social psychology suggests that our

knowledge of ourselves is extremely limited, as is the influence of our conscious deliberations.More specifically, experimental results in social psychology have been interpreted to imply four

troubling theses:

(1)The Principle of Situationism: Human behaviors are determined to a surprising extent byexternal situational factors which we do not recognize and over which we have little control.

(2)The Disappearance of the Character Traits: Internal dispositional states are not robust orstable across various situations; character traits are not good predictors of behavior. Rather, itis the consistency of our situations that produce similar behavior over time. The motivationaldispositions we identify with or aspire to develop disappear under the weight of situational

factors.

1 Indeed, most results in the social psychology literature I will discuss are presented in statistical terms. Though I

imagine many psychologists believe the causal processes underlying these results are deterministic, there is no reasonto believe the results they describe are not irreducibly probabilistic.


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(3)The Errors of Folk Psychology: We generally do not know about the first two theses, andhence our explanations of behavior are based on mistaken theories. Furthermore, we do nothave introspective access to the reasons we act. To the extent we can predict and explain our

own attitudes and behavior, such knowledge is not privileged; rather, it is based on the same

often mistakenfolk psychological theories we construct to predict and explain othersbehavior.

(4)The Errors of Introspection: When we introspect on the reasons why we feel or act the waywe do, such introspection is sometimes detrimental, leading to reduced satisfaction in choices

(regret), sub-optimal choices, and inconsistency between reported attitudes and behavior. Theact of introspecting on our reasons and consciously identifying ourselves with them does not

seem to influence whether we act on them.

The basic argument that these theses threaten free will is as follows:(1)When we report on the reasons for our attitudes or actions, we usually mean both that those

reasons have influenced us and that they justify our attitudes or actionsthat is, we see the

reasons as causal influences and, usually, we accept them as legitimate influences. So, to theextent we actually act on these reasons, we are acting on motivations we identify with, and

hence acting of our own free will.

(2)However, social psychology experiments suggest that the reasons we report are often notthecauses of our behavior (or are not nearly as influential as we believe). Rather, we are often

influenced by situational factors we do not recognize, and we often act on motivations, the

sources and effects of which we have not evaluatedthat is, we have not considered whether

we identify with them. And in many cases, if we were to consider them, we would not identifywith them.

(3)Therefore, these experiments suggest that oftencertainly more often than we thinkwe actwithout exercising the abilities associated with free will; that is, we do not act of our own freewill. The experiments may even suggest that we do not have the opportunity to introspect on

our motivations or to influence them, which would restrict the scope of our free actions andresponsibility.

Philosophers have noted the threats to free agency posed by other psychological theories,such as the Freudian unconscious or Skinners radical behaviorismtheories that shatter theCartesian conception that we have incorrigible knowledge of the mental states that cause our

behavior and that we have abundant conscious control over those mental states.2

However, little

notice has been given to results in social psychology that impinge on our conception of ourselvesas free and responsible agents. A few philosophers have discussed the third thesis, our erroneous

folk psychology, but mostly in terms of its implications for theories of rationality.3

Other

philosophers have recently examined the first and second theses in discussions of character traits

2 See, for example, Hospers (1950). One reason philosophers may not focus much attention on these psychological

theories is that, as with Freuds and Skinners theories, they often collapse under their own weight over time. Anotherway to look at it, however, is that the more radical aspects of the theories are rejected while many other aspects are

folded into the practice of the normal science and even into our everyday language. Part of my task in this chapter

will be to distinguish the radical aspects of social psychologys interpretation of our introspective abilities from claimsthat we should attend to and examine in light of their implications for our freedom and responsibility.

3 See Stich (1983, especially chapter 11, and 1990, chapter 1), Mele (1995, chapter 5, and 1987, chapter 10),

Goldman (1986). Holt (1989, 1993, 1999) discusses social psychologys impact on our practical rationality; I willdiscuss this work in section 6C below.


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and moral theories (especially virtue ethics).4

I will mention below some of the issues these

philosophers raise. But I will focus on the ways these four theses suggest that our self-knowledgeis limited, that we do not have privileged access toand we only rarely have accurate knowledge

ofour own motivational states and the causes of our attitudes and behaviors. Our ability to

introspect on and identify with certain motivational states will be accordingly limited, along withour ability to influence these states to act in the way we want.

Each of four sections below deals with one of the threatening theses of social psychology.In each section, I first outline a few relevant experiments that support the thesis, then discuss their

implications for free will, and then offer some responses to these implications. These responsesinvolve asking several questions:

(1)Are there alternative interpretations of the experimental results?5(2)What is the legitimate scope of the results? Are there important boundary conditions that

reduce their conflict with free will?

(3)Are there ways that the experimental results may be used to increase our knowledge of andcontrol over our behavior?

I will present the experiments and the interpretations of their results generously, from the

point of view of the researchers, since I want to highlight the possible challenges they pose to our

conception of ourselves as free agents. Then, in responding to these challenges, I intend toalleviatethough not dismisstheir impact, so I will raise questions about the experiments and

the implications that have been drawn from them. In general, we may conclude that to the extent

that the experiments suggest the implications I discuss, to thatextent they threaten free will.6

My

main goals are to bring attention to largely unnoticed empirical threats to free will, to examinetheir depth and scope, and to offer suggestions for future research. These points will reinforce an

underlying theme of this dissertation: that free will should be investigated empirically as well as

conceptually.

2. Some Preliminary Remarks on Reasons and CausesIt will be helpful for the following discussion to make some conceptual distinctions that

are often glossed over in the psychological literature. Self-knowledge comes in various forms.We may or may not know what kind of mental states we are in (e.g. belief vs. desire), what the

content of those states are (e.g. anxiety or frustration), and what caused our mental states to occur

(e.g. a previous thought or a previous perception). We generally do notknowat least through

4 See Flanagan (1991, chapter 13); Doris (1998 and 2001); Schoeman (1987); and Harman (1999). Harman interprets

the social psychology research to suggest that people simply do not have character traits and when we think that they

do, it causes problems. Flanagan and Doris are less extreme, and though they take the research very seriously, they

also offer responses to its implications for virtue ethics and the concept of character traits. In section 4 below, I side

with Flanagan and Doris.

5 For the most part I will not be questioning the methodology or statistics of the experiments I discuss. As with any

experimental program, such questions have been raised and some may prove damaging. For such questions, seeEricsson and Simon (1984), Adair and Spinner (1981), White (1980), and Cotton (1980). There are also many

conceptual and terminological questions that could be raised about this research, but I have space to deal with only a

few of them.

6 And, as we will see, different people may be affected to different degrees by these implications, which accords with

the idea, discussed in Chapter 2, that there are different degrees of freedom.


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introspectionwhat processes, at the functional, much less the neurobiological level, underlie our

mental states and behaviors.7

When we intentionally act, many factors, working on various levels,may be singled out in causal explanations of our behavior. Depending on the purpose of the

explanation, we may refer to scientific causes, such as neurobiological, genetic, historical,

environmental, or social factors; we may also refer to agent-oriented causes, such as charactertraits, beliefs, desires, intentions, or plans. I will not try to adjudicate here the metaphysical

relations between these various causesthat is, whether some of them are identical to, part of,supervene on, or reduce to others, whether some are epiphenomenal or may be eliminated, or

whether some are logically distinct descriptions of identical events (though some of these relationswill be discussed in the Epilogue).

But it is important to recognize that when we explain our own behavior, we generally refer

to agent-oriented causes, which we call reasons. We distinguish reasons from scientific causesin several ways: we can generally access our reasons by thinking about them; they are usually

meant to justify as well as explain our actions; and they are usually teleologicalthey explain

how our actions aim towards some goal. In reporting our reasons, we do not always mean thatthey are good, much less moral, reasonsfor example, I may recognize that wanting to land a job

is a reason, but not a good reason, for enhancing my resume. But often the reasons we offer are

meant not only to explain the factors that influenced us but also to indicate our approval of thoseinfluences. Often, we do see our reasons both as causes and as good reasons (at least for us).

There are long-standing philosophical debates about whether reasons are a type of cause

and whether explanations in terms of reasons are compatible with causal explanations. I will

assume (with Donald Davidson and others) that reasons are one type of cause and reasonsexplanations may be offered alongside other types of causal explanations.

8The important

question for my purposes is under what conditions reasons explanations conflictwith other types

causal explanationsspecifically, when the agent-oriented explanations (or justifications) weoffer for our behavior are directly undermined by scientific explanations for behavior. For this

purpose, I will distinguish between four types of causal influences, which are notmeant to bemutually exclusive:

(1)scientific causes external to an agent (such as situational factors) that influence her mentalstates and/or behavior;

(2)scientific causes internal to an agent (such as her neural states, genetic makeup, andunconscious functional states) that influence her mental states and/or behavior;

(3)reasons which an agent identifies as internal mental states (such as beliefs and desires) thatinfluence her behavior;

(4)reasons which an agent identifies as the causes of her mental states (such as other mental statesor situational factors she perceives).

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These distinctions allow us to recognize various conflictsand lack of conflictsbetweenreasons and causes. For instance, a situational factor that an agent sees as the reason she desires

something (type 4) may conflict with external causes that can be shown to be more influential in

causing her choice (type 1): I think I want to buy this car because it best meets my criteria, but it

7 See Flanagan (1984: 193-200) for useful distinctions between these types of self-knowledge.

8 See Davidson (1980), Goldman (1970), and Mele (1995).

9 These distinctions are loosely based on Locke and Pennington (1982: 216).


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turns out that I think this primarily because of techniques the salesman uses. On the other hand,

an agent may have desires she sees as reasons to act (type 3) which do notconflict with the bodilystates that cause the desire (type 2): the hunger I experience, which is caused by the release of

certain hormones, causes me to eat. Perhaps, however, an agent thinks her reason is the cause of

her choice (type 3) but the choice was in fact produced by brain activity resulting from situationalpressures she does not recognize (types 1 and 2): I think Im scolding my child only because he

broke the lamp, but I would not scold him if I were not still seething (as caused by, say, increasedlimbic activity) from a near accident on the commute home.

These distinctions also remind us that causes are complex. Some reasons may serve asbackground conditions (and hence a type of cause) for certain external causes; I may be influenced

to help a friend move by a factor I do not recognize (e.g. he told me earlier he liked my haircut),

but the fact that he is my friend is still a causal factorone that I recognize as a reasonin mychoice. In examining psychology experiments we should keep in mind that many reasons may

play causal roles in behavior even if some other factor is identified experimentally as the most

significant causal factor. These factors are identified as such because the experiments use abetween-subject design: a causal influence is inferred from different behaviors exhibited by an

experimental group which is exposed to the factor and a control group which is not (see below).

For instance, if the experimental group is told to examine their attitudes and controls are not, andif the behavior between these groups varies, then examining attitudes is identified as the

significant factor influencing this behavior, even though other factors, such as wanting to do what

the experimenter asks, are surely relevant influences on the behavior all of the subjects.

Nonetheless, such experiments may indicate that (1) subjects are influenced by amanipulated factor that they do not report as a reason for acting and (2) subjects report as a

primary reason for acting some factor that is shown to play no significant causal role in behavior.

We may call the first situation ignorance and the second situation rationalization. Below, I willdiscuss experiments that suggest such conflicts between the reasons subjects offer for what they

do and the scientific causes of what they do. I am particularly interested in experimental resultsthat show the reasons people report as causing their behavior are in fact rationalizations. Again,

when we explain the reasons we acted, we are often suggesting that the reason was both asignificant causal influence on us and that it justifies our action. If these reasons are not causes,then we may be acting on causes we would notaccept as reasons to act. Hence, we may be acting

on motivations we would not identify with, which entails that we are not acting of our own free

will.A final point: I might have discussed, rather than social psychology, areas of research in

neurobiology, genetics, evolutionary psychology, or other sciences that explore human nature,

each of which is sometimes seen as posing threats to our knowledge of and control over the causes

of our motivation and behavior.10

My discussion of social psychologys particularly salient threatsto free will could perhaps be described as just one instance of a broader conflict between the way

we conceive of ourselves and the way science describes us and our place in the worldthe

conflict between what Wilfred Sellars calls the manifest image and the scientific image.11

10 See, for example, Libet (1985) on epiphenomenalism or the sociobiologists/evolutionary psychologists on genetic

determinism. There are also research programs in social psychology which I do not discuss even though they present

threats similar to the ones I do discuss; for instance, cognitive dissonance, automaticity, and no choice literature

each provide enough fodder for another chapter.

11 Sellars (1963). See also Flanagan (forthcoming).


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However, there is an important difference between the claims of social psychology I will

discuss and some of the research programs just mentioned. Many of the explanations in, say,neurobiology and genetics, do not necessarily compete with our own folk psychological

explanations of our behaviori.e. with the reasons we offer. These sciences offer causal

explanations of our mental states and behavior, but these explanations occur at a different leveland refer to different entities (e.g. neurons and genes) than our reasons explanations (e.g. in terms

of beliefs and desires). There are, of course, difficult questions about how these lower-levelexplanations relate to our higher-level explanations, questions that raise thorny philosophical

issues about reductionism and mental causation, for instance. But, on a first pass, we may say thatmost current neurobiological explanations describe mechanisms that underlie orcorrelate with our

perceptions, motivations, beliefs, and actions. Much neurobiological research begins with

reported experiences and observed behaviors described in ordinary language and then examinesthe brain activity that correlates with these experiences or behaviors. Often, the mechanisms

uncovered indicate holes or errors in our ordinary descriptions, but adjusting and supplementing

these descriptions is usually more appropriate than replacing them (though eliminativism, as I willdiscuss in the Epilogue, suggests otherwise). Most genetic explanations similarly occur at a level

that does not compete with folk psychology (despite misleading media reports that present genes

as deterministic causes of traits and behaviors).But the psychology experiments I will discuss do use the language of folk psychology and

the concepts we employ when we introspect on our mental statesthis research program occurs

on the same level as our mental talk. Although some of scientific psychology only fine-tunes

rather than replaces our folk psychology, some of it presents explanations of behavior thatcompete and conflictwith our explanations of our own and others behavior. When I report that

the reason I picked this candidate for the job was that he was the most able, intelligent, and

flexible candidate, I need not see that explanation as compromised by a description of the brainprocesses that occurred while I deliberated. However, I will see my explanation as compromised

by evidence that suggests my judgments of the various candidates ability, intelligence, andflexibility correlate exactly with the order I met them and with their respective heights.

12These

factors, if they represent significant influences on my judgments, conflict with the perceptions,beliefs, and desires that I think have influenced me and that I want to influence me.

Hence, even though many research programs in the human sciences may present potential

threats to our conception of ourselves as free and responsible, social psychology presents threats

that most directly and obviously compete and conflict with the conditions of free will I havediscussedand, to repeat, they do so by virtue of operating at the same level, using the same

mentalistic concepts. The scientific causes they describe conflict with the conditions required

for possessing and exercising free will, because they suggest the agent-oriented causes we offer

as the reasons we act demonstrate ignorance or rationalization, or both. With these preliminariesout of the way, let us turn to the experiments themselves.

12 Of course, correlation does not entail causation. It is an interesting correlation, however, that the taller Presidential

candidate won every election since 1952 (except one, Jimmy Carter). Al Gore, who is taller than George W. Bush,lost the election but did win more votes.


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3. The Principle of Situationism

We generally believe that we know a lot about why we feel, think, and act as we doandthat were able to explain and predict our own and others behavior pretty well. We seem to

acquire much of our self-knowledge by introspecting on our own mental states, such as our beliefs

and desires. We believe we have control over our thoughts and actions and can often consciouslyguide them in the ways we want. We also describe ourselves and others by reference to character

traits: we believe people have different personalities that explain why they are disposed to behaveconsistently over time as well as differently from each other. In general, while we have come to

accept that there are many things about the nature of the world that we dont understand (and weturn to science for explanations of them), we feel that we generally do understand the part of the

world closest to usourselves and the people around us.13

Social psychology suggests that we do notknow much about why we feel, think, and act aswe do, that introspection does not help us understand ourselves, and that we do not have as much

control over our thoughts and actions as we believe. Rather, factors external to us determine much

of our behavior. Consistency of situational factors accounts for most of the consistency inpeoples behavior over time, whereas character traits do not. Hence, social psychology suggests

that our understanding of the part of the world closest to us is much less comprehensive and

accurate than we believe. As Ross and Nisbett say, social psychology rivals philosophy in itsability to teach people that they do not truly understand the nature of the world, and after

graduate students are immersed in social psychology, their views of human behavior and society

will differ profoundly from the views held by most people in their culture (1991: 1).14

Much of social psychology seeks to find the social and environmental factors thatinfluence human attitudes and behavior. Unlike behaviorism, it takes into account an agents

subjective perception (or construal) of those factors, recognizing that situational stimuli cannot

be treated as objective and static, without reference to a persons particular experience of, andhistory with, such stimuli. But like behaviorism, social psychology recognizes the importance of

immediate environmental conditions (including social factors) and has found them to play a largerrole in behavior than peoples individual differences and personal histories. Indeed, the principle

of situationism says first, that social pressures and other situational factors exert effects onbehavior that are more potent than we generally recognize, and second, that to understand theimpact of a given social situation, we often need to attend to its subtle details (1991: 28).

Aspects of our environment, often ones that appear meaningless to us, influence our behavior in

significant ways.This principle underlies all four of the theses I will discuss. First, it suggests that our

behavior is largely at the mercy of situational factors we dont recognize. Second and conversely,

it suggests that our internal dispositions, our characters, play a smaller role in our behavior than

13 Another way of putting this: We have come to accept that ourexperience of the natural world does not necessarilyprovide accurate information about the world but we still feel that our experience is a good guide to understanding

ourselves and our social relations (which is not to say that we dont supplement this information, but when we do, we

often turn to sources distinct from the sciences, like astrology and self-help books).

14 Ross and Nisbett (1991: 1). I should note that social psychology is a broader field with more diverse areas of

research than I am presenting. When I speak of social psychology I am usually referring to the situationist camp and

most frequently citing the work and interpretations of Lee Ross, Richard Nisbett, Timothy deCamp Wilson, and theircollaborators.


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we think. Third, because we do not appreciate the power of situational factors, we are subject to

the fundamental attribution error: We often mistakenly attribute and predict peoples behaviorin terms of their characters rather than the situations in which they find themselves.

15Our folk

psychology is rather poor; to the extent it is accurate, this is largely a byproduct of the fact that

people generally are in similar situations over time, so that our attribution of traits to them turnsout to match their behavior (e.g. a teachers apparently authoritarian character is a byproduct of

her generally being in authority). Fourth, we do not recognize many factors that influence ourown behavior, so our explanations of our own actions are based on mistaken theories rather than

privileged access to internal states that cause our behavior. Because we often do not know whywe feel or act as we do, we tend to confabulate plausible reasons (i.e. rationalize) in a way that

then may affect the attitudes we report without also changing our behavior. The principle of

situationism, therefore, plays a central role in each of social psychologys potential threats to freewill.

A. Experiments

What is the evidence for situationism? The general experimental paradigm is simple:

subjects are presented with a situation in which they make choices and behave, and the

experimenters manipulate factors that would not seem to influence behavior. Generally, theexperimental group, which is exposed to the manipulated factor, behaves differently than the

control group, while behavior within each group is consistent enough to suggest that other

factorsincluding personality traitsplay no significant role in determining behavior. Usually,

subjects are then asked to explain why they behaved as they did. They do not mention themanipulated factor as having played any role; rather, they mention other, more plausible factors as

the reasons for their choices and actions.16

A straightforward example of this experimental paradigm is a demonstration of theposition effect. Shoppers were presented with four identical pairs of stockings and asked to pick

which one they thought was the best quality and why. Subjects tended to choose stockings placedfarther to the right.

17Most subjects offered plausible reasons for their choice, saying it was based

on the knit, weave, elasticity, or workmanship of the stockings; only two of 52 subjects suspectedthe stockings were identical, and none reported position as a factor in their choice. Indeed, whenasked, they all denied that position couldhave influenced their decisions. While the subjects

perception of the quality of the stockings was presumably a significant proximate cause of their

reported choice, the perceptions themselves were not caused by differences in the stockingsquality (they were the same) but rather, in large part, by their relative position.

18

We may find such results surprising but relatively innocuous, since we dont usually

identify ourselves with such consumer choiceswe may not care much about the reasons we

15 Though we are more likely to attribute our own behaviors to situational factors. See Ross and Nisbett (1991: 141).

16 It is interesting to note that the experimenters themselves often introspect to come up with factors that seem

insignificant (to them), and sometimes they are mistaken in their predictions about which factors will matter and

which wont. See Nisbett and Wilson (1977: 242).

17 Of four positions (A-D), 40% chose the stockings in position D, 31% chose C, 17% chose B, and 12% chose A.

Wilson and Nisbett (1978: 123).

18 Thus, the position effect is an example of type 1 scientific causes conflicting with type 4 agent-oriented causes.


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make such choices.19

Indeed, many situationist experiments focus on relatively trivial decisions

and behaviors, such as reporting on the effects of distracting noises or judging line lengths,describing beverage choices or making word associations.

20That we confabulate reasons for why

we choose or behave as we do in such situations may be, in part, a consequence of our not having

explanatory or justifying reasons why we feel as we do. Sometimes we simply choose based onwhat wefeelwhich may be affected by many factors beyond our ken. Then (being the humans

we are) we are quite willing, when asked, to come up with reasons why we feel and act as we do.21However, as I will discuss below, even these experiments about trivial choices point to more

widespread and troubling trends in our ability to know why we act. Furthermore, someexperiments do involve decisions we presumably care about (or should care about)for instance,

how we treat those in need.

When Kitty Genovese screamed for help for 30 minutes while being stabbed in a NewYork courtyard, the forty people who witnessed the event did not call police or help in any other

way. John Darley and Bibb Latan began testing whether this lack of intervention may have been

due to a situational factorthe number of bystanders presentnot, as the media explained it, dueto the inherent apathy and callousness of New Yorkers. In a series of experiments, the

psychologists found that increasing the number of people who witness an emergency or a person

in distress decreases the chances that any one of the witnesses will intervene. For instance, whensubjects heard a female experimenter take a bad fall, 70% of solitary subjects went to help, but if

subjects sat next to an impassive confederate, only 7% intervened.22

A plausible explanation is

that when we are around others, our perception of the situation alters; the responsibility to act is

diffused by the possibility that someone else will (or might) take action. Confounding theproblem, if no one does take action, we construe the situation as less seriousif no one is

reacting, it must not be so bad after all.23

19 However, if one values limiting the rampant consumerism in our society (as I do), understanding how situational

factors influence our desire to spend might be very important (caller on NPR: America is like a toy storewhen

youre in the store and see all the toys, you want them, but as soon as you leave, you forget about them.) Andmarketing executives certainly care about how to manipulate situational variables to affect peoples behavior.

20 Nevertheless, these results have some troubling implications. For instance, the Asch paradigm shows that we are

extremely deferential to the judgments of those around us (i.e. we succumb to peer pressure): 50-80% of subjects willsometimes follow the obviously mistaken judgments of a group of confederates about which line matches a target line

(for instance, choosing a 0.5 inch line to match a 1.5 inch line). Stanley Milgram replicated these results with subjects

who thought they were testing signals for jet liners! See Ross and Nisbett (1991: 30-32).

21 Especially when subjects interpret giving reasons as demanded by the experimental setting. See Adair and Spinner

(1981) and Holt (1993).

22 Reviewed in Ross and Nisbett (1991: 42). In another experiment, when solitary subjects heard an experimenterfeign an epileptic seizure, 85% intervened; when subjects believed there was one other listener, 62% intervened; when

they believed there were four other listeners, 31% intervened. And in every case, intervention occurred faster when

there were fewer subjects.

23 Post-experiment interviews confirm this: subjects describe the emergencies in different terms (e.g. the fall victims

cries become complaints), and subjects notice them more quickly when alone. Ross and Nisbett (1991: 43).

Subjects also may want to avoid embarrassing themselves by doing something when no one else seems to thinksomething should be done, though in some experiments subjects could not see what others were doing.


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However, people do not recognize these group effects, and if asked, they, like the media,

refer to dispositions (apathy or altruism) to explain the unhelpful (or helpful) responses: Weasked this question every way we knew how: subtly, directly, tactfully, bluntly. Always we got

the same answer. Subjects persistently claimed that their behavior was not influenced by the other

people present. This denial occurred in the face of evidence showing that the presence of othersdid inhibit helping.

24The reasons people give for their helping behavior refer to traits that do not

significantly influence behavior or to their perception of the seriousness of the situation, which isskewed by a situational factor they do not recognize as influential.

Other studies further indicate that our reactions to moral situations are shaped bysituational factors we do not recognize. In one experiment Princeton seminary students were

asked to prepare a lecture either on the parable of the Good Samaritan or on job prospects. One

group of subjects was told to head over to the lecture hall but that they had plenty of time; anothergroup was told to rush because they were already expected. En route, all participants came upon a

man slumped in a doorway, coughing and groaning (paralleling the Biblical story). While 63% of

the early subjects stopped to help, only 10% of the late subjects assisted the man in need. Nosignificant correlations were found between helping behavior and the subjects self-reported

personality traits, such as whether their religious pursuits were based on a desire to help others.25

Rather, it was a situational factorwhether subjects were in a hurry or notthat made the crucialdifference. For some subjects this factor influenced them by changing their perception of the

situation: because of time pressures, they did not perceive the scene in the alley as an occasion

for ethical decision (108). Again, people are not aware of the role of this situational factor in

their construal of the situation and in determining their behavior.26

Even if people considerthemselves altruistic, even if they want notto be affected by factors that they view as irrelevant to

being helpful, like being in a hurry, it is difficult to see how they could act to override a factor

about which they are ignorant.27

Another study on helping behavior showed that subjects who find a dime in a payphone,

and hence get a mood boost, are fourteen times more likely to help a passerby pick up droppedpapers than subjects who do not find a dime.

28And the famous Milgram obedience studies, which

show two-thirds of people will shock a man into unconsciousness during a learning experiment,have been interpreted from the situationist perspective to suggest that setting up incremental (15-

24 Latane and Darley (1970: 124).

25 Darley and Batson (1973). Subjects instructed to lecture on the Good Samaritan helped more than those instructed

to lecture on job prospects (53% to 29% across the various hurry conditions), but not to a statistically significantdegree (r = .25). Self-reported types of religiosity had no effect on helping behavior.

26 See Pietromonaco and Nisbett (1982), in which they describe to subjects an experiment similar to the Good

Samaritan study and then ask them to predict the outcomes. Subject predict that the majority of seminary students

would stop to help, but that 20% more would help if their religion was based on a desire to help others. Subjects didnot think being in a hurry would make any difference to whether the seminary students helped.

27 Darley and Batson (1973: 108) add an interesting interpretation to their experiment. Some subjects in the hurrycondition did notice the man in need and were anxious after their encounter with him. Perhaps they experienced a

conflict of obligations, between their desire to help the man in need and their desire to fulfill their obligation to the

experimenter. One might wonder, however, why so few of these subjects offered indirect help by informing someone

about the man in need (an action which counted as helping behavior in the experiment).

28 Isen and Levin (1972).


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volt) increases in the shocks plays an important role in inducing the subjects to continue, as they

have trouble finding a justifiable point at which to stop.29

Of course, no one predicts of himselfthat he would carry through to the 450-volt switch (marked Danger: XXX). We assume our

characters would preclude us from performing such actions. And no one predicts that so many

others would do it either.30

In each of the above experiments our explanations of why people dowhat they do refer to their character traits and ignore the situational factors that in fact make the

significant difference. That is, they are ignorantof significant causes and, if asked, they offerrationalizations.

B. The Implications of Situationism

Having surveyed just a few of the experiments that elucidate the principle of situationism

(and there are many more31

), we can now ask what they may imply about our ability to act freelyand responsibly. The experiments may suggest that, to the extent an agents behavior is

determined by external factors, it is not controlled by the agent herself. But the concept of

control is ambiguous here. There is clearly a sense in which the agent does control her actionsdespite the significance of situational factors. Shoppers are still making choices, even if they are

influenced by the position of the stockings. Seminary students are still walking past the man in

need (or stopping to help), even if these actions correlate highly with whether they are in a hurry.The subjects are acting on their own motivations; they are not constrained by external agents (no

one is making them choose the stockings or walk past the groaning man). And their perceptions

of the situation (e.g. which stockings seem best) do affect their actions.

There is nothing in the situationist experiments alone that suggests normal, adult humansdo notpossess free willthat is, possess the cognitive abilities associated with the Knowledge

Condition (though we will see below more comprehensive challenges to our abilities to introspect

on our motivational states). But to the extent that the experiments suggest we are influenced byexternal factors of which we are unaware, they do appear to limit the degree to which we can

exercise our free will. Even if we identify with certain motivationsfor instance, to be helpful tothose in needwe may not have the opportunity to influence our actions accordingly, because the

situational factors affect us without our knowledge. But the experiments do not suggest thatagents are simply unable to act on motivations they identify with; some subjects help the man inneed despite being rushed, some do not help him despite being unrushed. Time constraints are not

the only causal factor influencing helping behavior, and the experiment does not suggest that this

factor cannot be counteracted.Assessing the degree to which agents have the opportunity to counteract particular

situational influences will be difficult. On my view, it will involve both a normative element

based on the extent to which people are expected to know certain information, such as their

29 Ross and Nisbett interpret Milgram in this way (1991: 56-58), but the experiment has not been replicated to

determine if that situational factor was the most significant factor, though many other factors have been ruled out,including the socioeconomic status and national origin of the subjects. Their interpretation is strengthened by the fact

that of the one-third of subjects who do stop, most do so when the learner goes unconscious (at 300 volts), a point

where they can offer a clear justification for stopping.

30 After having the experiment described to them,psychologists predict 2% of subjects will continue to the end.

31See, for example, Nisbett and Wilson (1977), Ross and Nisbett (1991), Festinger (1957), Latane and Nida (1981),

Ross (1977), Wilson et al. (1989). John Doris reports that, between 1962 and 1982 over 1000 experiments showed

that unrecognized, small situational factors had significant effects on subjects behavior.


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obligations to help those in need, and to know how to act accordinglyand an empirical

elementbased on the extent to which people can be expected to know how to act accordingly(for instance, to counteract situational factors). If experiments suggest people are six times less

likely to help a stranger in need when they are in a hurry, we may treat that factor as a mitigating

circumstance in our judgments of the degree to which a person had the opportunity to actaccordingly (especially if they are in a hurry because of some competing obligation). Ultimately,

we will want to know how pervasive situational factors are and how difficult they are toovercome.

32

Even if social psychology experiments do not fully undermine the conditions of freeaction, they threaten the conditions offreely willedaction, since they suggest subjects often do not

act on motivations they identify with. Situational factors affect motivation and behavior by

influencing the way people perceive situations. Suppose I want my decisions about helping otherpeople to be based on how much danger they face (e.g. the risk of damage to their health); this

seems like a good criterion for such decisions. But if I underestimate the danger actually posed by

a certain situation because there happen to be a few people around, and if I am unaware of theeffect these bystanders have on my judgment, then I may believe I am acting on my decision-

making criterion when in fact I am not. If I want to be motivated to act on this criterion, then I

may act contrary to my identifications because I lack the requisite knowledge of how situationalfactors influence my perceptions and motivations.

Other social psychology experiments further suggest we are unaware of many factors that

affect how we perceive situations. For instance, subjects judge a person more favorably if the

persons positive traits are listed before negative traits than if the same traits are presented inreverse order. They also judge some traits (such as friendliness) in relation to other traits (such as

attractiveness), despite believing no such halo effect exists. And, exemplifying a general

tendency to conform to the judgments of ones peers, subjects will rate the profession of politicianas prestigious or unprestigious depending on what they are told about how others rated

politicians.33

Again, our inability to recognize the influence of such factors on our judgmentslimits our ability to act in accord with the reasons we want to motivate our decisions and actions

(for instance, to judge people by the merits of what they say regardless of whether we see howthey look before hearing what they have to say). Hence, situational factors can influence both ourperception of situations and our response to them without our awareness of those factors.

Furthermore, since the reasons subjects offer for their actions do not correspond with

situational factors that exert a powerful influence on their actions, presumably the subjects wouldnot accept these factors as good reasons for their actions. Indeed, in post-experimental interviews,

subjects deny (often quite strongly) that the situational factors had any influence on them. We

may surmise that they probably do not wantthese factors to influence their motivational states

they do not see them as legitimate reasons on which to base attitudes or actions. People probablywould not identify with motivations that derive from positional effects, group effects, or the

number of switches on Milgrams shocking machine.

In Chapter 2 I advanced a conditional account of identifying with ones motivations, so itis not necessary that we are in fact aware of what moves us to actonly that we would identify

32 Compare Schoeman (1987) and Doris (2001).

33 See Ross and Nisbett (1991), chapter 3.


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with our motivations ifwe became aware of them. But the situational factors uncovered by social

psychology experiments are rejected by subjects precisely because they seem so implausible andunrelated to the reasons we do want to be motivated by, such as a desire to help those in need. We

want such desires to motivate us despite our moods (and finding a dime seems like a poor reason

to change moods) and despite how rushed we arewe want to judge a crisis based on howdangerous it is, not on how dangerous it seems to be because of our time constraints. So, subjects

in the above experiments are usually not acting of their own free will. Even ifthey became awareof their motivations or the process by which they acquired them, they would usually not identify

with them. They would feel constrained by them and try to overcome their influence.Situationism thus threatens our free will because it suggests that our actions are influenced

by external factors we do not recognize and hence do not intentionally counteract, and because it

is unlikely that we would identify with the influence these factors have on our perceptions and onthe development of our motivations. These threats will become clearer as we examine their

relation to the other three theses of social psychology.

C. Responses to Situationism

How might we respond to these initial challenges posed by the principle of situationism?

First of all, we may question their scope. Despite the number of experiments suggesting that smallsituational factors influence behavior in ways we do not recognize, we need to examine whether

the principle applies to all or only certain types of human behavior. I pointed out that many

experiments supporting the principle deal with relatively trivial choices and behaviors for whichwe may not have well-considered reasons but which are instead based on unanalyzed motivations.

And we may not care about what these motivations happen to be. That is, in some cases we may

actin Frankfurts termswantonly, without caring about what motivates us. In such cases, thequestion to ask, as strange as it sounds, is whether we care that we dont care. For some (perhaps

many) of our preferences we might be content to accept that we dont know how we developed

them, it isnt important how we developed them, and we dont want them to beor believe theyshould bedifferent.

I dont know why I like strawberry ice cream and not chocolate, but I dont have anythingriding on it. I dont know why I have dated more brunettes than blondes. I could come up with

some interesting (perhaps Freudian) theories, but I would not be surprised or upset if the theorieswere misguided. I like Expressivist art more than Impressionist art. Though in this instance Iwouldoffer reasons why Expressivism is better, I also recognize that such preferences are largely

subjective and might be based on quirky historical factors (e.g. with whom I happened to be whenI first saw the art). When I act on preferences like the ones above, I am not concerned about how

they developed, though, if asked, I may offer an explanation for why I think they developed. And

I am not very concerned about the content of the preferences, though I may offer reasons for whymy preferences are best (at least from my point of view). To the extent I do not view my

motivational states as importantly identity-constitutiveas in the above casesI will not be

threatened if I learn that I developed them in ways I do not recognize. The question ofidentification simply does not come up (or if it does, I would still be passively identified with mymotivations).

34

34 This claim should be qualified, since I would feel my autonomy threatened if I learned that I developed a desire

through the coercive efforts of another agent (e.g. hypnosis, brainwashing, drugs).


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On the other hand, I often do care about whether I am motivated to go to an art gallery

versus an ice cream store. And I certainly care whether my desire to get to the art gallery or theice cream store prevents me from stopping to help a man in need. It is precisely when we find

ourselves motivated to act in ways that conflict with our identifications that we begin to care about

the source of our motivations and whether we are aware of them and can change them.35

As wehave seen, some situationist experiments do indicate that factors we fail to recognize influence us

in situations where we care about what motivates us and about how we perceive the situation.However, more experiments of this kind are required before we can understand how pervasively

such unrecognized situational effects influence our behavior in situations where, as it were, ouridentity is at stake. I will make some suggestions for such experiments below. For now, we

should note that the principle of situationism threatens free will only when it involves actions that

we care about.36

There doesnt have to be a reason for everything, but when we think thereshould be a reason for why we feel, think, or do what we do, then we want to recognize our

reasons and we want these reasons to be significant causes of our feelings, thoughts, and actions.

Another response to the principle of situationism turns it on its head: might we increaseour ability to act according to our aspirations if we learn about relevant situational effects? That

is, might social psychology itself set us free? This is an interesting proposal with some

experimental support. For instance, if subjects are informed about experimental results thatindicate the power of a particular situational factor, they will be more likely to predict behavior

based on that factor. However, this effect is not very strong: subjects, who first read the Good

Samaritan experiment and were then asked to predict behavior of people in a similar situation,

estimated that the hurry factor would make only an 18% difference in helping behavior (versusthe 53% difference reported by Darley and Batson), and they still thought character traits would

make a more significant difference.37

Subjects are more likely to adjust their predictions if they

are further informed about the perseverance of the fundamental attribution error; if they are toldhow hard it is for people to stop thinking in terms of character rather than situation, they are better

able to start thinking in terms of situation rather than character.38

If subjects can come to change their predictions based on learning about situational effects

and our propensity to overlook them, then perhaps they can also come to recognize such effects intheir own lives and adjust their own behavior. In fact, one study has suggested just this. Subjectswho attended a 50-minute lecture and film about the effects of groups on helping behavior were

more likely than controls to intervene when, months later, they witnessed, along with a passive

confederate, a staged emergency.39

More experimental support is required to confirm the positiveeffects of knowledge about situationism, but presumably, the more people come to believe that

35 Such cases will often involve ethical decisions, but they will also involve many other kinds of decisions.

36 There is obviously a subjective element here, since different people care about different behaviors. However, it

may be that certain types of behavior, such as moral actions or actions involving self-preservation, could be deemedobjectively important such that if a person claimed not to care about them, they would be making a mistake.37 Ross and Nisbett (1991: 132). They cite this experiment as support of the entrenchedness of dispositionism.

38 See Ross, Leper, and Hubbard (1975) and Flanagan (1991: 307).

39 Beaman et al. (1978). In one experiment 67% of trained subjects helped a victim of a bicycle accident,

compared to 27% of controls; in a second study 43% of trained subjects helped a man lying in a hallway, comparedto 25% of controls.


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these situational effects are real, the more likely they are to recognize them and counteract their

influence (if they want to). In my own case, I certainly try to pay attention to and overcome groupeffects when confronted with an emergency.

40

The moral, consistent with my thesis, is that knowledge is powerthe more we understand

the relationship between the environment, our mental states, and our behavior, the more likely weare able to act of our own free will. We will be better able to manipulate our environment to

exercise strength of will (for instance, deleting games from our computer because we recognizethat we identify with our motivation to write). And we will be better able to control our mental

states, such as our perceptions (for instance, recognizing a dangerous situation for what it is byignoring the influence of other people). Hence, we will be better able to influence our motivations

and our actions in accord with what we really want.

Indeed, in discovering situational factors that influence behavior, social psychologists alsooffer information about how to bring about behavior we want to bring about, both in ourselves and

others. For instance, small external prompts can help channel peoples attitudes into actions.

College students informed about the dangers of tetanus reported that they were convincedinoculation was important, but only 3 percent went to get the shots. However, subjects who were

also given a campus map with the clinic circled and told to think about a time they could come for

their shots showed up at a rate of 28 percent.41 Having a good reason to act was ineffective unlesssituational prompts structured the future to make the reasonable action more salient and easier to

perform. The more we learn about these so-called channel factors, the more we can employ

them to carry out our plans to act in accord with our identifications.42

Such knowledge is

particularly relevant for the strong-willed actions discussed in Chapter 2 (for instance, making todo lists publicizes our intentions to ourselves).

43It is not the case that we only control our

internal states and behavior; we can also manipulate our environment in order to influence our

internal states and behaviors. Therefore, knowledge provided by social psychology about therelationships between environments, internal states, and behaviors can help us manipulate our

environment to increase the scope of our free will.44

Despite the possibility that we can learn about and control some situational factors, the

worry remains that social psychologistsmuch less the general publicwill notbe able to

40 Indeed, the day I defended my dissertation proposal, I witnessed a car accident driving home. Though I had

somewhere to be and there were many bystanders, I noticed no one was intervening and I stopped to help (whichincluded borrowing the cell phone of a woman who was unwilling to use it herself to call 911).

41 Ross and Nisbett (1991: 10).

42 See Gollwitzer (1999) for a review of experiments that show that subjects carry out the actions that match their

goals if they set up their environment to prompt the actions they aim to perform much better than subjects who do not

set up such implementation plans.

43 Of course, knowledge of channel factors can also be used to manipulate others actions in ways they would not want

(the loan companies that mail people checks ready to cash are well aware of the importance of channel factors). See

Harman (1999) for other benefits of recognizing what he sees as the implications of attribution theory (especially forthe concept of character).

44 B.F. Skinner (1971) viewed such environmental manipulation as the only way we could control our own actions and

have some measure of freedom. But he never explains how we have any control over the ways in whichor the endsfor whichwe manipulate our environment.


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discover many other factors that influence human behavior without our awareness.45

If situational

factors unacknowledged by our folk psychological explanations are as influential as some socialpsychologists claim, then there is likely to remain a large number of factors that remain

undiscovered and whose influence, therefore, cannot be purposefully counteractede.g. by

learning about them. Even if people come to recognize the importance of group effects on helpingbehavior, they may be influenced by weather effects or tone-of-ones-last-conversation effects

or noise effects that remain unrecognized.Perhaps, however, there is reason to believe this undiscovered country of situational

factors is smaller than suspected. As I explained earlier, the experiments designed to verify theprinciple of situationism require setting up situations in which several factors are available to play

a role in causing subjects behavior. The situations involve a certain level of complexity such that

the experimenters can manipulate one factor among others that seem more plausible influences onbehavior. Social psychologists deliberately design their experiments to trick their subjects.

They think about factors that seem irrelevant but that, given their experience in the lab and in life,

they imagine may affect behavior. Sometimes they are wrong, and they rarely report these results(though such cases may indicate that they just missed the significant situational factor). When

they are right, they get to report an interesting, counterintuitive finding.46

In more straightforward situations, however, we are presumably much more likely torecognize which factors are relevant to our decisions and to view these factors as reasons for our

actions. This is especially likely for immediate reactions to salient stimuli: if I see a mosquito on

my arm, I swat it, and I presume the reason (and main cause) for my swatting is that I see the

mosquito and desire to kill it. If I scold my child for breaking the lamp, it is quite possible that hiscarelessness is in fact the reason (and main cause) of my action. Many situations in life are not

complex enough to offer social psychologists a chance to trick us.

Even when certain unrecognized situational factors play a significant role in causing ourbehavior, the reasons we do recognize and identify with are not necessarily inefficacious. It is notonly the fact that they are early that explains why 67% of the seminary students stopped to help theman in need. They also acted because they perceived a man in need and wanted to help him. The

situational factor does not eradicate the existence of the background condition that manysubjects are motivated to be helpful. Rather, the situational factor acts on that backgroundcondition. And because the studies indicate the effect of manipulated factors only by comparing

behavior across groups of subjects, we can never know how much any one factor affected any one

individual. In averaging responses across subjects, the experimenters may be missing someimportant reasons that individuals would recognize for their actions and that do in fact play a

significant causal role for that individual.

Furthermore, these experiments do not offer an explanation for what makes the difference,

within a group of subjects in a particular experimental condition, between those who act in one

45 Ross and Nisbett write: What we have learned, in short is that situational effects can sometimes be far different

from what our intuitions, or theories, or even the existing psychological literature tells us they should be. Some facts

that we expect to be very important prove to be trivial in their impact; and some factors that we expect to be weakprove, at least in some contexts, to exert a very large influence indeed (1991: 6). Note that unrecognized situational

factors can only be discovered if they are singled out and manipulated between an experimental group and a control

groupa difficult task.

46 See Ross and Nisbett write (1991: 4).


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way and those who act in another. For instance, though a large number of differences in

personality traits and other factors have been ruled out as explaining why one-third of subjects dostop in the Milgram experiments, the fact remains that some subjects did the right thing. Their

behaviormay be the result of certain motivational factors unconsidered by psychologists but

considered by the subjects. Indeed, social psychology itself shows that people often discount thecausal influence of one potential factor when they recognize the influence of other factors (this

may sometimes involve interpreting a necessary cause as a sufficient cause).47 Perhaps somesocial psychologists have discounted the influence of other factors in interpreting the power of

situational factors. These questions will arise again as we examine the nature of character traits inthe next section.

I have offered three responses to temper the conflict between social psychologys principle

of situationism and the knowledge conditions required for free will:(1)Some of the experiments demonstrate that situational factors we do not recognize influence

trivial choices and behaviors, about which we do not care or have not developed well-

considered reasons. Confabulating reasons (perhaps only because we are asked to providethem) that are not really causes is not particularly troubling unless we care about the choice or

action in question.

(2)We may be able to adjust our perceptions, motivations, and actions to accord with ouridentifications if we learn about the influence of situational factors. In fact, we may be able to

use situational factors in order to act in the ways we really wantthat is, to exercise strength

of will.

(3)We may be influenced by unrecognized situational factors only in relatively complexsituations. And it is an open question how complex most of our action-opportunities are.

More experimental work needs to be done to contradict the commonsense notion that most of

our actions are caused by situational factors and internal reasons which are easy for us torecognize.

These responses suggest avenues for future research, some of which I will discuss below.

4. The Disappearance of Character TraitsThe second potentially threatening thesis of social psychology is the flip side of the

principle of situationism. To the extent that situational factors play a large role in determining our

behavior, differences in peoples internal dispositions play a relatively small role. That is, if a

particular situational factor (such as finding a dime in a pay phone) can elicit similar behaviorfrom most subjects, then, it is claimed, differences between the individuals characters are

correspondingly insignificant in producing their behavior. The question of whether social

psychology implies an elimination of character traits is controversial both within social

psychology and in philosophical reactions to it.48

I will not try to adjudicate that debate. I willsimply suggest that to the extentthat experiments legitimately suggest the disappearance of

character traits, they also threaten free will.

The situationist camp in social psychology is not claiming, like some radical forms ofbehaviorism, that no internal dispositions exist and affect behavior. As we have seen, the way

47 See, for instance, Wegner and Wheatley (1999: 486).

48 See, for example, Ross and Nisbett (1991, chapter 4), Doris (1998 and 2001), Harman (1999), and Flanagan (1991,

chapter 13).


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individuals construe a situationtheir perception of itplays an important role in their reactions

to it, and individuals unique histories certainly affect their construal of the world. So, there is asense in which people have different dispositional traits. The claim, rather, is that these

dispositions are less robust than we conceive of them; they are limited to relatively local and

specific types of situations rather than underlying consistent behavior across a wide range ofdiverse situations. Faced with highly similar situations over time, agents will behave consistently,

but subtle variations between situations can undermine the consistency of their behavior. Tryingto predict peoples behavior in novel situations on the basis of character traits is ineffective.

Social psychology thus challenges two ideas central to our traditional conceptions ofcharacter traits: (1) that character traits represent robust dispositions to behave in certain ways

across certain types of situations; (2) that character traits come in clusters, such that the possession

of one trait or set of traits correlates highly with the possession of certain other traits. Forinstance, we are more likely to judge not only that an honestperson is less likely than others to lie

across a wide range of opportunities for lying, but also that she is more likely than dishonest

people to be, say, dependable. We might describe what character traits are and how they operatein this way: if a person has character trait T, then (1) she will perform T-like behaviors in T-

eliciting situations at a rate markedly above chance (and above the rate of persons without trait T);

and (2) she will be more likely than persons without trait T to possess other traits that are believedto reliably cluster around T (e.g. traits R,S, U, and V). Though situationist social psychology

experiments challenge both parts of this definition, I will focus only on the first part, the attack on

robust and consistent character traits, because it is more relevant to our ability to identify with and

influence our motivational dispositions.49

A. ExperimentsMuch of the experimental evidence for the claim that character traits are relatively

insignificant in influencing behavior is derived from experiments, like those described above, that

support the principle of situationism. Since these experiments suggest that small, seeminglyirrelevant situational factors can be highly predictive of subjects responses, they suggest that

these factors can make subjects act in ways that seem out of character (e.g. the Milgramexperiments) and that alleged differences between subjects are largely irrelevant in producingdifferent responses. In some cases, character traits (as well as other factors that may be thought to

reflect dispositions, such as level of income or education) have been specifically examined to see

if they correlate with subjects behavior. For instance, Milgram found no significant variations,across personality measures, education, nationality, or gender, from his one great unchanging

result that about 65% of subjects continue all the way to 450 volts.50

And the Good Samaritan

study found no significant correlation between helping behavior and self-reports of religiosity.

Other experiments that suggest the weakness of character traits have looked forcorrelations between subjects behaviors across situations designed to elicit trait-relevant

responses (such as honesty, dependency, extroversion, or impulsivity). For instance, in 1928

Hartshorne and May tested students for honesty across a range of situations, such as willingness tosteal change left on a table, to lie to avoid getting another student in trouble, and to cheat on a test.

49 The attack on the relations between character traits is more relevant to questions about virtue theory (see Doris 1998

and 2001).

50 See Flanagan (1991: 294).


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While subjects behaved similarly when confronted with any one of the same situations more than

once, they did notbehave consistently across the different situations. The average correlationbetween types of honesty behavior was .23; so, for instance, knowing that a particular student

pilfered change did not reliably indicate that he would cheat on a test and vice versa.51

In general, when subjectspredicttheir own and others behavior across various situations,the correlations between character traits and predicted behavior is high (in the .60-.80 range), but

when such behaviors are actually measured, the consistency of individuals behavior is low (in the.10-.30 range). If we try to predict others behavior in a new situation based on the way we

perceive their personality, we are likely to be mistaken. As Ross and Nisbett put it: Thispredictability ceiling is typically reflected in the maximum statistical correlation of .30 between

measured individual differences on a given trait dimension and behavior in a novel situation that

plausibly tests that dimension. . . . Moreover, the .30 value is an upper limit. For most novelbehaviors in most domains, psychologists cannot come close to that (1991: 3). The conclusion

drawn by such researchers is that cross-situational consistency might be the exception (96), and

strong differences between people [are] apparently limited to specific responses to specificsituations (101). In other words, if we want to understand why someone does what he does in

situationX, we are better off either looking at his past behavior in a situation very similar toXor

looking at the way people in general behave inXthan we are if we consider his character traitsthat we think are relevant in such situations.

B. Implications of the Disappearance of Character Traits

Several philosophers have noted the relevance of these experimental findings to virtuetheory and other moral theories which require consistency of character traits and connections

between them (e.g. the unity of the virtues).52

For my purposes, however, the threat to character

traits is more significant because it calls into question the existence of stable motivationaldispositions which often serve as the objects of our identifications and aspirations. Since

identification aims for consistency among our motivations, we generally identify with stablemotivational dispositions, not highly situational motivations. And when we aspire to develop

motivations, we do so in the hope of acting consistently. When we introspect on our motivationalstates, we do not generally consider these motivations as highly situational. Instead, we think ofgeneral motivational dispositions that would apply to a wide range of situations. Often we think

of these as character traits. And we do not think of most character traits only as patterns of

behavior; we also assume that there is a pattern of internal states that accounts for the consistencyof behavior we see in ourselves and others.

If I aspire to be more extroverted, this involves developing a desire to meet people in

various types of situations (not just when Im with my friends)and tofeel like socializing, not

just to go through the motions. To develop the disposition of honesty would involve overcominginclinations to lie wheneverit serves my interests (not just when the situation allows me to get

away with it). We do not usually identify ourselves with situation-relative motivations, such as

51 Ross and Nisbett (1991: 98). Contrast this with the .79 correlation between copying from an answer key andcopying from an answer key six months later.

52 See note 4. In addition to Aristotle and other virtue theorists, Hume thought character traits are essential to freedom

and morality: Where would be the foundation ofmorals if particular characters had no certain or determinate powersto produce particular sentiments, and if these sentiments had no constant operation on actions? (An Enquiry

Concerning Human Understanding).


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the desire to help people specifically when we are not in a hurry. Rather, we identify with internal

states that underlie our tendencies to be helpful, or to give to the needy (generosity), or to workhard (diligence). The more these tendencies can be disrupted by seemingly irrelevant variations in

situations, the more we aspire to shore them up and make ourselves consistent. The less we

recognize how easily these tendencies can be disrupted (if they can), the less we can make aconscious effort to shore them up and make ourselves consistent.

To the extent the dispositional traits we identify with do not in fact correspond withconsistent behavior, we are identifying ourselves with constructed concepts rather than actual

motivational states. This limits the influence of our identifications. If future behavior cannot beaccurately predicted (at above, say, a maximum rate of .3) based on the possession of a character

trait, then trying to develop that trait in order to do what we really want might seem fruitless. I

may identify with my motivation to give to those in needto cultivate the character trait ofgenerositybut this will be confounded to the extent that (1) I cannot predict how I will be

influenced by situational factors that vary across different giving opportunities, and (2) there is

no such motivational trait as generosity to identify with. The disappearance of character traits thusthreatens our ability to identify with and aspire to develop general motivational dispositions.

C. Responses to the Assault on Character TraitsOne response to these experiments is to suggest that they do not say anything conclusive

about the nature of character traits. Researchers in personality psychology continue to develop

methodological and statistical approaches that attempt to counter the eliminativist tendencies of

situationist researchers. Bem and Allen, for instance, tried to show that measures of character traitconsistency would be higher for traits that subjects deemed important to themselvesthat they

monitored for consistency. Such an empirical finding would be helpful to my approach, given its

emphasis on agents caring about some of their motivational dispositions and aspiring to maintainthe influence of these dispositions on behavior. Bem and Allens results showed some support for

their hypothesis, though methodological concerns have been raised.53

One of these methodological concerns affects many personality experiments, the use of

self-reports of character traits. Such self-reports are highly consistent (i.e. subjects will identifythemselves as friendly or conscientious across a range of questions and predictions about how theywouldbehave in various situations). However, if this consistency of self-perception does not

translate into consistency of actual behavior, it would be especially troubling for my view of free

will, since it would suggest that our (consistent) identification with certain traits has little bearingon the consistency of our behavior. I may identify with myperception of myself as diligent, but if

I am, in fact, easily distracted from my work by various unnoticed factors, my identification is

inaccurate and ineffective.

My goal, however, is not to arbitrate between various camps within social psychology. Ifthe personality theorists win the day to demonstrate the consistency of at least some character

traits (especially those we care about maintaining and developing), then my theory of free will

avoids one significant threat from empirical work. To the extent psychologists in the situationistcamp demonstrate the irrelevance of character traits, they also challenge free will by undermining

our ability to identify with and influence our actions in accord with consistent motivational

dispositions.

53 Ross and Nisbett (1991: 103-105).


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Another response to this challenge is to view character traits as ideals that we aspire to

achieve and manage to achieve to some (limited) degree. Such a view does not require thatcharacter traits actually represent robustly consistent cross-situational dispositions. Rather, they

serve as unifying concepts for types of behavior that we set as goals. Since we cannot plan for

every situational contingency, character traits give us general guidelines for the motivations wewould like to take effect when faced with certain types of situations. Our appeal to traits may be

seen as an aspiration to be consistent. This response may be problematic, however, if our relianceon character traits to ground our behavior actually makes us less aware of and responsive to the

influence of situational factors. For instance, Jane may assume her trait of fidelity will keep herfaithful to her husband and so believe she can go to dinner with her attractive co-worker without

risk. But if situational factorssuch as wine and music, not to mention an air of secrecycan

overwhelm Janes dispositions, she may be better off, in the sense of doing what she really wants(remaining faithful), if she does notthink of herself in terms of character traits.

54Janeand the

rest of usmay be better off learning about and attending closely to the power of situational

factors rather than relying on the power of a strong character.55

These issues raise two important questions. First, despite any claims from social

psychology, it remains an open question (perhaps a testable one) whether identifying ourselves

with certain character traits helps us to act more consistently than the alternative. The secondquestion is what the alternative would be. It is unclear what it would mean for humans to try to

minimize our reliance on the concept of character traits.56

As with other suggestions from human

sciences for radically transforming our conceptual schemes, both the possibility and the

consequences of such a transformation are obscure.Nonetheless, as we have seen and will see more in the sections below, our conceptual

scheme for understanding human behaviorour folk psychologydoes appear to lead to

inaccurate attributions in some, perhaps many, cases.

5. The Errors of Folk Psychology

Indeed, the third threatening thesis of social psychology claims that our folk psychology

the concepts and theories we use to explain and predict our own and others attitudes andbehaviorsis often inaccurate. This thesis follows from the first two. Since we generally explainand predict behavior in terms of dispositional traits while ignoring situational variables, we often

misattribute the relative significance of the causes of behavior. Social psychologists have named

this tendency: Peoples inflated belief in the importance of personality traits and dispositions,together with their failure to recognize the importance of situational factors in affecting behavior,

has been termed the fundamental attribution error.57

The fundamental attribution error

54 This example comes from Doris (1998).

55 Ill leave it to the reader to decide if the common phenomenon of hypocrisy (e.g. televangelists sinning) serves asevidence for this claim.56 However, some cultures view character traits as less robust and significant than do Western cultures. Indeed, this

would be a good time to point out that all of the social psychology research I discuss has been carried out in Westerncultures (mostly the United States). Any generalizations they (or I) make should be tempered by this fact. Richard

Nisbett has, in fact, turned his research program towards understanding the differences between the folk psychologies

of different cultures.

57 Ross and Nisbett (1991: 4). That we tend to refer to character traits in explaining behaviorsespecially others

behaviorsis a claim informed by experimental research, not just intuition (See ibid., chapter 5).


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represents peoples tendency to view the agent as the figure that moves against the

background of the situation. Since we attendto other peopledynamic and interesting as theyareand not to their environmentsstatic and boring as they arewe attribute causal power to

agents (the word agent itself suggests this) rather than the situational factors that influence

them.58

Given that we base our everyday predictions and explanations of our own and others

behavior on a mistaken theory of causal attribution, how is it that these predictions andexplanations are still relatively effectivehow is it that, as Ross and Nisbett say, lay psychology,

like lay physics, generally gets the job done reasonably well using dramatically mistakenprinciples (20)?

59Social psychologists offer a very simple response: people are usually in

similar situations over time and we usually interact with people in familiar situations, so they

usually do behave consistently in response to these situationsand their behavior accords withother peoples conceptions of their character:

The predictability of the physicians who examine us, the professors who lecture us, the

coaches who exhort us, the colleagues who chat with us, and the assorted friends,neighbors, and family members with whom we intertwine our lives, owes much to the

relative consistency of the situational forces and constraints that govern those particular

individualsor at least govern them when they interact with us. . . . we count on the factthat particular roles and relationships will render peoples behavior predictabledespite

the fact that broader, less biased, and more scientific samples of behavior would reveal

inconsistency and unpredictability of a sort and degree that would surprise us profoundly.

(148)

Persons and their situations are usually confounded in such a way that our nave dispositionism

often works when we predict and explain the behavior of people around us. But the claim is thatpeople often make correct predictions on the basis of erroneous beliefs and defective prediction

strategies and that our theories will break down when we observe people in new or unfamiliarsituations. Social psychologists thus suggest that we come up with plausible and often accurate

explanations, but that these explanations are often based on fortuitous correlations rather than theactual causal relations between situations and responses.

Some social psychologists suggest a similar account for the source and accuracy of our

explanations of ourown behavior. They claim that we explain our own behavior by reference to

plausible theories of the sort we use to describe others behavior, not by reference to the cognitiveevents that we introspect as mediating between stimuli and behavior: The accuracy of subjective

reports [on the effects of particular stimuli on behavior] is so poor as to suggest that any

introspective access that may exist is not sufficient to produce generally correct or reliable

58 However, since we attend to environmental stimuli more when we are considering

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Chap 3 Nahmias