Will notebook

Created 20 Aug 2024 • Last modified 18 Dec 2024

Basic idea

I'd like to examine how free-will or just-world beliefs are related to people's opinions of whether an alcohol-intoxicated person who had sex was raped. If e.g. you believe that people have a sort of transcendental free will, does that make you less likely to see such sex as rape? You could see agreement as an expression of free will and hence be unconcerned whether that agreement occurs in an inebriated context, or you could feel that intoxication suppresses the spark of free will, making agreement empty of what's supposed to be behind it. As for just-world beliefs, it seems clearer that greater belief in a just world should reduce the likelihood of identifying this sex as rape, because people who drink heavily should get what they deserve (and, more to the point, deserve what they get).

Some concrete hypotheses:

  • Belief in a just world for oneself should have little or no relationship with scenario judgments.
  • Belief in a just world for others should positively relate to attributions of Alice's guilt.
  • (No hypothesis for free will: I could see it going either way just as easily.)
  • Belief in moral responsibility should positively relate to attributions of Alice's guilt, but also positively relate to punishment of Bob.
  • Women, compared to men, should be more sympathetic to Alice and less to Bob.

Research background

  • Elicit - https://elicit.com
  • Free will in general
    • Feldman (2017): A review of free-will belief as a psychological construct.
  • Free will (and belief in a just world) and blame
    • Genschow and Vehlow (2021): Greater free-will belief, controlling for just-world belief, was related to more victim-blaming. Three studies were conducted in which subjects made judgments about vignettes in which a victim was "knocked out by a burglar, involved in a car accident, caught HIV" or "had a skiing accident". Study 1 involved trying to experimentally manipulate free-will beliefs.
    • Clark et al. (2014): Studies that argue that free-will belief is motivated by the desire to punish.
    • Carey and Paulhus (2013): Free-will believers are generally more religious and conservative. They want more punishment for rape.
    • Hammond, Berry, and Rodriguez (2011): A failure to find a significant effect of just-world beliefs on the responsibility of rapist and victim in a date-rape scenario.
  • Rape with a drunk victim
    • Gunby, Carline, and Beynon (2012): People in some focus groups said that drunken sex isn't quite rape.
    • Lynch, Wasarhaley, Golding, and Simcic (2013): When the victim was intoxicated, mock jurors were less likely to judge the perp as guilty of rape, especially if the victim bought the drinks
    • Stormo, Lang, and Stritzke (1997): When reading a hypothetical scenario, in some cases, subjects judged drunker raper victims as more blameworthy and responsible.
    • Henry, Perillo, Reitz-Krueger, and Perillo (2021): More intoxicated victims were perceived as less blameworthy (and the event as more definitely rape) in a hypothetical scenario.
    • Schuller and Wall (1998): When the victim was intoxicated, the event was perceived as less definitively rape in a mock-jury scenario
    • Osman and Davis (1999): Messy results that I think generally found that intoxication wasn't directly related to perceptions of rape.
    • Wertheimer (2003): Philosophy on consent to sex. Wertheimer generally accepts that sex with a heavily intoxicated but responsive person is moral, provided that the intoxication was voluntary and knowing.
    • Vaguely, my impression is that in American law, the decision of whether a voluntarily intoxicated person was too intoxicated to consent to sex won't hang on the letter of the law. Instead, juries have to make a holistic judgment
  • Rape-judgment studies in which the subject was possibly drunk
  • Measuring free-will beliefs
    • Genschow and Vehlow (2021): "Free Will Inventory (FWI; [a mistaken citation that should probably be to Nadelhoffer, Shepard, Nahmias, Sripada, & Ross, 2014]) as part of the manipulation check of the free will manipulation. The FWI consists of three subscales (i.e., free will, determinism, and dualism) each measured with five items. On 7-point rating scales ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) participants indicated their agreement to five statements for each subscale." - Genschow and Vehlow (2021) only uses Part I. You're supposed to use Part I's three subscale scores separately.
    • Carey and Paulhus (2013): Uses the FAD-Plus measure of free-will beliefs, introduced in Paulhus and Carey (2011).
    • Paulhus and Carey (2011): a 27-item measure with 4 subscales: Free Will, Scientific Determinism, Fatalistic Determinism, and Unpredictability
    • Stinnett , Rodriguez , Littlefield , and Alquist (2024): Uses a subset of items from FAD-Plus to create a 2-subscale FWS-II (3 items each): free-will beliefs and moral-responsibility beliefs.
      • I think I'll go with this one. I like the focus on construct specificity, and brevity is a virtue.
  • Measuring just-world beliefs
    • Genschow and Vehlow (2021): "we measured belief in a just world with the General and Personal Belief in a Just World Scale (Dalbert, 1999). While a general belief in a just world refers to the belief that the world in general is a just place, personal belief in a just world refers to the belief that one's own personal fate is just. Participants indicated their agreement to 13 statements on 6-point rating scales (1 = strongly disagree; 6 = strongly agree). Seven of these statements measured personal belief in a just world and 6 items measured general belief in a just world." - table I of Dalbert (1999)
    • Hammond et al. (2011) say they used 20 items rated on 6-point agreement scales. For the scale, they cite
      • Lerner (1980) - a 20-item scale described as "the most recent form of their [Rubin and Peplau's] 'Just World Scale'", rated on 6-point agreement scales
      • Rubin and Peplau (1973) shows 16 items (p. 79, out of 19 administered items), which were rated on 6-point agreement scales
      • Rubin & Peplau, 1975
    • Bègue and Bastounis (2003): Belief in a just world for oneself (BJW-S) had a 6-month retest correlation of .50, and belief in a just world for others (BJW-S) had .57. "Participants filled in a questionnaire that included the BJW-S and BJW-O scales (Lipkus et al., 1996) during an introductory course in psychology. The scale is a 6-point Likert-type instrument composed of 2 sets of 8 items rated from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree)."
      • Lipkus, Dalbert, and Siegler (1996) agrees with this: see Table 1, p. 669 for items
      • Let's go with this because it's the only one that has any evidence of retest reliability, and the self-others distinction is a little clearer than the self-general or self-world distinction used by other tests.

Test items

Nadelhoffer et al.'s Free Will Inventory

Nadelhoffer et al. (2014)

Part 1: Measuring Strength of Belief

Please read the following sentences carefully and then indicate your level of agreement:

  1. People always have the ability to do otherwise.
  2. Everything that has ever happened had to happen precisely as it did, given what happened before.
  3. The fact that we have souls that are distinct from our material bodies is what makes humans unique.
  4. People always have free will.
  5. Every event that has ever occurred, including human decisions and actions, was completely determined by prior events.
  6. Human action can only be understood in terms of our souls and minds and not just in terms of our brains.
  7. How people's lives unfold is completely up to them. 
  8. People's choices and actions must happen precisely the way they do because of the laws of nature and the way things were in the distant past.
  9. Each person has a non-physical essence that makes that person unique.
  10. People ultimately have complete control over their decisions and their actions.
  11. A supercomputer that could know everything about the way the universe is now could know everything about the way the universe will be in the future.
  12. The human mind cannot simply be reduced to the brain.
  13. People have free will even when their choices are completely limited by external circumstances.
  14. Given the way things were at the Big Bang, there is only one way for everything to happen in the universe after that.
  15. The human mind is more than just a complicated biological machine.

Free Will (FW) Subscale: 1, 4, 7, 10, 13 Determinism (DE) Subscale: 2, 5, 8, 11, 14 Dualism (DU) and Non-Reductionism Subscale: 3, 6, 9, 12, 15

None of the items of Part 1 are reverse scored. Each subscale is to be cumulatively scored such that the highest score per subscale is 35 and the lowest score is 5. The higher the cumulative score on each subscale, FW, DE, and DU, the stronger the participant's belief in the construct measured by that subscale.

Stinnett's free will subscale II (FWS-II)

Stinnett et al. (2024), table 1, p. 2286

  1. People have complete control over the decisions they make.
  2. People must take full responsibility for any bad choices they make.
  3. People can overcome any obstacles if they truly want to.
  4. Criminals are totally responsible for the bad things they do.
  5. People have complete free will.
  6. People are always at fault for their bad behavior.
  7. Strength of mind can always overcome the body's desires.

Items are rated from 1 ("strongly disagree") to 7 ("strongly agree"). Note that this differs from Paulhus and Carey (2011), which uses 1 ("strongly disagree") to 5 ("strongly agree"). Neither paper indicates labels for any of the other response options.

Subscales:

  • 1, 3, 5, and 7 - free will beliefs (but item 7 is excluded from analysis)
  • 2, 4, and 6 - moral responsibility beliefs

Dalbert's Belief in a Just World

Dalbert (1999) - belief in a just world (with two subscales) - suggests they should be in random order

  1. I think basically the world is a just place.
  2. I believe that, by and large, people get what they deserve.
  3. I am confident that justice always prevails over injustice.
  4. I am convinced that in the long run people will be compensated for injustices.
  5. I firmly believe that injustices in all areas of life (e.g., professional, family, politics) are the exception rather than the rule.
  6. I think people try to be fairly when making important decisions.
  7. I believe that, by and large, I deserve what happens to me.
  8. I am usually treated fairly.
  9. 1 believe that I usually get what I deserve.
  10. Overall, events in my life are just.
  11. In my life injustice is the exception rather than the rule.
  12. I believe that most of the things that happen in my life are fair.
  13. I think that important decisions that are made concerning me are usually just.

Results

A brief overview of how the TVs differ:

  1. First version
  2. The reward was increased (along with the estimated time)
  3. Small wording changes
  4. Wording changes to the response options for the scenario, to encourage variation
  5. Changed the scenario to make Alice less drunk.

Subjects

(setv o (getl subjects : ["tv" "total_mins" "gender" "age" "country" "edu"]))
(setv ($ o total_mins) (.round ($ o total_mins)))
o
subject tv total_mins gender age country edu
2 1 7 M 32 us 20
3 2 4 F 26 us 15
4 2 4 F 36 gb 18
5 2 7 M 53 ie 19
6 3 6 M 28 us 12
7 3 4 F 46 us 13
8 3 6 M 32 gb 16
9 4 5 F 59 us 15
10 4 3 F 29 us 29
11 4 4 F 42 us 19
12 4 11 F 35 gb 16
13 4 5 F 65 us 12
14 5 6 F 45 gb 20
15 5 6 M 55 gb 12
16 5 6 M 25 gb 14
17 5 7 F 30 us 21
18 5 21 M 26 us 24

Scenario etc.

(rape-info)
subject read_seconds attention_no attention_yes alice_chose alice_responsible accept rape punish justworld_self justworld_others freewill moralresp
2 79 0 4 3   1 1 1 .69 .44 .89 .44
3 37 3 3 2   1 3 3 .83 .83 .83 .83
4 34 1 4 1   1 1 2 .56 .62 .61 .72
5 42 2 4 3   1 1 1 .38 .23 .39 .67
6 64 0 3 3   1 1 1 .73 .67 .94 .72
7 57 0 4 1   0 2 2 .58 .56 .78 .83
8 94 0 4 3   1 1 2 .42 .31 .28 .56
9 57 0 4 3   1 1 0 .42 .44 .72 .72
10 35 0 4 1   1 4 3 .65 .38 .72 .56
11 51 0 4 0   0 3 4 .40 .21 .44 .67
12 163 0 0 0   0 0 3 .62 .52 .83 .83
13 49 0 4 0   0 2 2 .56 .40 .89 .61
14 52 0 4 1 2 2 2 1 .44 .23 .17 .61
15 97 0 4 2 3 2 1 1 .71 .65 .72 .83
16 34 0 4 3 3 3 0 0 .58 .38 .56 .83
17 88 1 4 1 2 0 3 2 .88 .88 1.00 1.00
18 68 2 4 1 1 1 2 2 .83 .75 .61 1.00

Free-text items

(setv text-cols ["scenario_why" "scenario_other_details" "comments"])
(.sort-index
  (ss
    (getl task-data
      #((slice None) text-cols)
     "v")
    (bnot (.isin (.str.lower $) ["" "n/a" "no" "none"])))
   :key (fn [v] (.map v (fn [e] (if (in e text-cols) (.index text-cols e) e)))))
subject k v
2 scenario_why I am not entirely convinced that he raped her and as such wouldn't think that he should be jailed.
3 scenario_why it was fair
3 scenario_other_details good life
3 comments good survey
4 scenario_why I believe Bob did the wrong thing, Alice was intoxicated and could not make a proper decision on wether or not she wanted to have sex with him wether she said no or not.
4 scenario_other_details Whether they had previous sexual relations. Had Alice initiated the sexual part of their evening?
5 scenario_why It's hard to be certain about any of this because details given are a he said, she said situation.
5 scenario_other_details I'd like to know exactly how much was in the shots.
6 scenario_why They exchanged numbers after intercourse if she felt raped i dont think she would have done that. regret and rape are 2 different things in my eyes
6 scenario_other_details how much does alice weigh cause that could determine how drunk she was did she eat?
7 scenario_why I don’t think bob felt he did anything wrong especially since they exchanged numbers after sex.
8 scenario_why It’s hard to make judgements without all the facts so I tried to give both the benefit of the doubt
8 scenario_other_details Other people’s opinions on what they saw
9 scenario_why She was at a party and drinking heavily withoutsomeone to watch over her. She knew something could happen when she became overly intoxicated.
10 scenario_why Because consent with severe intoxication is not consent. He should have known better that someone cannot give consent if intoxicated.
11 scenario_why It was clear that she had too much to drink to be able to consent to sex and he was totally sober.
12 scenario_why Knowing the rules and laws surrounding unconsented sex he shouldn't have lured her to the bedroom
12 comments Very educative
13 scenario_why Bob should have known that he was taking advantage of her considering she was intoxicated and he wasn't.
13 scenario_other_details Men should be more responsible in situations like that. Although she was intoxicated, he had not been drinking and should have been the mature one to make the decision not to take advantage of her.
14 scenario_why I don’t have enough information about how drunk Alice was, about whether Bob had asked for specific consent to have sex, what Alice can remember etc. If it went to court I don’t think there is enough evidence against Bob to find him guilty of rape.
14 scenario_other_details Had Alice drunk more than the 3 shots of vodka? Did Bob explicitly ask for consent to have sex?
15 scenario_why I think they both consented despite the drinks.
15 scenario_other_details Was Alice drunk?
16 scenario_why I think Bob was likely unaware of how drunk Alice was and didn't think she was incapable of saying no. I also don't think he should be labled a rapist for something that he could very well have had no real idea about
16 scenario_other_details Did Bob intentionally get her drunk in order to coerce her into sex
17 scenario_why Alice was drank. Bob should have known better.
18 scenario_why These situations are difficult primarily because they would all be avoided via abstinence. Yet, since this is not the norm, it is difficult to know whether or not each party is being completely truthful in regard to the events that transpired. I lean more towards the fact that it was probably rape because of the letter of the law. In my opinion, if Bob was a real man he would have waited until Alice was completely sober before having sex with her. (Although my real opinion being that they should both wait till marriage).
18 scenario_other_details Obviously it would be helpful to know if Alice had fully consented to the encounter. And if she was sober enough to make that judgement. Maybe this could be determined via blood alcohol content but I don't know how useful this would be. Additionally, was Alice mad that Bob left early that morning and is accusing him of rape because of that, because that obviously wouldn't be very nice.
18 comments The last rounds of questions need a section to justify the answers. When asked a question like, "Do people get what they deserve?" This is a very biased question, because people have large differing opinions on what it is that people deserve. So adding a justification section would be helpful. Also I think I may have double clicked on an answer at the beginning of the study so having the selection set up so that you choose your answer then hit next would also be helpful.

References

Abbey, A., Buck, P. O., Zawacki, T., & Saenz, C. (2003). Alcohol's effects on perceptions of a potential date rape. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 64(5), 669–677. doi:10.15288/jsa.2003.64.669

Bègue, L., & Bastounis, M. (2003). Two spheres of belief in justice: Extensive support for the bidimensional model of belief in a just world. Journal of Personality, 71(3), 435–463. doi:10.1111/1467-6494.7103007

Carey, J. M., & Paulhus, D. L. (2013). Worldview implications of believing in free will and/or determinism: Politics, morality, and punitiveness. Journal of Personality, 81(2), 130–141. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.2012.00799.x

Clark, C. J., Luguri, J. B., Ditto, P. H., Knobe, J., Shariff, A. F., & Baumeister, R. F. (2014). Free to punish: A motivated account of free will belief. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 106(4), 501–513. doi:10.1037/a0035880

Dalbert, C. (1999). The world is more just for me than generally: About the personal belief in a just world scale's validity. Social Justice Research, 12(2), 79–98. doi:10.1023/A:1022091609047

Feldman, G. (2017). Making sense of agency: Belief in free will as a unique and important construct. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 11(1). doi:10.1111/spc3.12293

Flowe, H. D., Stewart, J., Sleath, E. R., & Palmer, F. T. (2011). Public house patrons' engagement in hypothetical sexual assault: A test of Alcohol Myopia Theory in a field setting. Aggressive Behavior, 37(6), 547–558. doi:10.1002/ab.20410

Genschow, O., & Vehlow, B. (2021). Free to blame? Belief in free will is related to victim blaming. Consciousness and Cognition, 88, 103074. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2020.103074

Gunby, C., Carline, A., & Beynon, C. (2012). Regretting it after? Focus group perspectives on alcohol consumption, nonconsensual sex and false allegations of rape. Social and Legal Studies, 22(1), 87–106. doi:10.1177/0964663912459293

Hammond, E. M., Berry, M. A., & Rodriguez, D. N. (2011). The influence of rape myth acceptance, sexual attitudes, and belief in a just world on attributions of responsibility in a date rape scenario. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 16(2), 242–252. doi:10.1348/135532510X499887

Henry, A. P., Perillo, A. D., Reitz-Krueger, C. L., & Perillo, J. T. (2021). Reflecting the times? Reexamining the effect of alcohol intoxication on perceptions of campus sexual assault. Violence Against Women, 28(1), 49–72. doi:10.1177/10778012211005559

Lerner, M. J. (1980). The belief in a just world: A fundamental delusion. New York, NY: Springer. ISBN 978-1-4899-0450-8. doi:10.1007/978-1-4899-0448-5

Lipkus, I. M., Dalbert, C., & Siegler, I. C. (1996). The importance of distinguishing the belief in a just world for self versus for others: Implications for psychological well-being. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22(7), 666–677. doi:10.1177/0146167296227002

Lynch, K. R., Wasarhaley, N. E., Golding, J. M., & Simcic, T. (2013). Who bought the drinks? Juror perceptions of intoxication in a rape trial. J Interpers Violence, 28(16), 3205–3222. doi:10.1177/0886260513496900

Nadelhoffer, T., Shepard, J., Nahmias, E., Sripada, C., & Ross, L. T. (2014). The free will inventory: Measuring beliefs about agency and responsibility. Consciousness and Cognition, 25, 27–41. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2014.01.006

Osman, S. L., & Davis, C. M. (1999). Predicting perceptions of date rape based on individual beliefs and female alcohol consumption. Journal of College Student Development, 40(6), 701.

Paulhus, D. L., & Carey, J. M. (2011). The FAD-Plus: Measuring lay beliefs regarding free will and related constructs. Journal of Personality Assessment, 93(1), 96–104. doi:10.1080/00223891.2010.528483

Rubin, Z., & Peplau, A. (1973). Belief in a just world and reactions to another's lot: A study of participants in the national draft lottery. Journal of Social Issues, 29(4), 73–93. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4560.1973.tb00104.x

Schuller, R. A., & Wall, A.-M. (1998). The effects of defendant and complainant intoxication on mock jurors' judgments of sexual assault. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 22(4), 555–573. doi:10.1111/j.1471-6402.1998.tb00177.x

Stinnett , A. J., Rodriguez , J. E., Littlefield , A. K., & Alquist , J. L. (2024). Distinguishing free will from moral responsibility when measuring free will beliefs: The FWS-II. Philosophical Psychology, 37(8), 2285–2311. doi:10.1080/09515089.2022.2139232

Stormo, K. J., Lang, A. R., & Stritzke, W. G. K. (1997). Attributions about acquaintance rape: The role of alcohol and individual differences. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 27(4), 279–305. doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.1997.tb00633.x

Wertheimer, A. (2003). Consent to sexual relations. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-511-67502-7.