The researchers found that the more constrained the number of choices, the lower were the participants’ feelings of freedom. They were then asked to rate their feelings of freedom. Some participants were confronted with a constrained choice set: they had the options to choose the longer study or abort their participation altogether, while the option of doing the original study was eliminated. fizkes/įor example, a study conducted by Dr Lau and colleagues in 2014 asked participants to choose what type of study they would prefer to take part in: the study they originally signed up for or a much longer version that earned more money. Feelings of freedom decreased when there were a greater number of conflicting options to choose from. To control the freedom of participants’ decisions, the researchers have designed experiments that either confront participants with making certain decisions under differing incentives or limit the number of alternative choices available to the participant. To understand experiences of freedom, Dr Lau and colleagues have conducted several studies which control the freedom of participants’ decisions and explore how this affects their feelings of freedom. It will also enable us to define and distinguish experience of freedom as a construct from other closely related constructs, such as autonomy, thereby clarifying the current and wider literature. Experiences of freedom are also likely related to people’s well-being, intrinsic motivation, self-control, and morality, and so may inform clinical psychological and other applied research. For example, understanding people’s experiences of freedom will likely provide novel insights into our understanding of human behaviour, and how people make decisions. Understanding what factors influence subjective freedom could provide critical insights into the psychology of action and decision-making. Their research centres around ‘subjective freedom’, that is the feeling, or experience, of being free. We can think of people as ‘free’ when they are free to make decisions and act on those decisions as they wish.ĭr Stephan Lau, a Junior Professor at the Federal University of Applied Administrative Sciences in Berlin, and colleagues have spent many years researching the psychological components of freedom: specifically, what factors determine and influence the feeling of freedom when we make decisions, and by how much? SofiaV/ Conversely, there has been little research into the psychological characteristics of freedom and our feelings about freedom. However, the majority of freedom literature to date has focused on more philosophical topics such as free will. This conceptualisation of freedom, centred in decision-making, is associated with key areas of psychological research (e.g. Some researchers suggest that we can think of people as ‘free’ when they are free to make decisions and act on those decisions as they wish. Yet, our understanding of freedom and what influences experiences of freedom is still limited.ĭefinitions of freedom are widespread across philosophy, psychology, and politics, but there is no clear answer to the question: What is freedom? We know from human history that the desire for freedom in decision-making is extremely fundamental, maybe even culturally universal: humans have engaged in warfare, armed revolts, political protests, and emigration to try to achieve freedom in their decisions. The experience of freedom is an integral part of human existence and a topic of great interest to many people – including politicians, philosophers, and researchers. The research informs our understanding of feelings of freedom and human decision-making. Over the past decade, Dr Lau and his colleagues have conducted much research using a wide array of novel techniques to explore different factors which influence our experiences of freedom. Dr Stephan Lau, a Junior Professor at the Federal University of Applied Administrative Sciences in Berlin, is one of the first researchers to investigate experiences of freedom from a psychological perspective.
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