Being prosocial and happy, and believing in life-determining forces across cultures

Abstract

AbstractBelieving that your life is shaped by internal forces, such as your own free will, is usually thought to lead to positive outcomes, such as being prosocial and happy. Believing that it is shaped by external forces, such as deterministic laws of nature, is usually thought to lead to negative outcomes. However, whether that is the case might vary with culture and with the nature of the force, specifically, whether the force is teleological. To test this, we investigated beliefs in five countries: China, India, Lithuania, Mongolia, and the USA. We investigated beliefs in the importance of choice (an internal, teleological force), gods and fate (external, teleological forces), and chance and luck (external, non-teleological forces). Participants (N = 1035) played a hypothetical dictator game, rated their happiness, and rated how much, in their opinion, their life is determined by these forces. Choice was perceived as the most important and its perceived importance was positively associated with subjective happiness across cultures. It was also positively associated with prosocial intentions, although only in India. Perceived importance of gods and fate was mostly positively associated with prosocial intentions. Perceived importance of gods, but not fate, was positively associated with subjective happiness across cultures. Finally, perceived importance of chance and luck was mostly either negatively associated with prosocial intentions and subjective happiness or not at all. Our results highlight the importance of studying agency beliefs in different cultures and distinguishing different kinds of determination: not just internal and external but also teleological and non-teleological.