Do more people believe what happens in their lives is predestined by fate or that they ultimately pilot their own ship? Is it possible to believe in fate AND that individual action can influence outcomes? What personal attitudes or situations determine whether we attribute what happens to us as driven by forces of a theistic, cosmic or unseen nature or as a result of personal choice? Researchers at the University of Illinois say recent studies suggest that an overwhelming majority of respondents believe that life- events can be jointly dictated by both internal and external forces, however time and perspective may influence whether fate, individual decisions or a combination of both are assigned as plausible explanations for life’s outcomes.
Study Reveals Fate and Counterfactual Thinking Are Intertwined
The research team led by Jeremy Burrus and Neal J. Roese, PhD began by examining the notion that fate (fixed destiny) and counterfactual thinking (believing that results are alterable depending on personal performance) are mutually exclusive. The study revealed that while 75% of participants believed in fate, 85% also thought that fate and individual initiative are actually intertwined in determining outcomes. Researchers set out to see what factors might influence such variation in beliefs about the workings of fate vs. the impact of personal choice.
Recent Memory Gives Weight to Role of Personal Performance in Life-Events
What they found is that people believe they could have had more control over recent, concrete events than distant, abstract occurrences. Participants felt confident that by acting differently in the closer, specifically remembered events they could have personally influenced the outcome with fate playing little or no role.
Distant Memory Attributes Outcomes to Fixed Destiny and Unseen Forces
But as events recede into memory and are contemplated in a deeply meaningful and abstract manner, fate-based explanations increase. The idea that some unseen force may have been at work in the remembered situation becomes more prominent, and the impact of fate begins to merge with any convictions that personal choice could have changed the outcome. Participants were much more likely to see fate in action in long-gone instances than recent events, yet most still acknowledged that particular personal actions could have made a difference.
Burrus and Roese conclude in their article "Long Ago It Was Meant to Be: The Interplay Between Time, Construal and Fate Beliefs" published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin in February 2006, that their research may have reinforced well-worn ideas that personal action can alter fate as illustrated in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar:
Men at some time are masters of their fates:The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
--Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act I Scene II
Future research may examine whether deity-focused counterfactual thoughts are more fate connected than those centered on personal performance.
Karen Lawrence - Karen Lawrence is a freelance writer and administrative consultant based in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. She specializes in nature, ...
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