(Survey Circle) Individual Differences in Belief of Free Will and Moral Decision Making
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(Survey Circle) Individual Differences in Belief of Free Will and Moral Decision Making

Description

This project is being undertaken as part of through the University of Southern Queensland.

The purpose of this project is to better understand how individual differences in personality can contribute to a belief in free will and moral reasoning. To participate in this project, you do not have to have studied philosophy in the past. By conducting this research, we aim to better understand what factors (e.g. personality, free will belief) can reinforce moral reasoning beliefs.

Participation

Your voluntary participation will involve completing an anonymous online questionnaire that could take up to 15 minutes of your time.

You will be asked questions related to your personality (e.g. ‘I love it when a tricky plan succeeds’), belief in free will (e.g. ‘The human mind is more than just a complicated biological machine’), and moral beliefs (e.g. ‘Some rules should never be broken’).

Your participation in this project is entirely voluntary. If you do not wish to take part, you are not obliged to. If you decide to take part and later change your mind, you are free to withdraw from the project at any stage during data collection by closing your browser window. Please note, you will be unable to withdraw your anonymous, amalgamated data after you have participated in the questionnaire.

Your decision whether you take part, do not take part, or to take part and then withdraw, will in no way impact your current or future relationship with the University of Southern Queensland.

Expected benefits

It is expected that participation in this project will not directly benefit you. However, it will help us to better understand the individual differences in someone’s belief in free will and how that can impact how someone rationalises their morality. The findings of this project may help uncover the basis for how moral reasoning is formed and what factors can contribute to shaping this worldview.

At the completion of the survey, you will have the opportunity to enter the prize draw to win an electronic gift card valued at $50AUD. If you choose to enter the prize draw, you will be directed to another survey to enter your email address. Your email address will not be linked with your anonymous survey data and this data will be stored confidentially. Notification will occur via the provided email address in the form of an electronic gift card.

PS: Users of the research platform SurveyCircle.com will receive SurveyCircle points for their participation.

Risks

In participating in the questionnaire there are minimal risks such as inconvenience (of your time), social (feeling you need to participate in this study), and psychological (becoming uncomfortable or distressed by the questions asked).

To minimise these risks, you can take this survey at a time and location that is suitable to you. Participating in this project is entitle voluntary and your responses are anonymous, therefore, the research team will be unaware of who has (or who has not) completed the survey. You can also withdraw from the study at any time during your participation, up until the time when the questionnaire is submitted.

Sometimes thinking about the sorts of issues raised in the questionnaire can create some uncomfortable or distressing feelings. If you need to talk to someone about this immediately, please contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or if your outside Australia, you can access supports via https://checkpointorg.com/global/. You may also wish to see your General Practitioner (GP) or go to your local hospital for additional support.

Privacy and confidentiality 

All comments and responses are confidential unless required by law.

The names of individual persons are not required in any of the responses.

There is a potential that this data may be utilised by the research team and/or other researchers in future projects. The amalgamated, anonymous data will also be uploaded to an online data-sharing repository (e.g., Figshare).

If participants wish to obtain a summary of the project results, they can contact the Principal Investigator, Mr Ben Jones. Any data collected as a part of this project will be stored securely as per University of Southern Queensland’s Research Data Management policy.

Any data collected as a part of this project will be stored securely, as per University of Southern Queensland’s Research Data and Primary Materials Management Procedure.

 

Consent to participate

Clicking on the ‘Submit’ button at the conclusion of the questionnaire is accepted as an indication of your consent to participate in this project.

 

Questions

Please refer to the Research team contact details at the top of the form to have any questions answered or to request further information about this project.

 

Concerns or complaints 

If you have any concerns or complaints about the ethical conduct of the project, you may contact the University of Southern Queensland, Manager of Research Integrity and Ethics on +61 7 4687 5703 or email researchintegrity@unisq.edu.au. The Manager of Research Integrity and Ethics is not connected with the research project and can address your concern in an unbiased manner.

Ethics Approval Number- ETH2024-0425