Indeterminism belief protects against uncertainty: first empirical findings

We empirically explore whether perceptions of (in)determinism are related to the willingness to tolerate uncertainty. We argue that the belief in indeterminism supports a sense of personal autonomy and independence from external influence, a stance that provides protection from perceived uncertainties. Our preliminary study (N = 61) suggests that the belief in an indeterminate world is positively associated with uncertainty tolerance, whereas beliefs in free will and metaphysical dualism are not. We extend these findings by examining proxies of indeterminism belief in a cross-national dataset (N = 31 countries). We find that greater political and personal freedom is associated with higher tolerance for uncertainty, whereas religious belief, which posits a world determined by divine powers, is negatively associated with uncertainty tolerance. With these theoretical ideas and empirical findings, we hope to stimulate research to further advance our understanding of the association between belief in indeterminism and tolerating uncertainty.

Spinoza was a determinist, but he recognized the appeal of believing in personal agency, the idea that not all events are predetermined and its psychological benefits [37].Research shows that endorsing indeterminism can have positive effects on social behavior (e.g., [3], self-control (e.g., [35], and the detection of cognitive biases (e.g., [34].However, little attention has been paid to how indeterminism beliefs might relate to a conceptually related psychological phenomenon: the tolerance of uncertainty.Answering this question is rather important in the digital age, where concerns about the spread of misinformation [41], attitude polarization [39], and tribalistic thinking (Krueger & Grüning, preprint) are becoming ever more pressing.Researchers are now exploring how people cope with uncertainty in these contexts [8,20]), and how free will might be related to this [15].
In this brief communication, we aim to show that an individual's perspective on the (in)determinism of the world helps to tolerate epistemic and existential uncertainties.In a small empirical study, we show that the belief in an indeterminate world is positively related to uncertainty tolerance, while beliefs in free will and mind-body dualism are not.Going beyond these initial findings, we show coherent patterns of associations involving proxies for the belief in indeterminism, namely, preferences for political and personal freedom, and religiosity, in a cross-national data set including

How belief in determinism relates to uncertainty tolerance
Uncertainty is a pervasive and typically a somewhat aversive experience [10,14,23] with an imprint on a wide range of psychological phenomena and processes such as group identity [19], social projection [24], strategic reasoning [16,17,25], and decision-making [40].An unresolved question is how attitudes toward uncertainty are related to the more general belief in indeterminism.Note that whereas indeterminism entails uncertainty, the inverse is not true.Uncertainty may be experienced simply because of a lack of knowledge, a state of affairs that can be overcome, at least in principle.At the metaphysical level, indeterminism is the idea that events are not determined by prior causes.A belief in indeterminism implies that diverse future outcomes are possible at any given moment [29,42].Although, as just noted, indeterminism implies uncertainty, there is no necessary psychological association between the experience or tolerance of uncertainty and indeterminism.Yet, we expect a positive relation on the grounds that a belief in indeterminism may underpin a greater tolerance of uncertainty.Stated differently, individuals who believe in indeterminism gain intra-psychic protection from their tolerance of uncertainty [5].
A person who rejects determinism appears to claim some personal autonomy, and should therefore feel less helpless in the face of uncertain external influences.Consider two job candidates who are interviewing for the same position.The first candidate is a firm believer in determinism, and has convinced herself that, ultimately, the outcome of the interview is predetermined and entirely beyond her control.The second candidate believes in indeterminism and sees the interview as an opportunity to showcase her skills poise.Although both candidates confront the same situation, the candidate who believes in indeterminism is less susceptible to the uncertainties experienced and is more likely to approach the situation with a sense of agency and the expectation to be able to control the outcome of the interview.By examining the relationship between belief in indeterminism and uncertainty tolerance, we hope to take a first step in exploring how individuals effectively manage experienced uncertainty.
Nadelhoffer et al. [30] conceptualize two additional beliefs related to the concept of free will besides indeterminism: free will proper and dualism.Belief in free will proper is the perception that one can act according to one's desires, intentions, and motives [12,13], while belief in dualism posits that mind and body are two distinct substances [6].We argue that belief in indeterminism can provide psychological resilience to uncertainty that the other two belief facets are not necessarily conducive to fostering.That is, neither free will nor dualism is sufficient to produce a sense of autonomy.From a compatibilist perspective, an individual can possess free will and an irreducible essence of mind while inhabiting a fully deterministic world [13,30].Indeed, Nadelhoffer et al. [30] found that belief in determinism was not associated with the other two belief facets.

Empirical study
In a first study, we assessed participants' beliefs in the three facets of free will identified by Nadelhoffer et al. [30], namely, indeterminism, free will proper, and mind-body dualism.Following the theoretical reasoning above, we expected the strength of individuals' indeterminism belief to be positively correlated with their uncertainty tolerance.We did not expect a relationship between experienced uncertainty and the other two facets of free will belief.

Participants and design
Sixty-one participants were recruited at the universities of Mannheim and Heidelberg via mail and social media targeting.The sample consisted of 44 (72.1%) self-identified females and 16 (26.2%)males, with one person identifying as gender diverse.Age ranged from 18 to 64 years (M = 32.15,Md = 30.00,SD = 9.98).

Procedure
Respondents first rated their beliefs in determinism (i.e., "My 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."), in their free will (e.g., "I always have the ability to do otherwise."), and in mind-matter dualism (e.g., "My actions can only be understood in terms of my soul and mind and not just in terms of my brain.").The items were adapted from the Free Will Inventory (FWI; [30].We rephrased the Nadelhoffer et al. items from the third-person to the first-person perspective in order to use them for the focused self-evaluation of respondents' beliefs in determinism, free will, and dualism.Next, respondents answered 12 uncertainty intolerance, UI, items (e.g., "Unforeseen events upset me greatly.") from the short version of the Intolerance to Uncertainty Scale (IUS-12; [7].Finally, they provided sociodemographic information and were then thanked for their contribution and debriefed about the purpose of the study.

Results
Assuming the conventional setting of α = 0.05 and a sample size of N = 61, effect sizes of d > 0.36 in one-sample and matchedpairs t-tests and d > 0.26 in multiple regression analyses with three predictors, and point-biserial rs > 0.31 are statistically detectable with a power of 0.80 [11].The internal consistency of all constructs measured was acceptable (ωs > 0.79 and αs > 0.76).

Indeterminism belief and uncertainty intolerance
As expected, and as shown in Table 1, the correlation between belief in indeterminism and uncertainty tolerance was positive, r = 0.32, p = 0.013, providing moderate evidence of an association, BF 10 = 3.354.In contrast, the correlations with belief in free will, r = 0.02, p = 0.873, and dualism, r = − 0.11, p = 0.421, were small, showing moderate evidence against any nonzero association, BF 10 ≤ 219.As we had suspected, it is a unique property of the belief in indeterminism to be associated with uncertainty tolerance.The other two belief facets were empirically unrelated.
Unsurprisingly, a multiple regression analysis corroborated these zero-order results.Belief in indeterminism (in bold) significantly predicted uncertainty tolerance (b = 0.34, p = 0.009), whereas belief in free will and dualism did not (b ≤ 0.17, p ≥ 0.217).

Revisiting archival data
Our interpretation of the positive association between indeterminism belief and uncertainty tolerance is as follows: Accepting the view that the world is not fully deterministic leaves a person with the perception of (some) personal autonomy, and thus provides some protection from the typically unpleasant experience of uncertainty [24].We should be careful to note that uncertainty is not necessarily unpleasant.Humans and other mammals seek out and enjoy uncertainty under certain conditions, such as play, courtship, or hunting [1,26].Nonetheless, if our general assessment and interpretation is correct, the sense of autonomy and its effect on uncertainty tolerance should be detectable in practical outcomes related to indeterminism belief.To explore this conjecture, we used an openly accessible cross-national data set and focused on three practical proxies for indeterminism belief, namely, political and personal freedom, and religious belief.We compared their associations with uncertainty intolerance across 31 countries.

Methods and procedure
The cross-national data collected by Van Doesum and colleagues (2021) are accessible at https:// osf.io/ 8w2mg/.The authors provide a comprehensive description of the recruitment of participants and all questionnaires.For the purposes of this study, we used a pre-processed data file, which is openly accessible in the OSF repository: https:// osf.io/ rduk2/?view_ only= 41b88 5b4b2 754a8 c8b69 05331 3e29e 16.

Results
We examined the relationships between three psychological variables related to indeterminism belief and uncertainty intolerance.For each of these four variables, the data set allowed us to inspect the aggregate across all respondent responses per country.Given the small number of units of analysis (N = 31 countries), we limit ourselves to describing visually apparent trends and to noting their conceptual coherence.We first explored two types of freedom as proxies for belief in indeterminism, namely, political freedom (e.g., [22,27] ) and personal freedom or individualism (e.g., [9,18]].We found that countries with high levels of perceived (political) freedom, β = − 0.19 (see Fig. 1a, and countries with high levels of individualism (conceived as personal freedom; β = − 0.14 (Fig. 1b), showed low uncertainty intolerance.Both of these modest but suggestive linear associations are consistent with the assumption that higher perceived autonomy, as an expression of perceived indeterminacy, protects against the experience of uncertainty (e.g., "Although many aspects of the world are incomprehensible and uncertain, I do not have to be fully at their mercy.").
We also observed a positive association between religious belief and intolerance of uncertainty (β = 0.34, Fig. 1c).Consistent with previous research on individuals [36], countries with high levels of religious adherence tend to show a lower tolerance of uncertainty.It stands to reason that beliefs in indeterminism, including those related to personal and political freedom, can reduce uncertainty by increasing the individuals' sense of agency.However, religious beliefs tend to have the opposite effect by discouraging a sense of personal autonomy.Many religious individuals attribute the vicissitudes of life to the will of a higher power, however defined, rather than to their own agency (e.g., [2,21,32].Reliance on an omnipotent deity is a form of determinism, albeit one in which each action is predetermined by the deity rather than by external causes.It is noteworthy, however, that some theistic religions postulate the freedom of the will (e.g., Catholicism, Judaism), while at the same time proclaiming the rule of an omniscient and interventionist god, a seeming contradiction that has kept sages busy throughout the ages.It may seem ironic that the deterministic strands of religious belief should also share an intolerance of uncertainty.For these theistic or atheistic adherents of determinism, the acting individual seems to be off the hook.

Discussion
Our empirical findings and reanalysis of cross-national archival data provide some evidence for the idea that belief in indeterminism may help individuals to tolerate uncertainty.We have argued that belief in indeterminism allows for the possibility that not all events are predetermined, which in turn corroborates a sense or self-determination.Conversely, belief in determinism or a divine agency shifts control from the self to external sources, reducing perceived autonomy and increasing uncertainty intolerance.Our empirical data support this idea with a positive association between the belief in indeterminism and uncertainty tolerance.We also find this relationship in a reanalysis of cross-national data using two practical proxies of belief in indeterminism (i.e., personal and political freedom).In addition, our reanalysis shows that religious belief, like belief in determinism, is negatively associated with uncertainty tolerance.
The goal of this brief communication is to present initial empirical findings on a research topic of considerable social and psychological interest.In the following, we consider the limitations of this preliminary work and propose future directions to address them.We close by suggesting some avenues for further research exploring the relationship between belief in indeterminacy and uncertainty tolerance.https://doi.org/10.1007/s44202-023-00086-2 Brief Communication 1 3

Limitations
Our exploratory study has a modest sample size (i.e., N = 61).This study did not include experimental conditions, specifically, no between-subjects conditions.Yet, for this reason, the sample size actually exceeds general recommendations (e.g., [4,38].Furthermore, a sensitivity analysis showed that all significant effects (i.e., Cohen's d and correlation coefficients) exceeded the minimal detection threshold.Of course, preregistered replication studies testing the present findings in large and diverse samples are desirable as a future research step.
In the wake of the second study, it will be important to further explore the validity of perceptions of personal and political freedom as practical proxies for indeterminism belief.Philosophers have long been interested in the connection between (in)determinism and personal freedom, theorizing different associations (e.g., [22,27) and establishing the link between indeterminism and individual freedom.Linking indeterminism to political freedom requires a larger step.However, philosophers have argued that this connection exists (e.g., [9,18]).Inspired by reviewer feedback, we wish to note that belief in a deity as a religious belief is not synonymous with believing in predestination or determinism.As noted above, some theistic belief systems exclude the notion of predestination.Since the belief in determinism and free will have been shown to be unrelated, one association that needs to be further explored is that between (religious) belief in predestination and free will.Lastly, the results of Study 2 should be interpreted with the understanding that we have presented analyses at the group, that is, the country level.Future research should extend these findings by examining practical associationsbetween types of freedom as well as religiousness with the experience of certainty-adding an individual-focused perspective.Then, we suggest, it may be possible to empirically test directly the associations between these proxies and belief in determinism.

Avenues for exploration
Without a doubt, a productive next step will be to combine the ideas of the first and second studies in a replication attempt with a large sample size.This would be informative in reconciling the individual and group (i.e., country) level analyses outlined in the two present studies.It would also warrant a further robust test of the correlational findings presented in Study 1 and a direct experimental test of the identified proxies for indeterminism belief from Study 2. Such a replication study could be enriched with variables aimed at capturing mechanistic explanations of how indeterminism belief supports certainty management.
Recent research has shed light on how basic psychological and social processes support uncertainty tolerance and its management, such as actively aligning oneself with a particular social group [19,24,33] or feeling superior to others [33].However, the belief in indeterminism appears to be more fundamental than these processes: Believing in an independent and autonomous self might be the last refuge for individuals when they feel helpless in the face of unpredicted and seemingly unpredictable events.When interpersonal cooperation fails, groups disintegrate, and close friends turn their backs, the belief in individual autonomy remains one, and perhaps the only, reliable source of support.
We think it possible that the belief in indeterminism is a response to the experience of uncertainty.Two assumptions might be true: (1) individuals who believe in the world's indeterminacy are less susceptible to uncertainty experiences, and (2) significant uncertainty experiences motivate individuals to believe in indeterminism.For the former case (1), consider the introductory example of the two job applicants.Both applicants undergo the same interview process, however, they can tolerate the uncertainties experienced differently depending on their belief in (in)determinism and their belief in autonomous influence on the interview outcome.For the latter case (2), imagine someone who has always believed in a deterministic world, where all events are predetermined by external factors and control is illusory.One day, this person unexpectedly loses their job for no clear reason.In an act of regaining a sense of agency, they adopt the conviction that their future, while uncertain, is not entirely determined by external circumstances.Similarly, we note, shocking life events might motivate people to leave their religious beliefs behind [31].Future research should investigate both causal directions.
Another fruitful area for future research is the differences between belief in determinism and religious belief in their psychological effects on uncertainty tolerance.In the cross-national data, we found a negative association between religious belief and uncertainty tolerance.We argued that this association can be explained by the similarity between belief in a divine power and belief in atheistic causal determinism, as both suggest that personal agency is illusory.However, it is important to note that there are significant differences between the two beliefs.For instance, believers in a divine power might also have faith in its benevolent intentions, which provides a unique sense of security that belief in causal determinism cannot offer.This perspective suggests an alternative interpretation of the negative correlation between religiosity and uncertainty tolerance by reversing explanans and explanandum: individuals experiencing high levels of uncertainty may turn to religion as a safe haven, trusting that a higher benevolent power will protect them.
The belief in indeterminism is a fundamental but abstract concept.Yet, it has the potential to inform practical issues of the current era, such as the rise of populist movements and the spread of misinformation.We argue that these phenomena can be explained in part from the perspective of uncertainty tolerance, which is closely related to individuals' beliefs about determinism.The former claim is evident from the literature (e.g., for populism, [16,28]).The further investigation of the latter claim is what we wanted to stimulate with the present findings.Future researchers can advance the current insights into how abstract beliefs about (in)determinism translate into practical individual beliefs about autonomy, which interact with uncertainty tolerance in the real world.Specifically, we envision an extensive nomological network of practical proxies for belief in indeterminism, which can visualize the impact of these beliefs on practical outcomes, such as different levels of uncertainty (e.g., experienced and anticipated) and individuals' coping behavior on these levels (e.g., approach vs. avoidance).This network could also reveal novel links between research fields on uncertainty tolerance that are simultaneously influenced by a person's (in)deterministic beliefs.

3
All of the these avenues for future research offer exciting possibilities for expanding our understanding of how beliefs about the nature of the world affect our ability to tolerate uncertainty.Notable avenues for future research that have not been entertained in detail here include the cultural moderation of the association between indeterministic beliefs and uncertainty tolerance, and intervention studies aimed at increasing the former in order to increase the latter.

Conclusion
This brief communication aims to contribute to the scientific literature by highlighting the importance of investigating beliefs in indeterminism for research on uncertainty tolerance.By highlighting the link between beliefs in (in)determinism, and some of its proxies with uncertainty intolerance, we offer a novel perspective for researchers to understand how these beliefs might affect individuals' ability to tolerate uncertainty.By encouraging researchers to consider beliefs in indeterminism as a relevant factor in the study of uncertainty tolerance, this paper opens up new avenues for research that could allow us to understand certain causes of uncertainty intolerance and how to effectively foster individuals' tolerance for uncertainty.To this end, we suggest several possible directions for future research, including experimental and interventional as well as cross-cultural studies.

Fig. 1
Fig. 1 Visualization of the associations between uncertainty intolerance and (a) freedom, (b) individualism, and (c) religiosity, respectively, in 31 countries.Visual modeling by JASP, version 0.15 (JASP Team, 2021).95% confidence bands are displayed as grey zones around the trend line