The mind's best trick: how we experience conscious will
Abstract
We often consciously will our own actions. This experience is so profound that it tempts us to believe that our actions are caused by consciousness. It could also be a trick, however - the mind's way of estimating its own apparent authorship by drawing causal inferences about relationships between thoughts and actions. Cognitive, social, and neuropsychological studies of apparent mental causation suggest that experiences of conscious will frequently depart from actual causal processes and so might not reflect direct perceptions of conscious thought causing action.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Cites
Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes.
Nisbett, R. E., & Wilson, T. D. (1977) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.84.3.231 · Cited by 11,317 · cited 1× · see citing works
“When inferences diverge from actual causal sequences, the experience of conscious will goes awry, leaving the person to experience authorship of actions that could not have been theirs, or that may not even have occurred ‐ or on the other hand to experience no authorship even when the action is demonstrably linked to…”
BackgroundHume, D. A. (1739) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/cbo9780511620409.040 · Cited by 9,855 · see citing works
(2005) · Choice Reviews Online · doi:10.5860/choice.43-0626 · Cited by 4,726 · see citing works
Attribution: Perceiving the Causes of Behavior
JONES, E. E. (1987) · Medical Entomology and Zoology · Cited by 3,775 · see citing works
Unconscious cerebral initiative and the role of conscious will in voluntary action
Libet, B. (1985) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · doi:10.1017/s0140525x00044903 · Cited by 2,623 · see citing works
Judgment of contingency in depressed and nondepressed students: sadder but wiser?
Alloy, L., & Abramson, L. (1979) · Journal of experimental psychology. General · doi:10.1037//0096-3445.108.4.441 · Cited by 1,733 · see citing works
Judgment of contingency in depressed and nondepressed students: Sadder but wiser?
Alloy, L. B., & Abramson, L. Y. (1979) · Journal of Experimental Psychology: General · doi:10.1037/0096-3445.108.4.441 · Cited by 1,692 · see citing works
Jones, A. D., & Milgram, S. (1974) · RAIN · doi:10.2307/3032069 · Cited by 1,677 · see citing works
The Illusion of Conscious Will
Wegner, D. M., Gilbert, D. T., & Wheatley, T. P. (2018) · The MIT Press eBooks · doi:10.7551/mitpress/9780262534925.001.0001 · Cited by 1,646 · see citing works
Self-citationStrangers to ourselves: discovering the adaptive unconscious
(2003) · Choice Reviews Online · doi:10.5860/choice.40-3712 · Cited by 1,641 · see citing works
Voluntary action and conscious awareness
Haggard, P., Clark, S., & Kalogeras, J. (2002) · Nature Neuroscience · doi:10.1038/nn827 · Cited by 1,546 · see citing works
Michotte, A. (2017) · Routledge eBooks · doi:10.4324/9781315519050 · Cited by 1,311 · see citing works
The automaticity of everyday life.
Bargh, J. A. (1997) · Lawrence Erlbaum Associates eBooks · Cited by 1,229 · see citing works
Rees, G. E. (1999) · Journal of Psychophysiology · doi:10.1027//0269-8803.13.3.199 · Cited by 1,220 · see citing works
Spence, S. (1996) · BMJ · doi:10.1136/bmj.312.7024.193 · Cited by 1,177 · see citing works
Causal schemata and the attribution process
Kelley, H. H. (1972) · Medical Entomology and Zoology · Cited by 1,048 · see citing works
Apparent mental causation: Sources of the experience of will.
Wegner, D. M., & Wheatley, T. P. (1999) · American Psychologist · doi:10.1037/0003-066x.54.7.480 · Cited by 1,040 · see citing works
Self-citationAbnormalities in the awareness of action.
Blakemore, S.-J., Wolpert, D. M., & Frith, C. D. (2002) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/s1364-6613(02)01907-1 · Cited by 947 · see citing works
Einhorn, H. J., & Hogarth, R. M. (1986) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/0033-2909.99.1.3 · Cited by 912 · see citing works
Langer, E. J., & Roth, J. (1975) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.32.6.951 · Cited by 805 · see citing works
On the relation between brain potentials and the awareness of voluntary movements
Haggard, P., & Eimer, M. (1999) · Experimental Brain Research · doi:10.1007/s002210050722 · Cited by 641 · see citing works
(1993) · PsycEXTRA Dataset · doi:10.1037/e540002004-001 · Cited by 624 · see citing works
Judgment of contingency between responses and outcomes.
Jenkins, H. M., & Ward, W. C. (1965) · The Psychological Monographs · doi:10.1037/h0093874 · Cited by 593 · see citing works
Daprati, E., Franck, N., Georgieff, N., Proust, J., Pacherie, É., Daléry, J., & Jeannerod, M. (1997) · Cognition · doi:10.1016/s0010-0277(97)00039-5 · Cited by 563 · see citing works
Experiences of alien control in schizophrenia reflect a disorder in the central monitoring of action
Frith, C. D., & Done, D. J. (1989) · Psychological Medicine · doi:10.1017/s003329170001240x · Cited by 551 · see citing works
Re-representing consciousness: dissociations between experience and meta-consciousness
Schooler, J. W. (2002) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/s1364-6613(02)01949-6 · Cited by 485 · see citing works
The Illusion of Conscious Will
Wegner, D., Gilbert, D. T., & Wheatley, T. (2018) · The MIT Press · doi:10.7551/mitpress/3650.001.0001 · Cited by 484 · see citing works
Self-citationVerbal hallucinations and language production processes in schizophrenia
Hoffman, R. E. (1986) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · doi:10.1017/s0140525x00046781 · Cited by 359 · see citing works
Jacobson, J. W., Mulick, J. A., & Schwartz, A. A. (1995) · American Psychologist · doi:10.1037/0003-066x.50.9.750 · Cited by 211 · see citing works
Principles of Mental Physiology
(1874) · Nature · doi:10.1038/010040a0 · Cited by 206 · see citing works
Introspective physicalism as an approach to the science of consciousness
Jack, A. (2001) · Cognition · doi:10.1016/s0010-0277(00)00128-1 · Cited by 198 · see citing works
Principles of Mental Physiology
Carpenter, W. B. (2009) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/cbo9780511694226 · Cited by 180 · see citing works
Attention, Development, and Psychopathology
Merrill, E. C., & Atwell, J. A. (1998) · American Journal on Mental Retardation · doi:10.1352/0895-8017(1998)103 · Cited by 170 · see citing works
Consciousness and the cerebral hemispheres.
Gazzaniga, M. S. (1995) · Cited by 145 · see citing works
Hypnotic involuntariness: A social cognitive analysis.
Lynn, S. J., Rhue, J. W., & Weekes, J. R. (1990) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.97.2.169 · Cited by 144 · see citing works
Discounting causes of behavior: Are two reasons better than one?
McClure, J. (1998) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037//0022-3514.74.1.7 · Cited by 130 · see citing works
Focal transcranial magnetic stimulation and response bias in a forced-choice task.
Brasil-Neto, J. P., Pascual-Leone, A., Valls‐Solé, J., et al. (1992) · Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery & Psychiatry · doi:10.1136/jnnp.55.10.964 · Cited by 115 · see citing works
(2001) · Cited by 108 · see citing works
Free Will in the Light of Neuropsychiatry
Spence, S. A. (1996) · Philosophy, psychiatry & psychology · doi:10.1353/ppp.1996.0019 · Cited by 105 · see citing works
Clever hands: Uncontrolled intelligence in facilitated communication.
Wegner, D. M., Fuller, V. A., & Sparrow, B. (2003) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.85.1.5 · Cited by 98 · cited 1× · see citing works
“In a series of studies, people who were asked to sense the ostensible muscle movements of another person and type answers to questions for that person were found to produce correct answers and attribute a substantial contribution to the other, even when the other was an experimental confederate who never heard the que…”
BackgroundSelf-citationGeschwind, D. H., Iacoboni, M., Mega, M. S., et al. (1995) · Neurology · doi:10.1212/wnl.45.4.802 · Cited by 96 · see citing works
Discounting causes of behavior: Are two reasons better than one?
McClure, J. (1998) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.74.1.7 · Cited by 95 · see citing works
Baumeister, R. F., & Vohs, K. D. (2007) · Encyclopedia of Social Psychology · doi:10.4135/9781412956253.n25 · Cited by 83 · see citing works
Transcranial magnetic stimulation can influence the selection of motor programmes.
Ammon, K. H., & Gandevia, S. C. (1990) · Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery & Psychiatry · doi:10.1136/jnnp.53.8.705 · Cited by 62 · see citing works
(1995) · The MIT Press eBooks · doi:10.7551/mitpress/5350.003.0006 · Cited by 51 · see citing works
Nonconscious Movements: From Mystical Messages To Facilitated Communication
Spitz, H. H. (1997) · Cited by 50 · see citing works
(1994) · BRILL eBooks · doi:10.1163/9789004501133_030 · Cited by 30 · see citing works
Troland, L. T. (1926) · D Van Nostrand eBooks · doi:10.1037/11471-000 · Cited by 29 · see citing works
Perspectives on attribution research and theory : the Bielefeld symposium
Görlitz, D., & Antal, D. (1980) · Ballinger Pub. Co. eBooks · Cited by 24 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain
Soon, C. S., Brass, M., Heinze, H.-J., & Haynes, J.-D. (2008) · Nature Neuroscience · doi:10.1038/nn.2112 · Cited by 1,741 · see citing works
Empirical support for higher-order theories of conscious awareness
Lau, H., & Rosenthal, D. (2011) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/j.tics.2011.05.009 · Cited by 869 · see citing works
Metacognitive model of mindfulness
Jankowski, T., & Holas, P. (2014) · Consciousness and Cognition · doi:10.1016/j.concog.2014.06.005 · Cited by 276 · see citing works
The experience of agency in human-computer interactions: a review
Limerick, H., Coyle, D., & Moore, J. W. (2014) · Frontiers in Human Neuroscience · doi:10.3389/fnhum.2014.00643 · Cited by 241 · see citing works
Virtual reality and consciousness inference in dreaming
Hobson, J. A., Hong, C. C.-H., & Friston, K. J. (2014) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01133 · Cited by 197 · see citing works
“We have already shown that several issues in consciousness research (Chalmers, 1996; Wegner, 2003) can be addressed when the brain is treated as an organ of inference (Hobson and Friston, 2014).”
BackgroundLush, P., Botan, V., Scott, R. B., Seth, A. K., Ward, J., & Dienes, Z. (2020) · Nature Communications · doi:10.1038/s41467-020-18591-6 · Cited by 144 · see citing works
Lilienfeld, S. O., Marshall, J., Todd, J. T., & Shane, H. C. (2014) · Evidence-Based Communication Assessment and Intervention · doi:10.1080/17489539.2014.976332 · Cited by 105 · see citing works
Neuroscience and the soul: Competing explanations for the human experience
Preston, J. L., Ritter, R. S., & Hepler, J. (2013) · Cognition · doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2012.12.003 · Cited by 72 · see citing works
The sense of agency in emerging technologies for human–computer integration: A review
Cornelio, P., Haggard, P., Hornbaek, K., Georgiou, O., Bergström, J., Subramanian, S., & Obrist, M. (2022) · Frontiers in Neuroscience · doi:10.3389/fnins.2022.949138 · Cited by 75 · see citing works
Free to buy? Explaining self-control and impulse in consumer behavior.
Hofmann, W., Strack, F., & Deutsch, R. (2008) · Journal of Consumer Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.jcps.2007.10.005 · Cited by 71 · see citing works
Khalighinejad, N., Di Costa, S., & Haggard, P. (2016) · Brain Stimulation · doi:10.1016/j.brs.2016.01.005 · Cited by 58 · see citing works
Douglas, Z. H., Maniscalco, B., Hallett, M., Wassermann, E. M., & He, B. J. (2015) · The Journal of Neuroscience · doi:10.1523/jneurosci.4894-14.2015 · Cited by 51 · see citing works
Feeling in Control: The Role of Cardiac Timing in the Sense of Agency
Herman, A. M., & Tsakiris, M. (2020) · Affective Science · doi:10.1007/s42761-020-00013-x · Cited by 37 · see citing works
Zhang, S., Wang, H., & Yi, X. (2025) · Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1145/3757594 · Cited by 36 · see citing works
Goldberg, I., Ullman, S., & Malach, R. (2008) · Consciousness and Cognition · doi:10.1016/j.concog.2007.10.003 · Cited by 30 · see citing works
Involuntariness in Hypnotic Responding and Dissociative Symptoms
Dell, P. F. (2010) · Journal of Trauma & Dissociation · doi:10.1080/15299730903317964 · Cited by 23 · see citing works
Gendron, M., Mesquita, B., & Barrett, L. F. (2020) · Culture, Mind, and Brain · doi:10.1017/9781108695374.010 · Cited by 20 · see citing works
- Authors
- Wegner, D. M.
- Affiliations
- Harvard University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Wegner, Daniel M
- Venue
- Trends in Cognitive Sciences
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2003-02
- Volume
- 7
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 65-69
- ISSN
- 1364-6613 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2172001786
- Cited by
- 561
- References
- 49
- Citations by year
- 2026: 37 · 2025: 23 · 2024: 21 · 2023: 24 · 2022: 25 · 2021: 22 · 2020: 76 · 2019: 25 · 2018: 39 · 2017: 32 · 2016: 20 · 2015: 27 · 2014: 33 · 2013: 24 · 2012: 20
- FWCI
- 1.14
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Trends in Cognitive Sciences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Free Will and Agency
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Philosophy and Theoretical Science
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Embodied and Extended Cognition
- Keywords
- conscious will, free will, causal inference, mind-body problem, illusion of free will
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review