We're Only Human

No Fate! Or Fate. What’s Your Choice?



Fatalism is a supernatural belief, and it can indeed have harmful consequences for the way we act in the world. Believing that whatever happens is predestined and inevitable—this view can undermine personal responsibility and coping and lead to paralysis. But it can also be tonic, at least for humans who don’t have to save civilization. It can let us off the hook a bit, diminishing the stress of living.


The scientists tested this idea in two simple experiments, both focusing on voters’ thinking going into the 2012 presidential election. Choosing an American president is a daunting responsibility, with profound implications for many people, both in the U.S. and elsewhere. And importantly, even though Obama ending up winning convincingly, many voters remained on the fence even in the final weeks of the campaign. So Kay and his colleagues recruited a group of the 2012 voters and asked them, one week before the election, about the difficulty they were having in making a choice for president. Were Obama and Romney equally good, or was one far and away the best choice? Was it easy, or hard, to compare their plans for the country? These voters also completed an assessment of their beliefs about the role of fate in the 2012 election: Will fate make sure that the right man gets elected?

The scientists predicted, and found, that the voters’ level of difficulty in making a choice was linked to stronger beliefs in fate. Or, to put it another way, those who had a clear preference for president—Obama or Romney—did not trust in the invisible hand of destiny to deliver the best outcome. They trusted that the voters would do that.

The scientists wanted to double-check this finding, in a slightly different way. So in a second experiment, this one just two days before the election, they asked a group of voters to read policy statements by the two candidates. These were actual policy statements from the Obama and Romney campaigns, but some voters read statements that sharply contrasted, while others read statements that were harder to distinguish. Then, as in the first experiment, they measured the difficulty these voters were having in making a choice, and their belief in fate.

The results were the same as before. As reported in an article to appear in the journal Psychological Science, voters who read policy positions that blurred the difference between Obama and Romney—these voters were more likely to agree that everything happens for a reason—including election outcomes.

These findings are both illuminating and disturbing. Our country is becoming more and more polarized politically, so that even many independents are making their choices without much hand-wringing or hesitation. If that shrinking “undecided” group is effectively throwing its hands in the air and relying on some mystical force to choose, what does this say about the quality of citizenship? Doing so might ease the emotional burden of making a tough choice, but it does not necessarily deliver sound choices.


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A somewhat interesting read, but I felt it neglected another side of the fatalistic point of view. Some believe that what happens is controlled by fate, but that doesn’t necessarily mean for a good reason, a bad reason, or any reason. Simply that things happen and we can’t predict any of it. This may remove responsibility on choices, but at the same time it brings up the thought that bad results can come of fate. Knowing bad things can happen, it encourages someone to use as much knowledge as possible to make the best decision. They know they aren’t magically controlling their decision, and that they are only making this effort out of destined fear, but they are glad this is happening.

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