2026 Articles

When Thinking About Themselves and God, People Believe Truth Matters More than Control

Nakkawita, Emily; Solomon, Larisa Heiphetz; Higgins, E. Tory

People are motivated to feel effective in the domains of control (managing what happens in life) and truth (establishing what is real and right). However, previous research has not established whether individuals typically possess lay theories that either of these motives predominates over the other. Although major psychological theories have emphasized the primacy of control, converging evidence across five studies reveals that individuals tend to believe that truth predominates. Participants reported believing that truth- (versus control-) oriented motives and activities are more important. Furthermore, this prioritization of truth extended to participants’ conceptualizations of God, whose omniscience (versus omnipotence) they saw as more central. These truth-dominant tendencies persisted even when assessed using implicit measures. Finally, a preregistered replication study found a consistent pattern of truth (versus control) motive predominance among U.S. and Indian adults. These findings provide new insight into lay theories about the relative importance of these two fundamental motives.

Keywords: lay theories