Free will and Determinism Flashcards
Define determinism.
Our behaviour is governed by internal or external forces over which we have no control.
What is hard determinism?
Forces outside of our control (e.g.biology) shape our behaviour.
It is incompatible with free will.
What is soft determinism?
Some behaviours are more constrained than others and there is an element of free will in all behaviour.
Define free will.
We can play an active role and have choice in how we behave.
Define biological determinism.
All human behaviour is innate and determined by genes.
Give an example of biological determinism.
-The dopamine hypothesis for schizophrenia.
-MAOA gene for aggression.
-Biological explanations for OCD.
Define environmental determinism.
Behaviour is determined/caused by forces outside the individual.
Give an example of environmental determinism.
-Social learning theory for aggression.
-Behaviourist explanation for phobias.
Define psychic determinism.
Human behaviour is the result of childhood experiences and innate drives.
Give an example of psychic determinism.
-Bowlby’s internal working model.
-Freud’s model of psychological development.
Give a disadvantage of determinism involving twin studies.
Behaviour is not the result of any single cause.
Concordance rates in identical twins with SZ was 50%, this suggests it is not entirely determined otherwise it would be 100% and that other factors must be influential as well such as free will and/or the environment.
Give a disadvantage of free will (e.g.Skinner).
Some psychologists such as Skinner argue that free will is an illusion.
Behaviour is environmentally determined, we may think we have free will but we don’t, everything is already predetermined.
Explain the scientific approach in relation to psychology (causal explanations).
Psychology is scientific because we are looking for cause and effect which is a scientific method.
Give a disadvantage of causal explanations regarding extraneous variables.
In psychology there are always extraneous variables and that is why nothing can be proved, cause and effect cannot be proved. There are many variables that influence human behaviour.
There is no such thing as a perfect experiment.
Explain psychological causality as a disadvantage.
Psychological causality is arguably never deterministic.
Statistical tests show the probability that something occurred by chance. This means that there are multiple possibilities rather than a single cause as we are only at best about 95% sure about correlational findings.
