Free will and determinism Flashcards
What is the debate of free will and determinism?
Is our behaviour a matter of free will or are we internally/externally influenced (determinism)?
What are most psychological approaches?
Mostly determinist
- different approaches disagree on the precise cause of human behavior
What do different approaches suggest?
- Biological approach: internal cause of human behavior
- Behaviorist approach: external cause of human behavior
- Humanistic approach: embraces the concept of free will
What is free will?
Suggests humans are self determining and free to choose own thoughts and actions
- Belief doesn’t deny biological and environmental influences
- Implies that we’re able to reject these forces
- View advocated by humanistic approach
What are the 2 types of determinism?
Hard and soft determinism
What is determinism?
Proposes that free will has no place in explaining behavior
What is soft determinism?
James
- Important feature of the cognitive approach
- Its the job of scientists to explain what determines our behavior
- Also still have freedom to make rational choices everyday
What is hard determinism?
All human behavior has a cause
- Possible to identify and describe these causes
- Everything we think and do is dictated by internal/external forces that can’t be controlled
What are the types of determinism?
- Environmental
- Biological
- Psychic
What is environmental determinism?
Skinner described free will as an illusion
- All behavior is a result of conditioning
- May think we’re acting independently
- Our ‘choices’ merely the sum total of reinforcement contingencies that have acted upon us all our lives
What is biological determinism?
Emphasized by the biological approach
- Influence of the autonomic nervous system on the stress response
- Influence of genes on mental health
- Still recognizes the influence of the environment on our biological structure
What is psychic determinism?
Freud also believed free will was an illusion
- Emphasized the influence of biological drives and instincts
- Human behavior determined by unconscious conflicts, repressed in childhood
- No such thing as an accident
- Even a ‘slip of the tongue’ can be explained by the influence of the unconscious
What is the scientific emphasis on causal relationships?
Most of the principle of science is:
- every event in the universe has a cause
- Causes can be explained using general laws (hard determinism)
- Knowledge of causes and the formulation of laws are important
- Allow scientists to predict and control events in the future
- In psych, lab experiments: ideal as it enables researcher to demonstrate causal relationships
Who speaks about strengths of free will?
Roberts et al
What are strengths of free will?
- Practical value
- Exercise free will on a daily basis
- Even if we don’t thinking we do improves our mental health
What did Roberts et al say?
Looked at young people who have a strong belief in fatalism (fate)
- Significantly higher risk of depression
- People with an external LOC are less likely to be optimistic
Who speaks about limitations of free will?
Libet et al
What are limitations of free will
- Brain scan evidence
- Supports determinism
What did Libet et al do?
- Instructed participants to choose a random moment to flick their wrist
- Measured activity within their brains (readiness potential)
- Participants had to say when they felt the conscious will to move
- Found that the unconscious brain activity leading to the conscious decision to move came a half a second before
What can Libet et al’s study be interpreted as?
Our basic experiences of free will are actually determined by our brains before we’re aware of them
What are limitations of determinism?
- Position of the legal system responsibility
- Hard determinism: an individuals choice isn’t the cause of behavior
- Not consistent with today’s legal system
- Offenders held responsible for their actions
- Main principle of our legal system: a defendant exercised free will in committing the crime
- Suggests determinist arguments don’t work in the real world
