Free Will And Determinism Flashcards
What is free will?
Individuals make their own choices, consciously deciding their behaviour without deterministic constraints
What is determinism?
The idea that behaviour is dictated by forces outside of our control
What are the two extremities of determinism?
Hard determinism - behaviour is wholly out of your control with no role for free will
Soft determinism - traits and behaviour are to some extent dictated by forces outside of our control, but we do have some level of free will over our behaviour through conscious thought processes and our environment
What are the three main forms of hard determinism?
Biological determinism: behaviour is purely biological e.g genetics, hormones etc
Environmental determinism: behaviour is purely dictated by our environment
Psychic determinism: purely due to instinctive drives that we aren’t aware of
What two forms can factors outside of our control in determinism take?
Internal = biological/psychic
External = environmental
How is social learning theory an example of soft determinism?
Behaviour isn’t simply driven by an involuntary stimulus and response relationship, but the meditational processes consider the cognitive gap between whether carrying out a behaviour would be beneficial
What is an implication of biological determinism on behavioural modification in prisons?
Makes the point of token economy useless as this is based on behaviour being able to be learnt and changed through operant conditioning, however a determinist approach to behaviour would suggest that genetics such as the MAOA gene would be the sole reason for offending behaviour, which is innate and can’t be changed through behavioural modification or rehabilitation
What is the main positive to a determinist approach to behaviour in psychology?
. It is central to the scientific approach and establishing psychology as a science as determinism allows causality to be established as hypotheses can be created to try and generalise behaviours correctly
Exception: in the case of the psychodynamic approach, where psychic determinism is used to explain behaviour but it isn’t falsifiable as you cannot prove the unconscious to be true or untrue
What is an implication of environmental determinism on prisons?
Defeats the point of prisons (incapacitation) as you’d just be with your fellow criminals who, according to this level of determinism, are the worst people to be with as theories such as differential association claim that these are the people you learn your criminality from.
