Free Will And Determinism Flashcards
What is determinism?
-It is the view that free will is an illusion, and that our behaviour is governed by internal or external forces over which we have no control.
What is Free will?
It is the idea that we can play an active role and have a choice in how we behave. The assumption is that individuals are free to choose their behaviour and are self-determined.
What is environmental determinism?
-It is the view that behaviour is determined or caused by forces outside the individual. Environmental determinism posits that our behaviour is caused by previous experience learned through classical and operant conditioning.
What is biological determinism?
It is the idea that all human behaviour is innate and determined by genes.
What is psychic determinism?
-It claims that human behaviour is the result of childhood experiences and innate drives (I’d, ego and superego), as in Freud’s model of psychological development.
What is hard determinism?
It is the view that forces outside our control (biology or past experience) shape our behaviour. It is also seen as incompatible with free will.
What is soft determinism?
It is an alternative position favoured by manny psychologists. According to soft determinism, behaviour is constrained by the environmental or biological makeup, but only to a certain extent. There is an element of free will in all behaviour and some behaviours are more constrained than others.
What is causal explanations?
Science is heavily deterministic in its search for casual relationships (explanations) as it seeks to discover whether X causes Y, or whether the independent variable causes changes in the dependent variable.
What varying degrees of determinism are there?
- Soft determinism
- Hard determinism
What is an example of free will?
-An example is people can make a free choice as to whether they commit a crime or not. Therefore a person is responsible for their own actions, and it is impossible to predict human behaviour with any precision.
What is an example fo biological determinism?
research into humane genome provides evidence to support the idea of biological determinism. for example research has found the the IGF2r gene is responsible for intelligence. This is supported by Chorley as he reported a statically significant association between IQ tests scores and the IGF2r gene on chromosome six suggesting intelligence is biologically determined.
What is an example of environmental determinism?
-Bandura found that children who had violent parents were more likely going to be violent themselves as a result of observational learning which suggests our behaviour is environmentally determined
AO3 for Free will and determinism
- Humanist psychologists and twin studies.
- Skinner suggesting free will is just an illusion
- Many psychologists and legal experts do not prefer a deterministic view on behaviour (Stephen Mobley) “I was born to kill because my family is aggressive”
What is the scientific approach on determinism?
It is heavily deterministic in its search for causal relationships as it seeks to discover whether the independent variable causes changes in the dependant variable. An example of this is Loftus and Palmers research into eye witness testimony and verb use.
Outline how Humanists dont agree with determinism?
P: Humanists do not agree with the idea that behaviour is deterministic and suggest individuals have free will.
E: This claim is supported by twin studies for example gotesmanns study into schizophrenia. HE found that identical twins would have concordance rates of 40%.
E: This shows that biological determinism alone cannot explain certain behaviours in this case schizophrenia due to the idea that since Monozygotic twins share 100% identical DNA concordance rates should be 100% according to a biological deterministic view.
