Issue & Debates -> Debates Flashcards
Free Will
suggests that as human beings we are essentially self-determining and able to choose our thoughts and actions. The humanistic approach considers people to have free will.
Determinism
Determinism is the general idea that our traits and behaviours are outside of our control, due to factors, either internal or external, over which we have no control.
Hard Determinism
Proposes that all of a person’s traits and behaviours are entirely out of the individual’s control. Human behaviour has a cause and so it should be possible to identify these causes.
Soft Determinism
This proposes that traits and behaviours are determined by external or internal forces but that an individual can still exercise some control via thought processes
Biological determinism
Traits and behaviours are governed by internal biological factors, like genes etc.
many of our physiological and neurological brain processes are not under conscious control.
lots of behaviours & characteristics are thought to have a genetic basis
Environmental determinism
Traits and behaviours are governed by external forces,
Although we might think we are acting independently, our behaviour has been shaped by environmental events as well as agents of socialisation.
Psychodynamic determinism
Traits and behaviours are governed by unconscious instincts and drives.
human behaviour as determined and directed by unconscious conflicts, repressed in childhood
Strengths of determinism
Scientific
&
Practical applications
Weaknesses of determinism
Free will
&
Internal locus
Nature-Nurture Debate
The nature-nurture debate is about the relative contribution of each of these influences in determining an individual’s behaviour.
- The nature side of the debate assumes that heredity, genes, hormones etc. are more important.
- The nurture side assumes that the environment and a person’s experiences etc. are more important.
Weaknesses of nature-nurture
Interactionist approach
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Nurture affects nature
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Nature can affect nurture
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Diathesis stress model
Reductionism
Reductionism involves breaking a complex phenomenon down into constituent elements.
Environmental reductionism
Argues that behaviour can be reduced to a simple relationship between behaviour and events.
Biological reductionism
Reduces human behaviour to the level of the action of neurons, neurotransmitters, hormones and so on.
Holism
Holism focuses on systems as a whole rather than on the constituent parts, and suggests that we cannot predict how the whole system will behave just from knowledge of the individual components.
Humanistic holism
Believes that the individual reacts as an organised whole, rather than a set of stimulus-response links.
Cognitive holism
Recognises the importance of understanding an entire system. Memory is a complex system which in recent years has been understood in terms of connected networks. The network as a whole behaves differently than individual parts.
Strengths of reductionism
Scientific
&
Practical applications
Weakness of reductionism
Overlooks the meaning of behaviour
&
Nonhuman animals
Idiographic approach
The idiographic approach involves the study of individuals and the unique insights each individual provides. The idiographic approach is qualitative because the focus is on studying unique individuals in-depth rather than gaining numerical data from many individuals and determining average characteristics.
Psychodynamic approach
Sigmund Freud used case studies of his patients as a way to understand human behaviour, such as the case study of Little Hans. Freud did make generalisations based on his case studies but these are still idiographic because they are drawn from information gathered from unique individuals.
Humanistic approach
They are concerned with studying the whole person and seeing the world from the perspective of that person. What matters is the person’s subjective experience and not what someone else might observe of their behaviour.
Strength of the idiographic approach
Scientific & evidence based
Reflexivity
Weaknesses of the idiographic approach
Time consuming & expensive
Nomothetic approach
&
Cannot produce general predictions
The Nomothetic Approach
The nomothetic approach involves the study of a large representative sample, ideally selected using random sampling, in order to collect a large amount of data to support a testable hypothesis.
The nomothetic approach favours quantitative research methods that are based on numbers.
Biological - Nomothetic
The basic principles of how the body and brain work. In the past they have made the mistake of only studying men and assuming that their findings can be generalised to women e.g. the fight-or-flight response.
Behaviourist - Nomothetic
Produces general laws of human behaviour. Behaviourist research may not have involved thousands of human participants, but they were seeking one set of rules for all human and non-human animals.
Cognitive - Nomothetic
Its aim to develop general laws of behaviour which apply to all people, such as understanding memory processes. Case studies, such as HM and KF, but these are required because in order to understand the working of a normal mind it is often necessary to look at abnormal cases.
