Issues and Debates - Free Will and Determinism Flashcards
What is determinism?
The belief that behaviour is controlled by external or internal factors acting upon the individual beyond their control.
What are the three types of determinism?
Biological, environmental and psychic
What is biological determinism?
The view that behaviour is always caused by internal biological forces beyond our control, such as the influence of genes.
What is environmental determinism?
The belief that behaviour is caused by previous experience through classical and operant conditioning. These are external forces, over which we have no control.
What is psychic determinism?
Freud’s theory of personality suggests that adult behaviour is determined by a mix of innate drives and early experience. These result in unconscious conflicts over which we have no control. For example, Freud’s psychosexual stages of development.
What is free will?
Each individual has the power to make choices about their behaviour, without being determined by internal or external forces beyond their control. A common feature of the humanistic approach.
What is hard determinism?
The view that all behaviour can be predicted, according to the action of internal or external forces beyond our control, and so there can be no free will. For example, behaviourism suggests that all behaviour is the product of classical and operant conditioning , the biological approach sees behaviour as the product of genes and neurochemistry, whilst slt suggests that behaviour is the product of vicarious reinforcement and mediational processes.
What is soft determinism?
A version of determinism that allows for some element of free will and suggests that all events, including human behaviour , has a cause. For example, the cognitive approach suggests that individuals can reason and make decisions within the limits of their cognitive system.
Why is scientific research important?
Scientific research is based on the belief that all events have a cause. An IV is manipulated to have an effect on the DV . Through repeating the research under controlled conditions and performing stats tests, a cause and effect relationship can be established between two variables. This increases the scientific credibility of Psychology, through enabling the prediction and control of behaviour.
What are the limitations of determinism?
- 100% genetic determinism is unlikely to be found for any behaviour. MZ twin studies = 80% cr for intelligence and 40% for depression. This suggests that genes do not entirely determine behaviour and supports an interactionist standpoint.
- Determinism simplifies human behaviour - this may be appropriate for non-humans but human behaviour is less rigid and influenced by many factors
- A determinist position may be used for people to try and justify behaviours if they have committed a crime. A hard deterministic stance is not in line with the principles of the judical system. Determinism has also led to treatment methods for mental disorders, such as depression through the control of serotonin by using SSRIs.
- However this biological determinism approach does not allow the use of other treatments which are not based on biological mechanisms such as CBT.
What does the humanistic approach argue?
Humanists argue that self-determism is a necessary part of human behaviour. Rogers claimed that as long as an individual remains controlled by other people or other things they cannot take responsibility for their own behaviour and therefore cannot change it. Only when an individual takes self responsibility is personal growth or’ self actualisation’ possible. Humanism has been praised as a positive approach, seeing people as good and free to ‘better themselves’.
What is moral responsibility?
The basis that an individual is in charge of their own actions. The law states that children and those who are mentally ill do not have this responsibility but other than this, there is an assumption that normal adult behaviour is self determined. Therefore humans are accountable for their behaviour regardless of innate factors or early experience.
What are the limitations of free will?
- Illusion of free will ; a person may choose to do something but these choices are determined by previous reinforcement contingencies, as suggested by the behaviourist approach. This is a hard deterministic stance.
- Challenge to the idea of free will; Chun Soon et al found activity in the prefrontal cortex up to 10 seconds before a person was aware of their decision to act. This suggests that the motor activity preceding movement occured before the conscious decision was made and so implies that all behaviour is predetermined by up to 10 seconds.
Strengths of free will
+ Free will has good face validity - In everyday scenarios, we appear to be making our own decisions. Therefore, the idea of free will has good face validity because we appear to have free will in our day to day lives.
+ Free will has high internal validity - Robert et al. found that adolescents with an internal locus of control are less likely to develop depression and more likely to have a better mental health, compared to those with an external locus of control . These differences in LOC and mh supports the idea that free will can be used to help us determine what controls our life events, and so we make such conscious decisions.
