Ms Boyle's homework 2

Question 1

What is free will?

Answer 1

This suggests as human beings we are essentially self-determining and free to choose our thoughts and actions

A belief in free will does not deny that there may be biological and environmental forces that exert some influence on our behaviour

Question 2

What is determinism?

Answer 2

Where a free will has no place in explaining behaviour

There are hard and soft verisions

Question 3

What is hard determinism?

Answer 3

Suggests that all human behaviour has a cause and in principle it should possible identify and describes these causes

Aims of science

Question 4

What is soft determinism?

Answer 4

Important feature of cognitive approach

Acknloweding that all human action has a cause

suggest room for maneuvre

people have conscious mental control in the way we behave

Question 5

What is biological determinism?

Answer 5

The biological approach emphaises the role of biological determinism in behaviour

Physiological and neurlogical brain processes are not under our conscious control

Question 6

What is environmental determinism?

Answer 6

Our behaviour is shaped by environmental events

Question 7

What is psychic determinism?

Answer 7

Free will is an ‘illusion’

Human behaviour is determined by unconscious conflicts

Question 8

What is casual explanations?

Answer 8

Basic principle of science is that every event in the universe has a cause and can be explained through general laws

Question 9

What is the nature debate?

Answer 9

Expresses all abilities m strengths and weaknesses and characteristic determined by genes

They are inherited by parents

Question 10

What is heredity?

Answer 10

passing on of physical or mental characteristics genetically from one generation to another.

Question 11

What is nurture part of the debate?

Answer 11

Referring the influence of our experiences after we were born

include physical (Enviro) and social

Question 12

What is the interactionist approach?

Answer 12

Heredity and environment interact

Question 13

Example of free will

Answer 13

Humanisitc approach

Question 14

Example of a deterministic approach

Answer 14

e.g aggression

it reduces individual responsibility so they are not responsible for their behaviour due to their upbringing or recent stressful event

Question 15

Example of nature/nuture

Answer 15

• Nativist support the nature for genetic behaviour e.g depression link with genetic
• Nuture- Bandura’s theory on SLT that children learn aggression by imitation

Question 16

Example of holism/reductionism

Answer 16

• Holism allows us to break up any behaviour that is inappropriate as there can only be understood by analysing a person as a whole. Shared as humanistic approach as successful therapy
• Biological reductionism allows to show the effects of psychoactive drugs on brain to understand neural processes. Help explain serious mental disorders like OCD

Question 17

What is idiographic research?

Answer 17

This involves the study of individuals and unique insights each individual gives us about human behaviour

Qualitative because focus on gaining insights into human behaviour by studying unique individuals rather than numerical data and determining an average characteristic

Focus on quality information rather than quanitiy

Emply methods such as unstructured interview, case studies and thematic analysis

Question 18

Example of idiographic method

Answer 18

Sigmund Freud uses case studies of his paitents to understand human behaviour, e.g Little Hans

Case containd quotes (recordered by father) and giving Freud’s intrpretation

He produce generalisations in case studies - idiographic (drawn from unique indvidiuals)

Question 19

What is the nomothetic approach?

Answer 19

Involves the study of a large number of people and seeks to make generalisations or develop laws/theroies about their behaviour. Goal is similar to scientific approach

Quantitative research based on numbers-measures of central tendency and disperisions, graphs and statisticsal analysis

Question 20

Example of a nomothetic approach

Answer 20

Biological potray seeks basic principle of how the body and brain works

This approach mistakenely studied men and assumed the same process would occur in women e.g stress response