Ms Boyle's homework 2 Flashcards
What is free will?
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
What is determinism?
Where a free will has no place in explaining behaviour
There are hard and soft verisions
What is hard determinism?
Suggests that all human behaviour has a cause and in principle it should possible identify and describes these causes
Aims of science
What is soft determinism?
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
What is biological determinism?
The biological approach emphaises the role of biological determinism in behaviour
Physiological and neurlogical brain processes are not under our conscious control
What is environmental determinism?
Our behaviour is shaped by environmental events
What is psychic determinism?
Free will is an ‘illusion’
Human behaviour is determined by unconscious conflicts
What is casual explanations?
Basic principle of science is that every event in the universe has a cause and can be explained through general laws
What is the nature debate?
Expresses all abilities m strengths and weaknesses and characteristic determined by genes
They are inherited by parents
What is heredity?
passing on of physical or mental characteristics genetically from one generation to another.
What is nurture part of the debate?
Referring the influence of our experiences after we were born
include physical (Enviro) and social
What is the interactionist approach?
Heredity and environment interact
Example of free will
Humanisitc approach
Example of a deterministic approach
e.g aggression
it reduces individual responsibility so they are not responsible for their behaviour due to their upbringing or recent stressful event
Example of nature/nuture
- 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
Example of holism/reductionism
- 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
What is idiographic research?
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
Example of idiographic method
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)
What is the nomothetic approach?
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
Example of a nomothetic approach
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
