Free Will V Determinism Flashcards
What is meant by determinism?
The view that free will is an illusion and that our behaviour is governed by internal/external forces over which we have no control. Out behaviour is therefore predictable.
What is meant by the term free will?
The idea that we can play a part and have an active role and have choice in how we behave. Individuals are free to choose behaviour and are self determined.
Define hard determinism and give an example.
A view that forces outside of our control shape our behaviour. For example chromosomes and gender caused by genes.
Define soft determinism and give an example.
Behaviour is constrained by the environment/biological makeup, but only to an extent. Some behaviours are more constrained than others. For example changing mental illness with drug therapy.
Define biological determinism and give an example.
All human behaviour is innate and determined by genes. For example thrifty gene, MAOA-L, COMT And SERT etc.
Define environmental determinism and give an example.
Our behaviour is determined or caused by forces outside the individual. For example, hard would be learning theory of attachment, soft would be SLT.
Define psychic determinism and give an example.
Human behaviour is the consequence of childhood experiences and innate drives and the content of your unconscious mind. For example Freud’s theory + psychosexual development of gender.
Deterministic approaches easily generate research support. Give 2 examples.
Loftus and Palmer - Verb changes the estimations of speed
Bobo doll study - seeing an aggressive adult makes children aggressive.
Evaluate the determinist approach.
S - can use research studies so can determine cause and effect. Can replicate. Raised status of psychology as a science so taken seriously
C - however research tends to ignore extraneous variables and the research doesn’t always support it. For example many theories say there are multiple reasons eg concordance rates and success rates w drugs. Even statistical level is 5% meaning 5% chance X doesn’t cause Y.
Also hard determinism is outdated bc it seemed more appropriate when physicists believed they would eventually make more precise predictions. According to chaos theory, small changes in initial conditions can produce major changes later on which shows hard determinism isn’t approp.
Give 2 examples of free will in psychology.
Congruence = the distance between your ideal self and perceived self. Rogers said you’re free to change how you see yourself. CCT = client centred therapy. Rogers said you’re free to grow and self actualise and get well.
Evaluate free will as an approach in psychology.
S - twin studies never have 100% concordance rates suggesting we have some free will in our choices
C - increasing research that were determined by biological factors. Eg research found motor regions of the brain became active before a person registers conscious awareness of the decision, i.e a decision is made by the brain before they know they’re doing it. Suggests some responses are biologically determined.
P - criminal justice systems. Idea that people have conscious choice over decisions is adopted by criminal justice systems as choosing deterministic standpoint implies people aren’t responsible for crimes.
