Free Will and Determinism

Question 1

What is free will?

Answer 1

1, People are able to choose how to behave - their behaviour isn’t a response to external or biological factors, and isn’t influenced by past behaviour.

Question 2

Evaluations of free will?

Answer 2

1. People can explain behaviours in terms of decisions and intentions,
2. However, free will is subjective - someone might think they are choosing how to behave, but actually be influenced by other forces,
3. Some people with psychological disorders don’t appear to have free will, e.g. people with OCD feel that they can’t control their thoughts and actions.

Question 3

What is determinism?

Answer 3

1. All of the physical events in the universe (including human behaviour) occur in cause and effect relationships,
2. So, our thoughts, beliefs, and behaviours are determined by past events and causes,
3. This is a scientifici view that implies that complete knowledge of a cause and effect relationship will mean that you can predict future behaviour in the same situation.

Question 4

Evaluations of determinism?

Answer 4

1. The determinist approach is very scientific. Other scientific subjects have shown that events in the physical universe operate according to cause and effect relationships that follow certain laws,
2. However, determinism is unfalsifiable - it can’t be proven wrong, because it assumes that events can be the result of forces that haven’t been discovered yet.

Question 5

What is soft determinism?

Answer 5

The viewpoint that we choose our behaviour, but the choices that we make are a result of our own personality traits and intentions.

Question 6

Is the psychodynamic approach deterministic or not?

Answer 6

1. Freud argued that behaviour is determined by unconscious forces,
2. This is known as psychic determinism. For example, if you forget to go to a dentist’s appointment, you might consciously think it was an accident,
3. Freud would claim it was actually determined by unconscious influences, e.g. you didn’t really want to go,
4. However, he also acknowledged that behaviours have many causes, including conscious intentions.

Question 7

Is the biological approach deterministic or not?

Answer 7

1. Behaviours are determined by biological influences, e.g. genetics and brain structure,
2. For example, schizophrenia has been linked to genes and brain structures abnormalities. The idea that this is the sole cause of behaviour is known as biological determinism.

Question 8

Is the cognitive approach deterministic or not?

Answer 8

1. Behaviour is the result of both free will and determinism. The approach looks for patterns in how the brain processes external information, and what behaviours this leads to,
2. However, it acknowledges that people use cognitive processes like language to reason and make decisions.

Question 9

Is the behaviourist approach deterministic or not?

Answer 9

1. Skinner claimed that behaviour is determined by the environment as a result of punishment and reinforcement,
2. This is known as environmental determinism. Everyone has a different history of reinforcement, so knowing this about someone would allow you to predict their behaviour,
3. If the environmental conditioning changes then their behaviour will also change.

Question 10

Is the humanistic approach deterministic or not?

Answer 10

1. This approach falls on the free-will side of the debate,
2. Humanistic psychologists believe that individuals are in control of their behaviour and are trying to achieve personal growth.

Question 11

What is reductionism?

Answer 11

1. The scientific view that it should be possible to explain complex things by reducing them to their most simple structures or processes,
2. In psychology this means explaining behaviour by boiling theories down to some basic principles, e.g. aggression is caused by conditioning,
3. Testing this in an experiment means that it is possible to establish cause and effect. However, experiments are often unrealistically simplified and ignore other influences, so they may not be testing real behaviour.

Question 12

What is holism?

Answer 12

1. The argument that human behaviour is more complex than the processes that other sciences study, e.g. chemical reactions,
2. This means that it should be viewed as the product of different influences, which all interact,
3. Trying to separate these influences by just studying one of them means that complex behaviour can be misunderstood, so a holistic approach avoids this problem,
4. However, it is difficult to test integrated theories because you can’t isolate the variables - this means it is hard to establish cause and effect.

Question 13

What did Rose (1976) suggest?

Answer 13

1. Rose put forward a range of explanations used in psychology, from the most reductionist (and, therefore, the most scientific), to the most holistic (and, therefore, least scientific),
2. The molecular level (physics) => The cellular level (biochemistry) => parts of individuals (biology) => the behaviour of individuals (psychology) => the behaviour of groups (sociology),
3. These are known as levels of explanation - how reductionist (left) or holistic (right) an explanation is.

Question 14

Is the psychodynamic approach holistic or reductionist?

Answer 14

1. By considering unconscious forces and childhood experiences, the psychodynamic approach is a relatively holistic approach,
2. For example, Freud emphasised that personality is the result of interaction between different components, such as the id and the ego, which is a more holistic view.

Question 15

Is the biological approach holistic or reductionist?

Answer 15

1. All behaviours can be explained as the product of biological influences like genetics, brain structure, and brain chemistry,
2. This is biological reductionism,
3. It aims to establish cause and effect, but it focusses less on other influences on behaviour, e.g. behavioural or social.

Question 16

Is the cognitive approach holistic or reductionist?

Answer 16

1. The brain’s cognitive processes are compared to the working of a computer - machine reductionism,
2. This is input, various stages of processing, and then an output,
3. This is reductionist because it doesn’t explain why humans function differently to computers, e.g. they can forget.

Question 17

Is the behaviourist approach holistic or reductionist?

Answer 17

1. All human behaviour, except biological reflexes and instincts, is shaped by the environment through the processes of classical and operant conditioning,
2. This is known as environmental/stimulus-response reductionism,
3. Other influences, e.g. genetic, social, are focussed on less.

Question 18

Is the humanistic approach holistic or reductionist?

Answer 18

1. The approach is holistic as it studies the individual in context and tries to understand their subjective experiences,
2. It uses self-report techniques, rather than breaking down behaviour into its component parts. Humanistic psychologists disagree with reducing behaviour to cause and effect reactions.