4. free will & determinism

what is free will

• suggests that we all have a choice and can control and choose our own behaviour

• people respond actively to events around them and are free from external coercion.

what is determinism

• the idea that behaviour is caused by external or internal factors acting upon the individual and are beyond their control.

what is soft determinism

• both free will (due to cognition) and determinism

• more accepting of personal responsibility

outline free will

• this approach is all about personal responsibility and plays a central role in Humanist

• To a lesser degree Cognitive Psychology also supports the idea of free will and choice.

• In reality, although we do have free will it is constrained by our circumstances and other people.

ao3 - strength

• everyday experience ‘gives the impression’ that we are constantly exercising free will through the choices we make on any given day. This gives face validity to the concept of free will it makes cognitive sense

• also research suggests that people who have an internal locus of control, believing that they have a high degree of influence over events and their own behaviour, tend to be more mentally healthy.

• E.g. Roberts et al. (2000) found that teenagers with a strong belief in fatalism that their lives were 'decided’ by events outside of their control were at significantly greater risk of developing depression.

  •This suggests the fact that we think we have free will may have a positive impact on mind and behaviour.

ao3 - weakness

• neurological studies of decision making have revealed evidence against free will.

• E.g. Libet (1985) and Soon et al. (2008) demonstrated that the brain activity that determines the outcome of simple choices may precede our conscious choice.

• So the neural activity related to whether to press a button with the left or right hand occurs in the brain up to ten seconds before participants report being consciously aware of making such a decision.

• This shows that even our most basic experiences of free will are decided and determined by our brain before we become aware of them

what are the three types of determinism

• hard determinism

• soft determinism

• biological determinism

what is hard determinism

• implies that free will is not possible as our behaviour is always caused by internal and external events beyond our control

what is soft determinism

• all events, including human behaviour, have causes but are not forced, by coercion, the environment or external factors but by our conscious choices.

• In contrast with hard determinism

what is biological determinism

• the belief that behaviour is caused by biological (genetic, hormonal, evolutionary) influences that we cannot control.

what is psychic determinism

what is environmental determinism

outline hard determinism

• all behaviour can be predicted and there is no free will - sometimes referred to as fatalism.  

• this suggests that all human behaviour has a cause, and, in principle, it should be possible to identify and describe and causes.

• Such a position is compatible with the aims of science- to uncover the causal laws that govern thought and action- and always assumes that everything we think and do is dictated by internal and external forces that we cannot control.

outline soft determinism

• james (1890) was the first to put forward the notion of soft determinism- a position that later became an important feature of the cognitive approach.

• whilst acknowledging that all human action has a cause, soft determinists also suggest some room for manoeuvre in that people have conscious mental control over the way they behave.

outline psychological determinism

• freud, agreed that free will is like an ‘illusion’, but placed more emphasis on the influence of biological drives and instincts than Behaviourists.

• His particular brand of determinism sees human behaviour as determined and directed by unconscious conflicts, repressed in childhood.

• There is no such thing as an accident, according to Freud, and even something as seemingly random or ‘slip of the tongue’ (parapraxes) can be explained by the underlying authority of the unconscious

outline environmental determinism

• BF Skinner described free will as ‘an illusion’ and argued that all of behaviour is the result of conditioning.

• our experience of choice is because of reinforcement that have acted upon us.

• we might think we are acting independently, but our behaviour has been shaped by environmental events, as well as agents of socialisation – parents, teachers etc.

outline biological determinism

• the biological approach emphasises the role of biological determinism in behaviour.

• many of your physiological and neurological (brain) processes are not under our conscious control- such as the influence of the autonomic nervous system during periods of stress and anxiety.  

• lots of behaviours and characteristics, such as mental disorders, are thought to have a genetic bases and research has demonstrated the effect of hormones- e.g. the role of testosterone in aggressive behaviour.

ao3 determinism - strength

• determinism is scientific and allows cause and effect relationships to be established.

• the idea that behaviour is orderly and obeys laws places psychology on equal footing with other more established sciences.

• This prediction and control of human behaviour has led to the development of treatments e.g. drug treatment to manage schizophrenia.

• In the case of mental disorders like schizophrenia casts doubt on the concept of free will (no-one would 'choose' to have schizophrenia). At least in terms of mental illness then, behaviour appears to be determined.

ao3 - determinism weakness

• hard determinism suggests criminals cannot be held accountable for their actions. This stance is not consistent with the way in which our legal system operates. In a court of law, offenders are held morally accountable for their actions.

• determinism as an approach is unfalsifiable It is based on the idea that causes of behaviour will always exist, even though they may not yet have been found. How do we prove this?

• So the determinist approach to human behaviour may not be as scientific as it first appears.

ao3 - determinism strength - scientific emphasis of causal explanations

• One of the basic principles of science is that every event in the universe has a cause and that causes can be explained using general laws. Knowledge of causes and the formulation of laws are important as they allow scientists to predict and control events in the future.

• Hence, in psychology, the laboratory experiment enables researchers to simulate the conditions of the test tube and remove all other extraneous variables in an attempt to precisely control and predict human behaviour.

link to approaches - psychodynamic approach

• freud argued that behaviour is determined by unconscious forces – this is known as psychic determinism

• e.g. forgetting to go to a dentist appointment you might consciously think it was an accident.  

• Freud would argue that this is actually determined by unconscious influences e.g. you didn’t really want to go.

•  However he did acknowledge that behaviours have causes e.g. a person can chose to have psychoanalysis

link to approaches - biological approach

• behaviours are determined by biological influences e.g. genetics and brain structure.  

• For example anorexia has been linked to genes and neurotransmitters abnormalities.  

• This is known as biological determinism

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