Free will vs determinism

• Free will- the notion that all humans have the choice over how to behave and their behaviour is not determined by internal/ external factors
• determinism- the view that behaviour is outside of our control and is caused by natural/ environmental influences
• Humanistic psychology, for example, believes humans do have free will. While physical factors – e.g. genetics and environment – influence our behaviours, humanistic psychologists believe humans are able to transcend these physical factors and make free choices.
• free will- the belief that humans are self-determining, there are other forces that may influence us but we can choose to reject them- humanistic approach
• hard determinism- suggests that all human behaviour has a cause, and in principle it should be possible to identify and describe these causes- free will is an illusion
• soft determinism- all human behaviour bas a cause, however there is some room for flexibility, people have certain degrees of control over the way they behave, but only within the realms of what they know
• biological determinism- all human behaviour is innate and by our genes/hormones/brain chemistry, Nesdadt et al (2010) found 68% of identical twins shared OCD as opposed to only 31% of non identical twins, suggests people's genetic make up can make them vulnerable to OCD
• biological determinism- OCD bio approach- much higher percentage of identical twins with concordance rates of OCD compared to non identical eg monozygotic vs dizygotic, suggests people's genetic make up can make them vulnerable to OCD
• Environmental determinism- behaviour is caused by forces outside the individual eg conditioning- eg behaviourist approach to phobias suggests phobias are acquired through classical conditioning and maintained through operant conditioning but this may not explain evolutionary fears such as fear of the dark which likely does not come from the process of classical conditioning
• environmental determinism- this suggests that, at least to some extent, our behaviour is determined by our environment
• psychic determinism- all human behaviour is a result of childhood experiences and innate drives (ID Ego and Superego),
• Examples of psychic determinism- the psychodynamic explanations of gender identity, suggests that gender identity is acquired through the phallic stage of development
• Deterministic approaches are considered more scientific because scientific research is based on the belief that all events have a cause
• Free will eval- good face validity- as we feel like we make our own choices on a daily basis, we seem to exercise free will with choices that we make- who chose what you wore today? Who chose the music you listen to?
• Free will counter evidence- Lisbet and Soon- brain activity related to the decision to press a button with the left or right hand occurs up to 10 seconds before participants report being consciously aware of making such a decision, this shows that even our most basic experiences of Free Will are determined and decided by our brain before we become aware of them.
• bandura argues that although environmental factors in learning are key, we are free to choose who or what to attend to and when to perform certain behaviours- this middle ground approach is helpful in understanding aspects of human behaviour which are not a straightforward choice between Free Will and Determinism