free will and determinism

• the debate

  • is our behaviour a matter of free will or are we the product of internal and/or external influences?
  • most approaches in psychology are determinist but disagree on the causes of human behaviour
• free will

  • suggests humans are free to make choices (self-determining)
  • free will implies we can reject biological and environmental influences on our behaviour
  • view of the humanistic approach
• determinism

  • proposes that all behaviour has a cause and is thus predictable (free will is an illusion and our behaviour is governed by internal/external forces which we have no control over)
  • hard determinism = (fatalism) suggests that all human action has a cause and it should be possible to identify these causes
  • soft determinism = suggests all human action has a cause but people have freedom to make choices within a restricted range of options
• types of determinism

  • biological
  • environmental
  • psychic
• biological determinism

  • biological approach describes many causes of behaviour
  • eg = the influence of the ANS on stress or the influence of genes on mental health
  • modern biological psychologists would recognise the mediating influence of the environment on our biological structures (another determinist influence)
• environmental determinism

  • Skinner described free will as 'an illusion' and all behaviour as the result of conditioning
  • our experience of 'choice' is the sum total of reinforcement contingencies that have acted upon us throughout our lives
• psychic determinism

  • Freud emphasised the influence of biological drives and unconscious conflicts repressed in childhood
  • even something as seemingly random as a 'slip of the tongue' can be explained by the unconscious
• moral responsibility (free will)

  • basis is that an individual is in charge of their own actions
  • The law states that children and those who are mentally ill do not have this responsibility but other than this, there is an assumption that normal adult behaviour is self determined
• strength of free will = has practical value

  • Roberts et al = looked at adolescents who had a strong belief in fatalism were at greater risk of developing depression
  • fatalism = the idea that their 'lives' are decided by events outside of their control
  • people who exhibit an internal rather than external locus of control are more likely to be optimistic
  • suggests that even if we do not have free will, the fact that we believe we do may may have a positive impact on mind and behaviour
• limitation of free will = evidence supports determinism

  • Libet et al = asked participants to randomly flick their wrist and say when they felt free to move (brain activity was measured)
  • the unconscious brain activity leading up to the conscious decision to move came half a second before the participants conscious decision to move
  • may be interpreted as meaning that even our most basic experiences of free will are actually determined by our brain before we are aware of them
• counterpoint to evidence supporting determinism

  • the fact that people consciously become aware of decisions milliseconds after they had begun to enact the decision still means they may have made the decision to act
  • our consciousness of the decision is a 'read-out' of our sometimes unconscious decision-making
  • suggests this evidence is not appropriate as a challenge to free-will
• limitation of determinism = role of responsibility in law

  • the hard determinist stance is not consistent with the way in which our legal system operates - in court offenders are held responsible for their actions
  • => the main principle of our legal system is that the defendant exercised their free will in committing the crime
  • suggests in real world, determinist arguments do not work
• extra evaluation =

  • support for D = places psychology on equal footing with other more established sciences + has led to valuable real world applications (like therapies)
  • if psychologists want to position itself alongside natural sciences, D accounts are likely to be preferred
  • support for FW = intuitive appeal. most of us see ourselves as making our own choices rather than being 'pushed' by forces we cannot control
  • some people (eg a child of a criminal parent) prefer to think that they are free to self-determine
  • => common-sense experience may be better understood by the analysis of FW