free will vs determinism

• biological determinism?


  human behaviour is innate and determined by interval forces such as neurochemistry, neurophysiology, genes
• genetic determinism?


  genes born with are responsible for behaviour
• environmental determinism?


  external forces are responsible for behaviour and we learn through conditioning and imitating others
• psychic determinism?


  behaviour is caused by unconscious forces motives and conflicts
• Determinism — The belief that behaviour is controlled by external or internal factors acting upon the individual and beyond their control
• — 100% genetic determinism is unlikely to be found for any behaviour.

  • Studies that compare monozygotic twins have found 80% similarity for intelligence and 40% for depression, suggesting that genes do not entirely determine behaviour and supports an interactionist standpoint.
  • The fact that concordance rates for MZ twins are often higher than for siblings, despite both sharing 50% of genes, may be due to MZ twins being more likely to share the same environment.
• — A determinist position may be used for people to try and justify behaviours if they have committed a crime. = This would be undesirable as it excuses their behaviour. Therefore, a hard deterministic stance is not in line with the principles of the judicial system, which sees individuals as taking moral responsibility for their actions
• positive of determinism?

  led to treatment methods for mental disorders, such as depression through the control of serotonin by using SSRIs 
• advantage of free will

  • high internal validity — Robert et al found people with internal LOC are less likely to develop depression and are more likely to have better mental health.
  • free will can be used to help us determine what controls our life events, and so we make such conscious decisions.
• Hard determinism

  External (environment) or internal (biological) forces that are out of our control shape our behaviour
• soft determinism

  behaviour to some extent is constrained by internal and external forces but we can still have free will