AO1

• free will

  humans are self determining, meaning we are free to make our own decisions that shape our lives without the influence of internal and external forces
• soft determinism: our behaviour is partly influenced by forces but has some element of free will
• humanistic approach emphasises free will: there are forces that are out of our control but we can freely choose to reject them
• determinism

  humans have little to no control over their lives because behaviour is controlled by external and internal forces
• psychology can be described as deterministic as we are constantly attempting to create general laws of behaviour through controlling it (manipulating IV) and predicting it (measuring effect of DV) in labs
• environmental determinism: behaviour is a product of external factors only, mainly previous experiences eg Pavlov and Skinner studied animals and concluded human behaviour is learnt through classical and operant conditioning
• biological determinism: all aspects of our behaviour are always caused by internal factors, determined by genes, neurotransmitters, brain structure, hormones eg assumes beh is completely out of our control and only focuses on neural processes
• psychic determinism: explained through Freud's defence mechanisms theory, the idea our behaviour is a product of unconscious conflict, our unconscious represses our disturbing thoughts away from our conscious and they influence most of our behaviour
• hard determinism: freewill is an illusion, every action is always a product of uncontrollable forces making behaviour predictable and pre-determined