Free Will & Determinism (AQA A Level Psychology)

The free will-determinism debate

• The free will-determinism debate is whether humans decide their fate or have it decided for them by external forces over which they have no or little control

  • Free will means being actively in charge of one's behaviour and outcomes

  • Determinism means that ‘fate’/external forces decide one's destiny

• A deterministic approach involves surrendering any autonomy for one's actions or the actions of others e.g.

  • people in X situation will always behave like this

  • environmental conditions determine outcomes

  • I am powerless to control the situation

• A free will approach involves assuming autonomy for one's actions even in the face of strong external influences e.g.

  • X situation does not necessarily have to result in this behaviour

  • environmental conditions do not have to determine outcomes

  • I can find ways to control the situation

Free will

• Unlike determinism, there is only one ‘type’ of free will as this concept does not exist as a theory per se

  • Free will is the idea that humans are self-determining i.e. they make their own 'luck'

  • Humans can exercise control over their behaviour

  • Choice is a key component of the free will argument

• There is only one approach that truly encompasses free will: the humanistic approach

• The humanistic approach sees the individual at the heart of their destiny, actively making decisions, and shaping their life rather than allowing external forces to shape it for them

• Key components of the humanistic approach that exemplify free will are:

  • Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

  • Roger’s client-centred therapy

  • unconditional positive regard

  • self-actualisation

Evaluation of free will

Strengths

• Free will could be argued to be one of the most valuable assets an individual can have

  • People living in dictatorships are not able to fully exercise their free will and this is sure to impact negatively their well-being and sense of self

  • This means that the concept of free will is an essential component for what it means to be human

• The humanistic approach is the only approach that is holistic and idiographic in that it considers the whole person as an individual within real contexts

  • Humanism therefore has high validity both in terms of the theory itself and the methods used to explore the theory

Limitations

• The concept of free will remains a little vague and is difficult to test

  • Problems operationalising the concepts within humanism (e.g. self-actualisation) mean that the theory and associated methods lack reliability

• The concept of free will may be incompatible with certain cultures that place an emphasis and value on community and duty rather than on individualism

  • This means that the theory may be ethnocentric and lacking in cultural relativism

Determinism

Types of determinism

• Hard determinism

  • This type of determinism is based on the cause-effect explanation (a feature of the scientific method) as it assumes that all types of behaviour can be explained using general, causal laws of behaviour: an idea which is the ultimate in fatalism

• Soft determinism

  • This type of determinism is based on hard determinism but it includes the mediating effects of cognitive factors such as thoughts, emotions, and reflection which means that human beings can exercise some control over outcomes

• Biological determinism

  • This assumes that biological processes control behaviour e.g. neurotransmission, hormones, genes

• Environmental determinism

  • This is based on the ideas behind conditioning i.e. that human beings are controlled by external forces such as agents of socialisation e.g. parents, teachers

• Psychic determinism

  • This is based on the idea that human beings are controlled by internal, unconscious drives which are derived from repressed conflicts

Approaches within determinism

• The behaviourist approach underpins both hard determinism and environmental determinism with its emphasis on a simple cause-effect explanation of behaviour based on environmental stimuli and learned responses

  • Early proponents of behaviourism, such as Skinner, demonstrate the attitudes prevalent in hard determinism (he declared that free will is an ‘illusion’)

  • Token economies are good examples of environmental determinism as they emphasise the role of external rewards as the motivation to change behaviour (also seen in the Learning approach)

• The cognitive approach is an example of soft determinism as it follows the assumptions made by hard determinism but makes allowances for individual choice and thought

  • The concept of schema is an example of soft determinism in that an individual’s schema is dictated to some extent by external factors but the individual still exercises some control over how their schema develops

• The biological approach is underpinned by biological determinism as it assumes that biological processes determine behaviour and outcomes

  • The theory of localisation of function is an example of biological determinism as it links specific behaviours to brain regions and structures

• The psychodynamic approach is underpinned by psychic determinism with its emphasis on the idea that people unconsciously repress their true desires due to conflicts developed in early childhood

  • Freud’s study of Little Hans concluded that the boy had a horse phobia linked to his Oedipus Complex based on Freud’s theory of psychosexual stages of development

Evaluation of determinism

Strengths

• The principles of determinism are in line with the features of science e.g.

  • that behaviour has a cause

  • that observable behaviours must be measured objectively using lab experiments

    • This makes methods linked to hard determinism high in reliability

• Some behaviours may be determined by external factors rather than being the product of free will e.g.

  • PTSD as a result of being exposed to war, abuse, neglect, etc.

  • phobias which are the result of conditioning (e.g. a child who was bitten by a dog may go on to have a phobia of dogs)

  • major depressive disorder linked to genetics/neurochemical imbalances

Limitations

• If determinism is a 100% valid theory it would mean that everyone born under the same circumstances would end up with the same experiences or outcomes which is untrue e.g.

  • people born into a criminal family who choose a different path in life

  • people experience early maternal deprivation but go on to have healthy adult attachments

    • This means that determinism only presents a partial account of what forms human behaviour

• For all its seeming scientific credentials, determinism is unfalsifiable as it cannot pinpoint or explain exactly the causes of behaviour, particularly when that behaviour seems contradictory e.g.

  • a rich woman steals a bottle of wine from a shop

  • a man with racist views marries a woman of colour

  • an Oxford graduate decides to work in a biscuit factory

The scientific emphasis on causal explanations

• Psychology is the study of human behaviour but as humans tend to be unpredictable and prone to change, researchers (excluding those who engage in qualitative and idiographic research) aim to establish general laws of behaviour derived via scientific methods

• Science decrees that for every action there is a root cause; in the realm of human behaviour this might manifest as:

  • Cain hits Abel because Cain said that Abel hit him first

  • Noah built an ark because he knew a flood was coming

• If all events have a cause then that cause should be easy to ascertain and explain

  • Human behaviour may, however, conceal more than it reveals and have more 'layers' than appears at first glance e.g.

    • Cain hits Abel because he is jealous of him (Abel did not, in fact, hit Cain first)

    • Noah built an ark because he loves woodwork (when the flood came he claimed prior knowledge but this is just hindsight bias)

• Lab experiments strive to find causal explanations for behaviour

  • The implementation of a manipulated independent variable under controlled conditions is done to measure its effect on the dependent variable

  • The use of statistical analysis and standardised procedures means that researchers can move towards a ‘cause and effect' relationship

    • This increases the scientific credibility of psychology, as it facilitates predictions as to the outcome of investigations (i.e. testable hypotheses) under conditions in which extraneous variables are controlled for