psychological determinism

Psychological Determinsim

By Trinity and Carla

What is psychological determinsim ?

What is determinism ?

Psychological determinism is the idea that all events in a persons life, both mental and physical are determined by external factors.

Determinism is the belief that all human behaviours flow from genetic or enviromental factors that, once they have occured, are difficult or even impossible to change.

Ivan pavlov

• Ivan pavlov developed classical conditioning
• classical conditioning to pavlov was the subconscious repeating of beaviours to bring about specific outcomes
• When you learn through classical conditioning, an autonomic response is created to a specific stimuli and develops into behaviour

Pavlov's Dogs

There are generally biological factors which determine an organisms behaviour.Example being the hormonal response to food which causes a dog to salavate or the human release of dopamine in repsonse of a cute dog, this is known as a 'unconditional reflex'.

Pavlov was able to condition the dogs to salivate at specific given times, he did this by using a bell which he called a 'neutral stimulus'

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Evaluation of Pavlov:

criticism 1:

Criticism 2:

Advantage 1:

Pavlov's experiment was undertaken in a lab, where only the dogs response to food was being examined. However, in the real world there are many variables which come into play when making decisions on how we act. Conditioning in this way is only effective when nothing else is involved.

Though other factors are at play when making decisions, Pavlov's theory can be empirically checked through many behaviours we learn throughout our lives, like the association of a 'ping' sound with a phone notification etc.

Ultimately, we are not dogs. Though Pavlov's theory was influential we cannot compare the complex inner workings of a humans brain to that of a dogs considering the decisions we as humans make are governed by emotions and detailed processes of thoughts.

B.F. Skinner

• Skinner then developed Ivan's notion of 'conditioned reflex' and applied to his study of behaviour - he called this psychological behaviourism

• Skinner's theory: all behaviour is a product of genetic and enviromental conditions, (all human actions are dependant on the consequences)

• His approach is also known as 'radical behaviourism' as it involves all aspects of mental capacity, e.g. thoughts and emotions

• Skinner denied existence of internal psychological states such as intentions and purposes because it lacked physical dimension

Skinner rejecting free will

This belief is from his assumption that human behaviour follows 'laws' and that the causes of human beahviour are outside a person.

He viewed free will as an illusion and believed our behaviour is strongly governed by internal or external forces of which we have no control over, e.g. how we act in a natural disaster.

Operant conditioning

Put this to the test by using 'Skinner's Box'

Skinner's development of operant conditioning allowed the conditioner to have more control played a key role in helping psychologist understand how behaviour is learnt and explains why reinforcements are so effective in the learning process

Evaluation of Skinner:

Criticism 2:

Criticism 1:

Advantage 1:

the idea that we only learn through operant conditioning is wrong we learn - we also use emotions and cognitive reasoning.

there is many applications of it in society as we are likely to learn trhough positive reinforcment.

overlooks genetic predisposition which can make youmore likely to adapt a behaviour compared to other.

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Conclusion of Skinner

Conclusion of Ivan

classical conditioning associates involuntary behaviour with a stimulus

Operant conditioning associates voluntary action with consequence

Thank you!