The debate between determinism and free will in psychology

¶ … individuals are of the opinion that the difference between determinism and free will is that determinism can be looked at as a lack of any real choice while free will is all about allowing a space for the freedom of making one's own decisions (Whitfield, 2014). The nature of one's choosing, or the degree to which one's choices are "determined" or "free" has been an issue under heated debate for many years in both psychology and philosophy (Ogletree & Oberle, 2008). The theory of freewill means that for someone to be considered to have acted freely, those actions must have directly originated from that individual. The thought of freewill states that we are considered to have acted freely, when we are permitted to do what we ourselves want and are not hindered in acting so.

Thus, freewill has a more logical psychological explanation, while on the other hand determinism can be explained more in a biological perspective. The theory of freewill is anchored on the notion that humans have the ability to make decisions or choices and that these consciously made choices do exist and are even to some degree not related to our previous experiences. On the other hand determinism revolves around the notion that an event can be explained by set of cause and effect relationships that have caused the occurrence of that event or in other words brought it into being.

In this paper I take a position to defend freewill, even though many factors can influence our psychology, ultimately we can change some of the negatives in life into positives.

Determinism, as explained earlier, is based on the argument that every event or action can be explained by a set of life variables that are accountable for the initiation of that event. Determinists are of the opinion that every action has a reaction. For instance, the idea of hard determinism describes human behavior as something that is completely determined by several different factors that are not within the control of that individual. Thus, determinism forms most behaviorists' primary viewpoint (Whitfield, 2014).

The most recurrent theme that has almost become a mantra for the majority of deterministic theorist is the notion that freewill is nothing but an illusionary state. Determinism is based on the fact that every element of life is in a way related, will the basic nature of freewill is anchored on the existence of choice. Despite these, obvious differences, both theories appear logical when analyzed through the viewpoint of the other (Whitfield, 2014).

According to the theory of free will, individuals are the sole determinant of their own actions. Contrary to this, Bandura et al. (1961), showed in his work showed that children who had violent parents or guardians would ultimately become violent parents themselves; they are acting through imitation and observation. Most behavioral theorists who believe in determinism argue that people are the end-results or products of their environment.

However, according to Whitfield (2014), most of us are not aware of the environmental causes of other people's behavior, as causative of our own behavior. Whitfield further argued that an individual who commits an offense has no real choice, that such an individual would have been influenced towards commuting the crime by a personal history and the environment he or she is in, making the law breaking incident natural and unavoidable. For a law abiding citizen, the opposite is true (Whitfield, 2014).

Deterministic explanations for human behavior tend to significantly reduce individual responsibility. For instance a psychological consequence of determinism could be that if someone is arrested for a violent offense, say murder, he or she would try to put in an insanity plea since they had no choice or were not responsible for their behavior; he or she might try to blame the act on their upbringing, their environment, mental illness, relationship stress, or childhood physical abuse (Whitfield, 2014).

This means that they will be arguing from the perspective that their actions were predetermined by factors outside of them. As an advocate of the idea of free will it is my opinion that determinism does not hold people accountable for their own behaviors and actions. I feel that deterministic psychology takes too lightly the uniqueness of individuals and their freedom to choose their own actions (Whitfield, 2014).

Psychological consequences of freewill appear to be hindered in cases when individuals have mental illness. For example, people with Bipolar disorder frequently lose control of their thoughts and in turn their actions; individuals with depression can in many instances, also lose control over their emotions. Thus in cases where individuals have mental illnesses, freewill is not really an argument and the blame is placed on other predetermined factors, for example genetics (Whitfield, 2014).

All psychological consequences of determinism and free will result in reactions to actions. Despite whether an action was predetermined or whether an individual committed it out of free will, there are ramifications to the action. It is my opinion that if we accept determinism theory then individuals who commit crime or make other bad choices in life will blame them on factors not within their control. I feel that as people, some of us do have a bad start, but at the same time, we are all capable of rising above our past experiences and turning bad starts into something positive if we want to (Whitfield, 2014).

Part 2

It is certain that the roles played by women and men in the modern social life are not altogether dissimilar. It is also obvious that in the past few decades feminist movements have empowered women to break free of the restrictions that they were confined to in their former roles (Davies & Shackelford, 2006; Dornsife and Dornsife, n.d.). Some of the causes of differences between the roles of men and women can be traced back to evolutionary history, particularly in the manner in which division of labor was and is still influenced by both environment and biology. In all societies the division of labor is based on the simplistic notion that men are required to do some tasks in the society and women are considered to do other tasks (Wood & Eagly, 2002; Dornsife and Dornsife, n.d.).

The precise activities carried out by men or women in a society depend on the tasks both can perform efficiently, based on men's greater strength, speed, and size and women's giving nursing children as well as birth. The segregation of labor in other words influences psychological and sex-based similarities and differences (Wood & Eagly, 2002; Dornsife and Dornsife, n.d.).

By observing the tasks of both men and women, individuals form sex-typed expectations or gender-function beliefs. For example, based on the fact that women are more involved in caring for children in developed nations, then women in such societies are believed to be particularly caring and nurturing. And also assuming that men in such societies have a higher likelihood of getting superior status jobs than women then, they are perceived to be assertive and dominant (Witt & Wood, 2010; Wood, Christensen, Hebl, & Rothgerber, 1997; Dornsife and Dornsife, n.d.).

Roles of gender subsequently, influence behavior of people through biological and social conditioning. In society-based interactions, individuals respond positively to those who conform to their gender role beliefs. Men and women might also assimilate gender views into individual identities (Wood, et al., 1997; Witt and Wood, 2010). Moreover, biological processes support the performance of gender roles, for example, testosterone increases for both women and men before athletic competitions (Wood and Eagly, 2012). Through the following research, I have demonstrated how social roles are responsible for gender differences.

Currently, women and men play somewhat the same role in the public space and take up similar careers and roles. With the advancements in technology, women have circumvented the limitations of physical strength and have now taken up positions that would have traditionally been reserved exclusively for the male gender (Lindsey & Christy, 2011). The growing equality between women and men in work and careers proves that gender differences are basically outcomes of social norms and expectations. In fact, gender differences only exist in the public space just because people were taught that way through traditions and socialization (Ward, 2003). But due to technological developments and changes in thought processes, both sexes have access to careers. Thus, changes in the manner in which the societies perceive workplace equality is testament to the fact that gender differences in the public space are not based on biology but rather caused by socialization and learning from the environment (Dickens, 2014).

Currently the majority of people are of the opinion that gender differences are of biological origins and argue that such differences also existed in primitive societies because of the biological differences between women and men, for example, women's ability to bear children and nurture them (Wood & Eagly, 2002). However, as mentioned earlier technological developments have removed some of the restrictions placed on women by traditional gender differences. As a matter of fact, technology has allowed women to assume an expanded role in the public space. Similarly, men have also been enabled to take on an expanded role in terms of nurturing and general parenting that they could not in the past. Therefore, the changes to modern gender differences show that past gender differences were only an outcome of expectations of the society on the sexes (Dickens, 2014).

There is little scientific proof supporting the argument that gender differences are due to biological differences between men and women. Males and females are physically and genetically similar except for very small biological differences primarily for the purpose of reproduction. Actually, an analysis of forty six research studies on differences in gender differences revealed that 78% of the areas that were being investigated did not reveal any huge differences between women and men. Thus apart from the small biological differences linked to "mate selection" and reproduction (Davies & Shackelford, 2006), women and men are capable of carrying out the same tasks and playing the same roles in society. Thus, the differences between a woman's role and a man's role in society are only so because of societal norms and rules that are learned through socialization or modeling (Ward, 2003).

According to author Ward (2003), gender differences are due to social programming with family units. The concept of identification by Freud is one of the most important theories that explain the social origins of gender differences (Bussey & Bandura, 1999). As child starts to identify with a parent of the same gender, he or she also learns about the way of thinking and the actions of that parent. The child then gradually begins to assume the role played by the parent that it identifies with. Therefore gender differences can be taught early within a family unit as both parents and children alike are not aware on the societal origins of gender differences. Social learning continues later in the child's life through adolescence when sex characteristics start to develop. During this period, institutionalized gender roles are further influenced and reinforced by the society (Bussey & Bandura, 1999).

Even though these types of cognitive programming on gender differences are not directly taught to adolescents, they are assimilated by them through a combination of peer pressure, modeling and social learning (Smith & Leaper, 2006). Images and motions pictures linked to gender roles in mass and news media also influence they way in which people perceive gender differences and how they view themselves as either female or male (Smith & Leaper, 2006).

On the other hand, supporters of biological origins of gender differences argue that sexual orientation is fundamentally biological. This argument means that gender or rather sex in this case is biologically determined and cannot in any way be influenced by the environment. One of the evidences put forward by the proponents of biology as the origins of gender differences is the fact that the male brain is biologically different from that of the female. Likewise, it has also been argued that the brain of a homosexual male also has slight differences (structurally) from that of the heterosexual male (Rice & Gavrilets, 2012).

However, it is my argument that sexual orientation is not exactly the same thing as gender differences. According to authors Kiecolt and Acock (1988) gender roles are a set of behaviors and actions that are associated with a specific gender. One's gender differences may or may not be related to the individual's sexual orientation and in some cases the differences are against what is expected of the sexual orientation as taught by the society.

Recent changes in gender differences have been due to changes in the structures of family units (Kiecolt & Acock, 1988). Because of situations such as those that force children to live in single parent families, children in today's society cannot really fit Freud's classical parent identification theory. According to a study done by Kiecolt and Acock, individuals who were raised in single parent homes developed different mentalities with regards to the conventional gender differences compared to the individuals who were raised in traditional family units. This study reveals that people raised by single mothers are more likely to believe in the expansion of women's power in society and also their political roles and are usually less concerned with sticking to traditional female and male gender differences. This shows that in non-traditional family units, the establishment and institutionalization of conventional gender differences is weaker than in traditional family units (Dickens, 2014).

Overall, gender differences are basically sociological outcomes that are influenced and propagated by societal units. Furthermore, technological changes and alterations of the family structure have changed modern gender roles and expanded the participation of women in the public space. Thus, this proves that gender differences originated from societal conditioning and not biological origins (Dickens, 2014).

Part 3

Violence is a phenomenon that has always been with us although its meaning and presence is different in different times and different places. There have been heated debates about violence. Historians have significantly contributed to the discussion and added to our understanding of the fluctuations in this phenomenon (Wood, 2011). The history of violence has moved somewhat from social history towards cultural history in the last few decades (Wood, 2006); whereby discussions of methodology do not touch on biological issues, except only to downplay them (Green, 2007).

However, associated disciplines have seen several publications on the issue of evolutionary theory notably law, sociology, criminology, political science and public policy. According to author Storey (2013), culture is the way in which we, humans, live in nature. Much of the focus on evolutionary psychology from historians has concentrated on violence. The most notable effort has been David T. Courtwright's work, the study of violence in America, which took into account social factors in terms of evolutionary and biological evidence with regards to male aggression (Courtwright, 1996).

Violence among people is against so many morals and principles that humans supposedly hold dear, it sustains despite the many attempts to reduce or eliminate it. Many experts who have studied the matter, be them, philosophers, psychiatrists, criminologists, psychiatrists or psychologists, and etc., have argued that the environment in which an individual is raised as a child is strongly linked to his or her predisposition to violence later in life (child neglect, abuse, witnessing violence regularly and so on) (Attempting to explain violence, n.d). While I agree with the studies, statistics and experiences of the majority, I feel that it is inaccurate to completely believe in the idea that child development is the root cause of violent acts later is life. Violence has its roots in biology, genetics and environment.

Childhood is one of the most significant formative periods of one's life. It is the time when values and habits are created and communication initiated. So to argue that violence has its roots in childhood development is only to point to the environmental stimuli to violence. It is crucial to work hard to provide safer and less violent childhood for our progeny; however it is also important to note that violence is systemic in human biology and genetics and will necessitate changing biology and genetics, besides the environment (Attempting to explain violence, n.d). It is my opinion that violence is brought about by the following three stimuli: biology, genes and the environment.

A notable challenge in living beings is communication, which is the relaying of ideas. Given that as humans we do not reproduce by fission, in other words we require the mating of males and females, thus we must be interdependent upon other people to enable procreation. To facilitate this interdependence, there is a need for us to relay emotions, ideas, concepts and etc. to other people since if we do not this we would likely not have had the interactions necessary to evolve to the stage we are now. As humans there is a need for us to depend on each other for our continued survival (Attempting to explain violence, n.d).

Ideas or concepts are created from external stimuli which is transmitted to the nerve centre (within a range of sensory organs) and converted to chemical and electrical messages. These signals are then relayed to the brain which in turn adds its own input (deduced future, the present or past) to this input using several complex pathways to form a sort of biological mechanism that has the ability to decide on what to do through the chemistry or physics of neurons, thus creating a brain activity. Stated simply this chain of events is called the "cone of perception" (Attempting to explain violence, n.d).

The universe we live in is made of billions of protons, electrons and neutrons. Of these only a small portion can be viewed or perceived through the human mind. Thus this means that we as humans are a very small subset of the universe we know of, both in terms of intellectual capacity as well as matter. The cone of perception is a descriptor of the mass of chemical, physical, genetic, biological, intellectual factors that can make up a human if we were to view an image of the universal signature of man (Attempting to explain violence, n.d).