How would you live your life if you really accepted that humans have no free will and everything you do is predetermined? How would this change if you accepted that our free will can overcome any innate tendencies? Psychological findings often relate to or even support certain philosophical ideas. In this article, we'll explore the key philosophical debates that can be sparked by psychological research.
- First, we'll provide an overview of the key philosophical issues and debates in psychology.
- Next, we'll discuss the free will and determinism debate in psychology and its potential implications.
- Then, we'll look at the importance of nature and nurture and the general conclusion of the nature vs. nurture debate in psychology.
- Moving along, we'll go through some examples of the reductionism vs holism debate psychology.
- We'll discuss the key ideas surrounding the idiographic vs nomothetic approaches debate.
- Finally, we'll sum up the current debates in psychology.
Fig. 1 - Philosophical debates, many of which were initiated in ancient times, have remained relevant for centuries or even millenniums.
Philosophical Issues and Debates Psychology
Philosophical debates discuss the nature of reality and the human condition. Although philosophy might seem abstract at first, it has important implications for how we approach life. Therefore, it's important to keep in mind what philosophical assumptions are promoted by psychological research and what are the implications for all of us.
The key philosophical debates you need to know when evaluating psychological theories include:
We'll look at the meaning of each of these concepts, and how to spot them in psychological theories
What is the Free Will and Determinism Debate?
Psychology as a scientific discipline is very much interested in determining the causes of human behaviour. Psychology aims to understand the factors that predict behaviour and other psychological outcomes. This approach makes many psychological studies fall closer to the deterministic side of this spectrum.
The free will and determinism debate is concerned with the issue of whether we are in control of our behaviour or whether the way we behave is a result of external factors like the environment or genetics.
An example of a free-will argument is that no matter the external factors, we have free choice when it comes to our actions.
For example, just because we are angry and have aggressive tendencies doesn't mean we have to act out with violence.
While a deterministic perspective looks at the factors that predict violence (e.g. upbringing, genetics, emotional state) and proposes that these influences can predict or determine violence. Thus, if someone commits violence under such conditions, it might not have been truly their choice.
Think about the implications of the free will versus determinism debate for our justice system, which assumes that our actions are a result of our free will. If we accept that some factors make people commit crimes outside of their free will, can we really punish them?
Free Will and Determinism in Psychology
One approach in psychology, which stresses the importance of a free will, is the humanistic approach. Humanistic psychology states that while external factors can influence us, ultimately, we have the final say in whether or not we take the action.
On the other side of the spectrum, we have Freud’s psychodynamic approach. This approach sees behaviour as a result of unconscious memories, emotions and conflicts, stemming from childhood experiences. According to this theory, we're governed by forces we're not even aware of and our past is bound to influence our current actions and states.
Within determinism there exists:
- Hard determinism
- Soft determinism
- Environmental, biological, and psychic determinism
What is the Importance of Nature and Nurture?
Another philosophical debate that comes up in psychology is the nature vs. nurture debate. Nature vs. nurture has become an important issue because if we can identify where our behaviours come from, we can effectively modify unhelpful behaviours either through biological or environmental interventions.
The nature versus nurture debate is concerned with whether our behaviours are shaped by our biology, aka, nature (genes, brain structure etc.) or whether it's the result of our upbringing (nurture).
Nature vs. Nurture in Psychology
Chomsky’s (1965) nativist theory of language attributes language development to an innate biological mechanism. This theory proposes that we are equipped with a neural structure called a ‘language acquisition mechanism’, which is the encoder for language.
- Thus, the ability to acquire language is an innately present and hard-wired mechanism, which is also why children can learn a language so easily.
On the other hand, behaviourism stresses the importance of the environment in shaping our behaviours. A basic assumption of behaviourism is that we are born as a ‘tabula rasa’ (a blank slate). This approach suggests that humans acquire all behaviours the same way any other animal does, through interacting with the environment.
- We learn to engage in behaviours that are rewarded by our environment, and seize behaviours that are punished.
Fig. 2: The nature and nurture debate aims to identify what types of factors influence our behaviours.
General Conclusion of the Nature vs. Nurture Debate
As you can imagine, the causes and correlates of human behaviour, development, personality or psychological outcomes are incredibly complex. The answer is rarely just the genes or just the environment. In most cases, psychological phenomena are caused by a complex interaction of both influences.
The interactionist approach in the nature vs. nurture debate proposes that behaviour is shaped by the interaction between nature and nurture, considering both sides of the argument and how they intertwine.
The interactionist approach in psychology recognises that to provide a sufficient explanation of behaviour we need to recognise a number of factors including biological, environmental, social, psychological and cultural factors.
What Is the Reductionism vs Holism Debate Psychology?
Reductionism is a common scientific approach which aims to understand complex phenomena by breaking them down into smaller and smaller parts. Chemists break things down into elements, physicists into atoms, biologists into cells and neuroscientists into synapses.
The assumption is that by understanding the parts, we can understand the whole system.
We break apart the jigsaw into its individual pieces, rather than looking at the whole picture.
Reductionism vs. holism debates whether we should break down concepts like people’s behaviour into smaller parts to understand it, or whether we should always look at the big picture.
Holism argues that to understand the system, we need to look at it as more than just a sum of its parts. They recognise that the components of each system are interconnected, they influence and regulate each other, and we can't study these interactions when we only look at single components.
Reductionism and Holism in Psychology
An example of a reductionist approach in psychology is behaviourism.
Behaviourism is reductionist because it reduces the causes of all behaviours to the interactions with the environment. It fails to consider the role of our biology, cognitions, emotions, or even the influence of others on shaping the way we behave.
This limits its ability to explain and modify complex behaviours.
An example of a holistic approach in psychology is social psychology.
Social psychology recognises that individual behaviour is affected by our social system. When we are in a social context, different forces will influence our behaviour than when we are on our own.
Fig 3: Reductionism is common in science, it involves breaking systems down into their individual components.
What are the Idiographic vs. Nomothetic Approaches?
The idiographic vs. nomothetic approaches debate is concerned with whether we should aim to identify the universal principles or classifications of human behaviour, or whether individual people are unique and cannot be understood using general concepts.
The idiographic approach stresses the uniqueness of each individual, while the nomothetic approach compares individuals against general and shared concepts.
Idiographic vs. Nomothetic Approaches in Psychology
In the study of personality, Freud's psychodynamic theory of personality is an example of an idiographic approach. When conceptualising the personality of his patients, Freud looked at each of them individually, in the context of their personal experiences and their feelings in response to these experiences.
Freud used case studies to demonstrate his theory. Using qualitative studies is in line with the idiographic approach, while quantitative studies are often associated with the nomothetic approach.
In contrast, the Big Five Model of Personality is an example of a nomothetic approach. This model argues that everyone's personality can be described in relation to predefined personality traits like openness to experience, extraversion, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and agreeableness.
Summary: Current Debates in Psychology
In summary, you consider studies, theories, or approaches in psychology in the context of all four of these debates when evaluating them. It's important to note that theories are rarely purely on one side of the debate, they can fall anywhere on the spectrum between the two extremes.
Moreover, just because a theory is reductionistic or deterministic doesn't mean it's necessarily bad. However, we need to consider its limitations and what the implications are if we accept it.
Philosophical Debates in Psychology - Key takeaways
- The free will and determinism debate is concerned with the issue of whether we are in control of our behaviour (free will) or whether the way we behave is a result of external factors like the environment or genetics (determinism).
- The nature versus nurture debate is concerned with whether our behaviours are shaped by our biology (nature, i.e., our genes, brain structure etc.) or whether it's the result of our upbringing (nurture).
- Reductionism vs. holism debates whether we should break down concepts like people’s behaviour into smaller parts to understand it (reductionism), or whether we should always look at the big picture (holism).
- The idiographic approach stresses the uniqueness of each individual, while the nomothetic approach compares individuals against general and shared concepts.
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