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- People have the ability to choose their own course of action, to determine their own lives - we have the freedom to choose (within certain limits)
- People have responsibility for their actions - they are the cause of what they do
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- Behaviour is determined by external events or stimuli or by internal factors (e.g. unconscious drives, genes etc.)
- People are passive responders - therefore we do not have freedom to choose
- Behaviour occurs in a regular, orderly manner which is totally predictable (in principle)
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- Behaviour can be reduced to minute units of analysis such as stimulus-response connections, neuron activity, muscle movements and any larger units of analysis are pointless.
- Explanations of complex wholes in terms of the units of which those “wholes” are composed are the only explanations that are worthwhile
- Behaviourism: All behaviour can be reduced to stimulus response associations.
- Cognitive: Behaviour can be reduced to computer program models (i.e. machine reductionism)
- Biological: All behaviour can be reduced to biological origins, e.g. parts of the brain, hormones, chromosomes etc.
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- Behaviour can be reduced to minute units of analysis such as stimulus-response connections, neuron activity, muscle movements and any larger units of analysis are pointless.
- Explanations of complex wholes in terms of the units of which those “wholes” are composed are the only explanations that are worthwhile
- Behaviourism: All behaviour can be reduced to stimulus response associations.
- Cognitive: Behaviour can be reduced to computer program models (i.e. machine reductionism)
- Biological: All behaviour can be reduced to biological origins, e.g. parts of the brain, hormones, chromosomes etc.
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- Individuals are born with an inherited ‘blue print’. All behaviour in innate.
- Behaviours that are not already present at birth will develop as though they were on a genetic time-switch (i.e. through the process of maturation)
- The environment has little to do with individual development and there is little that anyone can do to change what nature has provided
- Behaviour is not within our control
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- The infants mind at birth is “tabula rasa” (blank slate) and everything is learnt through experience
- Changes in the environment produce changes in the individual
- Within their physical limitations, anyone can become anything, providing the environment is right
- Behaviour is within our control
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- Materialism is the belief that ultimately physical matter (e.g. the brain) is the only reality and that everything, including thought, feeling, mind, and will, can be explained in terms of matter and physical phenomena. Therefore, only the brain exists.
- Idealism: Ultimately, only mental objects (i.e. the mind) exist.
Physical objects, properties, events (whatever is physical) are reducible to mental objects, properties, events.
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- Dualists believe that the mind and the brain are separate. There are different types of dualism
- Descartes dualism: The view that the mind and body function separately, without interchange.
- Cartesian dualism argues that there is a two-way interaction between mental and physical substances.
- Parallelism: The view that mind and body exist in pre-established harmony. From this viewpoint, no interaction or causation is necessary because, like two clocks that keep the same time, the behaviour of the two substances (mind and body) has been synchronised.
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- Research addresses the wholeness and uniqueness of the individual
- Aim is to give a complete and in-depth picture of the individual to achieve a unique understanding of them.
- Generalisability and predictability of findings from research are not important
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- Theories depend upon the scientific observation of a number of participants
- The approach of investigating large groups of people in order to find general laws of behaviour that apply to everyone.
- Individuality is not important
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