determinism
n. the philosophical position that all events, physical or mental, including human behavior, are the necessary results of antecedent causes or other forces. Determinism, which requires that both the past and the future are fixed, manifests itself in psychology as the position that all human behaviors result from specific, efficient causal antecedents, such as biological structures or processes, environmental conditions, or past experience. The relationships between these antecedents and the behaviors they produce can be described by generalizations much like the laws that describe regularities in nature. Determinism contrasts with belief in free will, which implies that individuals can choose to act in some ways independent of antecedent events and conditions. Those who advocate free-will positions often adopt a position of soft determinism, which holds that free will and responsibility are compatible with determinism. Others hold that free
will is illusory, a position known as hard determinism. Of contemporary psychological theories, behaviorism takes most clearly a hard determinist position. See also causality; genetic determinism; physical determinism; psychic determinism; psychological determinism. Compare indeterminism. —determinist
adj., n.
—deterministic
adj.