OPPapers.com

To What Extent Can I Determine My Own Destiny

‘To what extent can I determine my own destiny?' Discuss in the light of theories, ideas and research encountered in the course.

Do I act as I do through choice or are my actions influenced by factors beyond our control? This uncertainty has concerned psychologists for decades, consequently giving rise to the 'Autonomy versus Determinism' debate. By definition, autonomy is the belief that we are free to make decisions and thus control all of our actions, however determinism contradicts this view by suggesting that all of our actions are entirely determined by the external and internal forces operating on them. Nowadays It is now commonly documented by most psychologists that it is a combination of both autonomy and determinism that determines our behaviour however this leads to another question, 'to what extent can I determine my own destiny‘? In order to answer this question this essay will firstly explore the autonomy versus determinism debate and consider how and why human action is determined and also if determinism prevents autonomy. This debate will be explore through different psychological perspectives. The trimodal theory by Richard Stevens will show how these perspectives can be integrated in an attempt to try and understand human action.

The determinist view that our behaviour is the result of some previous experience suggests that we have no free will to control our actions. As a result humanistic social psychologists have wholly rejected this idea and instead clearly supported the idea of autonomy. Autonomy basically means that we are free to choose what we do and that our behaviour is not constrained in any way. Carl Rogers (Wetherell, Still 1996:101) and Abraham Maslow (Stevens1 1996:152) enthusiastically believed that people implement choice in their behaviour and that the idea that we are not in control of our behaviour deprives us of our human characteristics. Rogers sees our personal world as being unique and believes it...