Key Debates in Psychology

Debates in
Psychology
SANJU RUSARA SENEVIRATNE MBPSS
1

Topics Covered
 An overview and consideration of applications of the
following debates in psychology:
 Nomothetic vs. Idiographic
 Nature vs. Nurture
 Free Will vs. Determinism
 Holism vs. Reductionism
2

The Study of Individuals or the Study of People?
“Every man is in certain respects like all other men, like some other
men, and like no other men”
(Kluckhohn and Murray 1953)
• The nomothetic approach: ways in which we are like some other
human beings is the subject matter of individual differences.
• While this approach acknowledges that humans are not like
chemicals, it also claims that there is only a limited relatively small
number of ways in which people differ from each other, sometimes
referred to as group norms.
• Examples include personality, intelligence, age, gender, and ethnic
and cultural background.
3

If psychologists can establish the ways in which we are like some
others, then they can also tell us how we are different from others.
In either case, people are compared with each other, and this is usually
done using psychometric tests (‘mental measurement’).
The results of these tests are then analyzed using a statistical technique
called factor analysis, which is used to identify the basic factors or
dimensions that constitute personality, intelligence, etc. Once these have
been identified, the basis for comparing people with each other has
been established.
An important effect of the use of such statistical methods [factor
analysis] on scores from groups of subjects was to create an
‘average’ person. Psychology was to become the scientific
of such hypothesized average ‘individuals’, rather than investigating
individuals themselves.
(Jones and Elcock 2001)
4

The idiographic approach: ways in which we are unlike anyone else is the
subject of those psychologists who adopt an idiographic approach. This
is the study of individual norms, of people as unique individuals.
The idiographic/nomothetic distinction is related to another distinction
made, independently, by two nineteenth-century German philosophers,
Dilthey and Windelband, between two kinds of science:
1. The natural sciences, such as physics and chemistry, aim to establish
general laws, allowing predictions based on statements about cause-
and-effect relationships
2. The moral sciences, such as philosophy, humanities, history, biography
and literary criticism, and ‘social science’, involve an intuitive, empathetic
understanding called “Verstehen”.
5

The Study of Individuals or the Study of People? 6

The goal of psychology is understanding, while that of nomothetic
science is prediction and control.
According to Holt (1967), all the highly developed sciences aim at
prediction and control through understanding, and these goals cannot
be separated. He argues that:
”Most scientists, as contrasted with technologists, are themselves
more motivated by the need to figure things out, to develop good
theories and workable models that make nature intelligible, and less
concerned with the ultimate payoff, the applied benefits of
prediction and control that understanding makes possible…”
Holt believes that many psychologists, based on this misconception of
natural science as totally rigorous, objective and machine-like, try to
emulate this nomothetic approach.
7

The proper methods of personology are intuition and empathy, which
have no place in natural science.
Holt (1967) rejects this claim by pointing out that all scientists make use
of intuition and empathy as part of the most exciting and creative
of their work, namely when deciding what to study, what variables to
control, what empirical strategies to use, and when making discoveries
within the structure of empirical data.
To the extent that such processes are inevitably involved in science,
which is, first and foremost, a human activity, no science can be
of as wholly objective.
8

The failure to recognize the role of these processes , and the belief in the
‘objective truth’ produced by the use of the ’scientific method’, can
result in theories and explanations that can work to the detriment of
certain individuals and social groups.
While ‘hard sciences’ may appear softer when the role of intuition is
acknowledged, it is also nomothetic psychology that has been most
guilty of the ‘crimes’ of racism, ethnocentrism and sexism.
9

The concepts of personology must be individualized, not generalized
as are the concepts of natural science.
General laws are not possible in personology because its subject matter
is unique individuals that have no place in natural science.
These two beliefs are dealt with together, because they lie at the very
heart of the nomothetic/idiographic debate. They relate to two
fundamental questions:
Does it make sense to talk about a wholly unique individual?
What is the relationship between individual cases and general
laws/principles in scientific practice?
10

Allport (1961) distinguished between 3 types of personal traits or
dispositions: cardinal, central and secondary. Briefly, cardinal traits refer
to a particular, all-pervading disposition that dictates and directs almost
all of an individual’s behavior. In practice, these are very rare.
These individual traits are peculiar (idiosyncratic) to each person, in at
least 3 senses:
1. A trait that is central for one person may be only secondary for another,
and irrelevant for a third. What makes a trait central or secondary is not
what it is but how often and how strongly it influences the person’s
behavior (Carver and Scheier 1992)
2. Some traits are possessed by only one person; indeed, there may be as
many separate traits as there are people.
3. Even if two different people are given (for convenience) the same
descriptive label, it may not mean the same for the individuals
concerned, and to that extent it isn’t the same trait.
11

While the idiographic approach contends that people are not
comparable (everyone is, in effect, on a ‘different scale’), comparing
people in terms of a specified number of traits or dimensions (in order
to determine individual differences) is precisely what the nomothetic
approach involves.
According to this view, traits have the same psychological meaning for
everyone, so that people differ only in the extent to which the trait is
present. By contrast, the idiographic approach sees differences between
people as qualitative (a difference in kind).
12

Recommended Reading Material
Allport, G.W. (1962) The general and the unique in psychological science. Journal
of Personality, 30, 405–22.
Holt, R.R. (1967) Individuality and generalization in the psychology of personality.
In R.S. Lazarus and E.M. Opton (eds) Personality. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
(This is a revised version of the original article, which appeared in the Journal
of Personality, 30, 377–494.)
Krahé, B. (1992) Personality and Social Psychology: Towards a Synthesis. London:
Sage. (Especially Chapters 6, 7 and 9.)
13

Heredity and Environment
The debate about the roles of heredity and environment (or nature and nurture)
is one of the most enduring, as well as one of the most heated and controversial,
both inside and outside psychology.
Whether in a religious, philosophical, political or scientific context, the
debate is concerned with some of the most fundamental questions that
human beings ask about themselves:
 How do we come to be the way we are?
 What makes us develop in the way we do?
These questions are expressed in a very general, abstract way, in order
to highlight an ambiguity involved:
 Are they concerned with the human species as a whole, relative to
species?
 Are they concerned with individual differences between human
i.e. individuals relative to each other?
14

In a broad, general sense, the nature-nurture debate involves both types, or
levels, of question.
For example:
”Is language an innate (inborn) ability that is unique to the human
AND “Is it a ‘natural’ (biologically given) ability that will appear, under
‘normal’ environmental conditions, in people with normal brains?”
Represent the first (species) level.
Clearly, if language is a species-specific ability, then the focus of theory and
research will be on the nature of that ability, exactly what it is that is innate or
biologically ’given’, how the brain is specialized for language and so on.
Similar questions are asked about perception and aggression.
15

In the case of aggression, both types of question have been posed:
“Are human beings the naturally most aggressive species on the planet?”
represents the same level as the first question regarding language.
”Why are some people more aggressive than other?”
represents the other level, the one that focuses on individual differences.
According to Plomin (1994), it is in the latter sense (i.e. individual differences)
that the nature-nurture debate takes place.
However, there is another, equally important, distinction that needs to be made
between the kinds of questions that are asked relating to heredity and
environment.
In order to appreciate this distinction we need to take a brief look at the
philosophical roots of the nature-nurture debate.
16

Nativism: philosophical theory that sees nature (i.e. heredity) as determining
certain abilities and capacities, rather than learning and experience.
 Rene Descartes (1596-1650).
Empiricism: philosophical theory that sees the human mind as a blank slate
that is filled in by learning and experience.
 John Locke (1632-1704)
These two doctrines represent polar opposites – i.e. they take the view that it is
either nature (nativism) or nurture (empiricism) that accounts for human
they are either innate or learnt.
Most present-day psychologists would reject such an extreme either/or
to such a complex issues, mainly on the grounds that the two theories attempt
answer the wrong question:
 ‘is it nature or nurture?’
17

Three key questions that formed the basis of this debate:
1. "How much?”
This is linked to the individual differences form of the debate.
2. “Which one?”
It is still concerned with trying to quantify the contributions of genetic and
environmental factors.
3. ”How do they interact?”
This is concerned with qualitative issues – the ways in which heredity and
environment influence each other.
18

Within genetics (the science of heredity), ‘nature’ refers to what is typically
thought of as inheritance.
This denotes (differences in) genetic material (chromosomes and genes), which
are transmitted from generation to generation (i.e. from parents to offspring).
Gregor Mendel - the ‘father of genetics – explained the difference between
smooth and wrinkled seeds in garden peas in terms of different genes (1865).
Similarly, in modern human genetics, the focus is on genetic differences among
individuals.
“Nature” in this context does not refer to the nature of the human species, what
we all have in common genetically with other human being (and indeed with
other primates) but rather to genetically produced differences among
individuals within the (human) species.
19

The raw material of evolution is genetic variability: individuals with genes that
help them survive changing environmental conditions will be more likely to
produce offspring (who also possess those genes), while those individuals lacking
such genes won’t. In this way, new species develop, and species-specific
characteristics (including behaviors) are those that have enabled the species to
evolve and survive.
The basis units of hereditary transmission are genes.
 Genes are large molecules of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), extremely complex
chemical chains, comprising a ladder-like, double-helix structure.
 Genes occur in pairs, and are situated on the chromosomes, which are found
within the nuclei of living cells.
 The normal human being inherits 23 pairs of chromosomes, one member of each
pair from each parent.
 These consist of 22 pairs of autosomal chromosomes and 2 sex chromosomes (pair
23).
20

Self-Duplication:
 DNA copies itself by ‘unzipping’ in the middle with each half forming its
complement.
 In other words, when a cell divides, all the genetic information (chromosomes
genes) contained within the cell nucleus is reproduced so that ‘offspring’ cells are
identical to the ‘parent’ cells. This process is called mitosis and applies to non-
gonadal (non-reproductive) cells (such as skin, blood, and muscle cells).
 The reproductive or germ cells duplicate through meiosis, whereby each cell
contains only half of the individual’s chromosomes or genes, which member of a
chromosome pair goes to any particular cell seems to be determined randomly.
Protein Synthesis:
 Essentially, DNA controls the production of RNA within the cell nucleus. Genes
code for proteins and enzymes are called structural genes, and they represent
foundation of classical genetics.
 However, most genes are regulator genes: they code for products that bind with
DNA itself and serve to regulate other genes.
21

When the term ‘environment’ is used in a psychological context, we normally
think of all those influences or potential sources of influence, that lie outside the
individual’s body, in the form of other people, opportunities for intellectual
stimulation and social interaction, as well as the physical circumstances of the
individual’s life.
For most babies and young children, the immediate family is the environmental
context in which their development takes place.
We normally view the environment as:
 External to the individual
 Post-natal (i.e. something that becomes important after birth
 A way of referring to a whole set of (potential) influences that impinge on a passive
individual, shaped by his/her environment, without in any way shaping or
contributing to that environment.
On all three counts, this view seems to be mistaken.
22

Instead of seeing the environment as independent of/separate from the
individual, people may be seen as making their own environments.
This is demonstrated by gene-environment correlations, non-shared
psychosocial experiences, attaching their own meaning to events/experiences,
and gene-environment interaction. Related to these are niche-picking and niche-
building.
Behavior genetic research not only shows beyond a doubt that genetic factors
are involved in complex human behavior and psychological characteristics, it also
provides the strongest evidence for the importance of environmental factors.
While the nature-nurture debate may be ‘over’, eugenics may be back in fashion.
Molecular genetics involves the attempt to identify specific genes responsible for
individual differences. The research on which such claims are based seems to
ignore polymorphisms, and pleiotropic and contingent expression. It also
assumes the additive nature of genetic influence.
23

Another problem with molecular genetics is defining and measuring the
phenotype for which the genes are being sought. Heritability estimates for
schizophrenia are influenced by what criteria for diagnosing it are used, a
problem that rarely occurs with physical diseases.
One solution to this problem is to look for the genetics of endophenotypes.
Genetic research into homosexuality raises several important social and political
issues, including why the research is seen as so important in the first place, and
whether society becomes more or less tolerant of homosexuality if it is found
that homosexual individuals ”can’t help it”.
24

Ceci, S.J. and Williams, W.M. (eds) (1999) The Nature–Nurture Debate: The
Essential Readings. Oxford:Blackwell.
Gerhardt, S. (2004) Why Love Matters: How affection shapes a baby’s brain. Hove:
Routledge.
Gross, R. (2008) Key Studies in Psychology (5th edn). London: Hodder Education.
(Chapters 26, 28, 34, 35.)
Pinker, S. (2003) The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature.
Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd.
Plomin, R. (1994) Genetics and Experience: The Interplay between Nature and
Nurture. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Rolls, G. (2005) Classic Case Studies in Psychology. London: Hodder Arnold.
(Chapter 12.)
25

Free Will and Determinism
There are a number of reasons why psychologists are interested in this debate:
Historical Reasons
The debate about free will and determinism has been a central feature of
Western philosophy, at least since Descartes. Given psychology’s intellectual and
historical roots in philosophy, it would be very surprising if psychologists were
not interested in the issue for this reason alone.
To understand the causes of behavior
Identifying the causes of phenomena, as part of the attempt to explain them,
is a fundamental part of ‘classical’ science. This involves ‘anthropomorphizing –
that is, attributing human abilities and characteristics to non-human things. No
one believes that chemicals can agree or neurons can make decisions. But we do
attribute these abilities to people, they are part of our concept of a person, and
this concept forms and essential part of common-sense psychology.
26

According to determinism:
…in the case of everything that exists, there are antecedent conditions,
or unknown, given which that thing could not be other than it is… More
it says that everything, including every cause, is the effect of some cause or
causes; or that everything is not only determinate but causally
true, it holds not only for all things that have existed but for all things that
or ever will exist.
(Taylor 1963)
For these reasons, psychologists must take seriously the common-sense view
that people make decisions, agree (or not) with each other, and, in a whole host
of ways, exercise their free will.
And having free will depends upon having ‘a mind’: deciding, agreeing and so on
are precisely the kinds of things we do with our minds; they are mental processes
or events.
27

While free will implies having a mind, having a mind does not imply free will.
To investigate the influence of mental events on behavior
Even if we accept that human thinking and behavior are different from
natural, physical phenomena, and that they are not determined (caused) in the
same way (or that a different kind of explanation is required), for most of its
history as a separate discipline; psychology has operated as if there were no
difference.
 Methodological behaviorism: the belief in the importance of empirical methods,
especially the experiment, as a way of collecting data about human thought and
behavior which can be quantified and statistically analyzed.
 Philosophical behaviorism: in its extreme form, as represented by Watson, the
very existence of mind is denied; thinking, for example, is nothing but a series of
vocal or sub-vocal and verbal responses (i.e. ‘mind’ is reduced to behavior).
28

To diagnose mental disorders
When psychologists and psychiatrists discuss abnormality, and diagnose
treat mental disorders, they often make judgements about free will and
determinism, either implicitly or explicitly.
In a general sense, mental disorders can be seen as the partial or complete
breakdown of the control a person normally has over his/her behavior,
and thinking.
Being judged to have lost the control that we think of as a major feature of
normality (‘being of sound mind’), either temporarily or permanently, is a
acceptable defense in cases of criminal offences.
To discuss moral accountability
Underlying the whole question of legal – and, by the same token, moral –
responsibility, is the presupposition that people are, at least some of the time,
able to control their behavior and to choose between different courses of
29

To understand the theories of major figures in psychology
Most of the major theorists in psychology have addressed the issue of free
will and determinism, including James, Freud, Skinner, Fromm, Kelly and
The issue had also been discussed by those working in the field of artificial
intelligence, such as Johnson-Laird, and sociobiologists, principally Wilson and
Dawkins.
This represents the single major reason for discussing free will and
to fully appreciate the theories of these major figures we must understand their
position regarding this fundamentally important feature of human beings.
30

What do we mean by free will?
 Having a choice
 Not being coerced or constrained
 Voluntary
 Intentional behavior based on models
 Deliberate control
Psychological reactance demonstrates peoples’ belief in their free will, as does
intrinsic motivation and self-determination.
According to Johnson-Laird, despite being unaware of the roots of many of our
decisions, we are free because our models of ourselves enable us to choose
to choose (self-reflective automata).
In Norman and Shallice’s model of processing capacity, deliberate control
corresponds to free will. According to Koestler, as we move ‘downwards’ from
conscious control to automatic, habitual behavior, the subjective experience of
freedom diminishes.
31

Despite the conviction that it is our decision to act voluntarily which causes the
act to happen, evidence supports the claim that a series of brain processes is the
real cause.
Libet found that the time at which participants consciously willed to flex their
wrist occurred 300-500 milliseconds after the onset of the readiness potential
(RP), that is, the beginning of brain activity. This is inconsistent with belief in free
will.
One criticism of Libet’s research is that flexing the wrist is so trivial as to be
totally unrepresentative of voluntary action in general.
According to Libet’s veto response, while consciousness cannot initiate voluntary
actions,it can prevent it. People suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder or
Tourette’s syndrome are unable to make the veto response.
32

Libet’s findings are consistent with compatibilism, which regards the pre-
/unconscious antecedents (brain processes or ideas) of conscious motivation as
part of the self. We do not need to be conscious of the decision at the time it is
made for it to be free.
James resoled the conflict between scientific belief in determinism and the
common-sense belief in free will by adopting a pragmatic approach, in
distinguishing the two realms. He also proposed soft determinism.
33

Banks, W.P. and Pockett, S. (2007) Benjamin Libet’s work on the neuroscience of free will. In
M. Velmans and S. Schneider (eds) The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness. Oxford:
Blackwell Publishing.
Blackmore, S. (2005) Consciousness: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University
Press. (Chapter 6.)
Dennet, D.C. (2003) Freedom Evolves. London: Allen Lane.
Flanagan, O.J. (1984) The Science of the Mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Midgley, M. (2004) Do we ever really act? In D. Rees and S. Rose (eds) The New Brain
Sciences: Perils and Prospects.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rose, S. (1997) Lifelines: Biology, Freedom and Determinism. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Rose, S., Lewonton, R.C. and Kamin, L.J. (1984) Not in our Genes: Biology, Ideology and
Human Nature. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
35

Reductionism and Holism
Reductionism in psychology is linked to the mind-body problem. A good
overview of its role in psychology is presented in Barendregt and Rappard (2004).
Do you think that nature is characterized by complex systems that interact with
each other and whose properties are not immediately reducible to the individual
constituents?
Or do you subscribe to the idea that the whole is in fact just the sum of its parts,
so that one can focus on a part at a time and later put together the larger
puzzle?
In the first case, you are a holist; in the second, a reductionist.
36

"[the scientific] Method consists entirely in the order and arrangement of those
things upon which the power of the mind is to be concentrated in order to
discover some truth. And we will follow this method exactly if we reduce
complex and obscure propositions step by step to simpler ones and then try to
advance by the same gradual process from the intuitive understanding of the
very simplest to the knowledge of all the rest"
Descartes
Brandon (1996) suggests that the proper way to see the debate, and to
understand the persistent appeal of both positions, is that reductionists are
making a methodological claim, while holists are defending an ontological
position. And they happen to both be (partially) right.
Methodologically--that is as a way to go about actually doing science--
reductionism has a stunning record of successes throughout the twentieth
century, while holism has little or nothing to show for it.
37

Ontologically, however, in terms of the actual makeup of the stuff that we study,
it's clear that biological systems are in fact intrinsically complex and interacting,
and the idea that they display "emergent properties" that cannot be reduced to
the sum of individual components is no longer controversial.
The two parties, according to Brandon, have simply been talking past each other,
carrying out two parallel debates, each one being a clear winner on its own turf.
However, there is a third approach, one that Brandon labels mechanism. This is
the idea that both methodologically and ontologically, the best thing to do is to
be flexible.
Reductionism begins with the (unwarranted) assumption that it is always possible
to reduce complex systems to the properties of simple parts; at the opposite end,
holism begins with the (equally unwarranted) assumption that the world is
inherently complex and does not admit of reductionist explanations.
38

Mechanism is a happier middle ground, where the scientist (and the philosopher)
negotiate the proper level(s) of analysis, depending on what nature actually tells
us.
So, for example, it is certainly true that living organisms are made--
fundamentally--of quarks. But it is equally obvious that to attempt a description
of their properties at that level of analysis, say a quantum account of apples,
would be foolish (and, in fact, has never been attempted even by the most
ardent reductionist).
At the same time, no matter how many interactions and emergent properties
living systems display, it is undeniable that there are some lower levels of analysis
(that of molecules for much of genetics or that of species for community
ecology) that offer sufficient insights for us to feel like we are making progress in
understanding the world.
39

Mechanism, in Brandon's conception, is the philosophical position that, both
methodologically and ontologically, there are in fact several levels of analysis and
complexity in the world and that scientists should not begin by assuming how
many levels there are and where they can be found.
Rather, science can in part be construed as an attempt to reach a "reflective
equilibrium" between its methodology/ontology and the way the world actually
is.
Moreover, unlike reductionism and holism, mechanism doesn't require that
methodology and ontology go hand in hand. While it may be aesthetically
pleasing to recognize the same levels of organization as both actually existing in
nature and those at which our methods are most effective, there is no practical or
theoretical reason to do so.
It may very well be, for example, that there is a limited number of actual levels of
organizations in the world (ontology) but that we need to conduct our studies at
more levels (methodology) because of our epistemic limitations as human
beings.
40

Barendregt, M. and Rappard, J.F.H.V. (2004) “Reductionism Revisited”. Theory &
Psychology14 (4), 453–474
Pigliucci, M. (2006) ‘One More Take on Reductionism vs. Holism’, SKEPTICAL
INQUIRER, p. 27.
Gross, R. (2014) Themes Issues and Debates in Psychology. Hodder Education
41

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