One AO3 Point, Multiple Approaches: How to Use Determinism Effectively
One of the biggest mistakes students make when revising AQA Psychology is trying to memorise a completely different evaluation paragraph for every approach.
You don't always need to.
Determinism is one AO3 issue that can be adapted across several psychological approaches. The key is not simply learning the sentence “this approach is deterministic.” That alone is not developed evaluation.
To gain higher marks, you need to explain:
What determines behaviour → why this matters → what the consequence is for the explanation.
Even better, determinism can be used comparatively, allowing you to demonstrate similarities and differences between approaches.
What is determinism?
Determinism is the assumption that behaviour is caused by factors outside an individual's conscious control.
Different approaches propose different determining influences.
The behaviourist approach emphasises environmental determinism, the biological approach emphasises biological determinism, and the psychodynamic approach is associated with psychic determinism.
Other approaches allow a greater role for conscious thought or choice, making determinism particularly useful when comparing approaches.
1. Behaviourism: Environmental Determinism
Behaviourists argue that behaviour is largely shaped by experiences in the environment through classical and operant conditioning.
PEEL evaluation
P – A weakness of the behaviourist approach is that it is environmentally deterministic.
E – Behaviourists suggest that behaviour is shaped by environmental experiences through processes such as classical and operant conditioning. For example, consequences such as reinforcement increase the likelihood that a behaviour will be repeated.
E – This gives relatively little importance to individual choice because behaviour is viewed as the product of previous learning experiences. However, people exposed to similar environmental influences do not necessarily behave in identical ways, suggesting that factors such as cognition and individual differences may also influence behaviour.
L – Therefore, environmental determinism may oversimplify human behaviour and provide an incomplete explanation if conscious thought and personal choice are underestimated.
Counterargument
However, a strength of taking a deterministic approach is that it encourages psychologists to identify causes of behaviour. This allows researchers to generate testable predictions and investigate behaviour scientifically. Environmental determinism has also contributed to practical behaviour-change techniques based on conditioning principles.
2. Biological Approach: Biological Determinism
The biological approach explains behaviour through biological processes including genes, neurochemistry and brain functioning.
PEEL evaluation
P – A weakness of the biological approach is that it can be biologically deterministic.
E – The approach suggests that behaviour may be strongly influenced by biological factors such as genetic inheritance, neurotransmitter activity and brain structures.
E – This may underestimate the influence of conscious decision-making and environmental experience. For example, even individuals with similar genetic vulnerabilities do not necessarily develop identical behaviours or psychological characteristics, suggesting biology alone cannot completely determine behaviour.
L – Therefore, biological determinism may provide an incomplete account of behaviour because it can underestimate the interaction between biological and environmental influences.
Counterargument
However, a strength of biological determinism is that identifying biological influences can have useful applications. Understanding biological mechanisms can contribute to the development of interventions and treatments, demonstrating that deterministic explanations can have practical value.
3. Psychodynamic Approach: Psychic Determinism
Freud's psychodynamic approach proposes that behaviour is influenced by unconscious processes and experiences from early childhood.
PEEL evaluation
P – A weakness of the psychodynamic approach is that it is psychically deterministic.
E – Freud proposed that behaviour is influenced by unconscious conflicts, instinctive drives and early childhood experiences. Individuals may therefore have limited awareness of the psychological forces influencing their behaviour.
E – This gives relatively little importance to conscious choice and suggests that experiences during childhood can have a powerful influence on later personality and behaviour. However, individuals with similar childhood experiences can develop very differently.
L – Therefore, psychic determinism may underestimate people's capacity to consciously change their behaviour and may oversimplify the relationship between childhood experience and adult behaviour.
Counterargument
However, a strength of the psychodynamic approach is that it recognised that behaviour may be influenced by processes outside conscious awareness. This contributed to psychology moving beyond the assumption that people always fully understand the causes of their own behaviour.
4. Cognitive Approach: A Less Deterministic Account
The cognitive approach provides an interesting contrast because behaviour is influenced by internal mental processes such as schemas, attention, perception and information processing.
PEEL evaluation
P – A strength of the cognitive approach is that it is less deterministic than approaches such as behaviourism.
E – Behaviourists focus heavily on environmental influences, whereas cognitive psychologists recognise that individuals actively process and interpret information.
E – This means that two people experiencing the same situation may interpret it differently and consequently behave differently. The cognitive approach therefore allows greater scope for individual differences in how environmental information is processed.
L – Consequently, the cognitive approach may provide a more flexible account of behaviour than strictly deterministic explanations.
5. Social Learning Theory: Between Determinism and Choice
Social Learning Theory is particularly useful in a determinism discussion because it recognises environmental influences without suggesting that people automatically reproduce everything they observe.
PEEL evaluation
P – A strength of Social Learning Theory is that it is less environmentally deterministic than traditional behaviourism.
E – SLT recognises that behaviour can be influenced by observing models and the consequences they receive, but Bandura also proposed mediational processes between observing behaviour and actually imitating it.
E – This means individuals actively process what they observe rather than responding automatically to environmental stimuli. Therefore, exposure to the same model does not necessarily result in identical behaviour.
L – Consequently, SLT provides a less deterministic explanation than traditional behaviourism because cognitive processes help explain individual differences in responses to the environment.
6. Humanistic Psychology: The Free-Will Contrast
Humanistic psychology provides perhaps the clearest contrast to deterministic approaches.
Humanistic psychologists such as Rogers and Maslow emphasise free will, personal responsibility and an individual's capacity for growth.
PEEL evaluation
P – A strength of the humanistic approach is that it challenges the deterministic assumptions of several other approaches.
E – Rather than viewing behaviour as controlled by conditioning, biological processes or unconscious forces, humanistic psychologists argue that individuals have the capacity to make conscious choices and direct their own development.
E – This provides a more positive account of human behaviour and acknowledges personal agency. However, free will is difficult to investigate scientifically because it is difficult to demonstrate objectively that a behaviour resulted from genuine personal choice.
L – Therefore, although the humanistic approach may provide a more holistic view of individuals, its emphasis on free will may make its assumptions harder to test scientifically.
Using Determinism for Comparative AO3
This is where determinism becomes particularly useful.
Rather than evaluating one approach in isolation, students can use it to make direct comparisons between approaches.
Behaviourism vs Social Learning Theory
P – A strength of Social Learning Theory compared with the behaviourist approach is that it is less environmentally deterministic.
E – Both approaches recognise the importance of environmental experience. However, behaviourism explains behaviour primarily through conditioning, whereas SLT proposes that mediational processes occur between observing a model and deciding whether to imitate the behaviour.
E – Therefore, SLT allows a greater role for cognitive processing and can explain why two individuals exposed to the same model may behave differently. Traditional behaviourism has greater difficulty explaining such differences if behaviour is primarily determined by environmental learning.
L – Consequently, SLT may provide a more flexible explanation of behaviour because it recognises environmental influence without assuming that individuals respond automatically to it.
Biological vs Humanistic
P – A strength of the humanistic approach compared with the biological approach is that it gives greater recognition to free will.
E – The biological approach can be deterministic because behaviour is explained through factors such as genes, neurochemistry and brain processes. In contrast, humanistic psychologists argue that individuals can consciously make choices and direct their own development.
E – The humanistic approach may therefore better recognise personal agency and individual experience. However, biological explanations have an advantage because biological influences can often be objectively measured, whereas free will is much harder to investigate scientifically.
L – Therefore, although humanistic psychology provides a less deterministic account, this may come at the cost of some scientific testability.
Psychodynamic vs Humanistic
P – A strength of the humanistic approach compared with the psychodynamic approach is its rejection of psychic determinism.
E – Freud argued that adult behaviour is strongly influenced by unconscious conflicts and early childhood experiences, whereas humanistic psychologists emphasise conscious choice and people's capacity for personal growth.
E – Humanistic psychology therefore presents individuals as active agents who can change rather than as largely controlled by unconscious processes established in childhood. This may provide a less restrictive account of human behaviour.
L – However, the psychodynamic approach's deterministic assumptions attempt to identify causes of behaviour, whereas the humanistic concept of free will is considerably harder to test scientifically.
Behaviourism vs Biological
This comparison is particularly useful because both are deterministic — but for different reasons.
P – A similarity between the behaviourist and biological approaches is that both can be criticised for adopting deterministic explanations of behaviour.
E – Behaviourism emphasises environmental determinism because behaviour is shaped by conditioning and reinforcement, whereas the biological approach emphasises biological determinism through influences such as genes and neurochemistry.
E – Both therefore reduce the role given to conscious choice, although they disagree about the forces determining behaviour. This can make both approaches useful scientifically because they attempt to identify measurable causes of behaviour, but it may also mean that neither fully captures the complexity of human agency.
L – Therefore, despite having very different explanations of behaviour, both approaches share a deterministic assumption that can simultaneously increase scientific predictability while limiting the role given to free will.
A Reusable Determinism PEEL
Students can adapt this basic structure:
P – A weakness of the _____ approach is that it may be deterministic.
E – The approach suggests that behaviour is strongly influenced/determined by _____.
E – This reduces the role of individual choice and may oversimplify behaviour because people exposed to similar influences do not necessarily behave in the same way.
L – Therefore, the approach may provide an incomplete explanation because it underestimates free will and/or individual differences.
Then add balance:
However, determinism can also be considered a strength because identifying factors that influence behaviour allows psychologists to generate predictions and investigate behaviour scientifically.
Examiner Tip: Comparison Means Comparison
A comparative paragraph should not simply describe Approach A and then describe Approach B.
Make the relationship explicit:
“Both approaches…”
“In contrast…”
“Whereas…”
“Unlike…”
“This makes X more/less deterministic than Y because…”
That final part — explaining why the difference matters — turns description into effective AO3.
Final takeaway
You don't need to memorise six unrelated determinism paragraphs.
Understand the underlying issue and then adapt it:
Behaviourism → environment
Biological → biology
Psychodynamic → unconscious processes and early experience
SLT → environment + mediational processes
Cognitive → internal processing and greater flexibility
Humanistic → free will
One AO3 issue. Multiple approaches.
And that's exactly the sort of flexible knowledge that makes evaluation easier to retrieve and apply under exam pressure.