Behaviorism

John B. Watson was greatly impressed by the experimental work being done by Pavlov and Thorndike and came under the influence of the mechanistic theory of Helmholtz. Watson went beyond these other researchers, however, in construing humankind as an organism which is completely controlled by those external stimuli which constantly imping upon him. In his optimistic enthusiasm, Watson declared that, given the chance to have complete control of the child’s environment, he could have complete control over the child’s behavior.

Clark Hull, like Watson, made the basic assumption that behavior exhibits sufficient order and regularity that lawful description of it can be made. In assuming his deterministic position, Hull does state that free-will is possible; however, any “free” efforts that might occur are so small or so infrequent as to make determinism a fruitful working hypothesis. (Logan, 1959, p. 295)

The other major psychological theorist making primary use of animal behavioral studies is B. F. Skinner, who is also a thorough-going determinist. Skinner states that: “the free inner man who is held responsible for the behavior of the external biological organism is only a prescientific substitute for the finds of causes which are discovered in the course of a scientific analysis.” (Skinner, 1953, pp. 447-448) Assuming that the environment determines human behavior, even when we alter the environment, Skinner has become very interested in the problem of the control of and establishment of the environment.

His Walden Two expresses not only the strict determinism of the Skinnerian system—but demonstrates that the acceptance of such an assumption can have tangible effects on the engineering of a society. Most of the other psychologists who are primarily concerned with the study of animal behavior also are essentially deterministic. They are primarily interested in the study of those forms of behavior which can be readily influenced (if not controlled), hence determined.

Psychoanalysis

There is another major group of theorists which also is essentially deterministic. Like the behaviorists, these theorists wish to describe at least certain aspects of behavior or behavioral determinants which are not exclusively human, i.e. which are not rational (Aristotle, 2001) or culturally-derived (Dobzhansky, 1955). These theorists, led by the teachings of Sigmund Freud, believe that all human behavior is determined by certain underlying dynamic processes, which have only to be laid bare via dream interpretation, free association, etc. to be recognized as the determinants. In Psychopathology of Everyday Life, Freud makes the following observation of deterministic behavior:

Certain inadequacies of our psychic functions -­ whose common character will soon be more definitely determined — and certain performances which are apparently unintentional prove to be well motivated when subjected to psychoanalytic investigation, and are determined, through the consciousness of unknown motives. (Freud, 1938, p. 150)

Similarly, in Interpretation of Dreams, Freud speaks of the “over-determination” of elements of the dream, and in the case history of Dora he speaks of the “over-determination” of symptoms, referring in both of these cases to the multiple, but definite, cause of these activities. Freud goes on further to say that by assuming a part of our psychic functions to be unexplainable through purposive ideas, we ignore the realms of determinism in our mental life which are repressed, infantile in origin, etc.