The Forces that Motivate Behavior Hard Determinis Essays

The Forces that Motivate Behavior: Hard Determinism Vs. Free Will Cheyenne Tuggle and Gina Campagnini The University of Valley Forge PSY 313 1.Hard Determinism: Gina Defining Determinism A simple definition of determinism is that it is the theory that all events are caused and therefore can be predicted. It is a simple cause and effect relationship only it is applied to human behavior. Therefore, making moral responsibility meaningless. A more specific definition is a definition of hard determinism; "Human behavior is completely determined by various factors outside the person" (Sappington, A. 1990). This is also known as environmental determinism (McLeod, S. 2013) and still supports the idea that moral behavior is meaningless. Let's look at an example of a man who grew up in a low income home, surrounded by drugs and crime, it can be predicted that he will commit some kind of crime. B.F. Skinner (1904-1990) The first person that is going to be address is B.F. Skinner, he is a well known advocate for determinism (McLeod, S. 2013). Some back ground information is that Skinner received his BA in English from Hamilton College because his first desire was to pursue writing as a career. Later Skinner received his Ph.D. in Psychology from Harvard University in 1931 and stayed there to do research until 1936 (Hall, W. 2017). For a while Skinner did pursue his first passion as a writer but failed in this career after his poetry and short stories resorted to newspaper articles. Since this writing career was not a success and after he received his Ph. D. he began to teach at University of Minnesota in 1936 and in 1945 became the chairman at Indiana University for Psychology. Shortly after becoming the chairman of Indiana he was invited back to Harvard where he stayed until his retirement in 1975 (Hall, W. 2017). Someone Skinner was influenced by was John B. Watson's philosophy of psychology called behaviorism (Clarik, K. 1998). Every notion of internal factors such as the mind was pushed aside and focused on the idea that the "goal of scientific psychology is to predict and control an organisms' behavior" (Hall, W. 2107). B. F. Skinner died in 1990 from Leukemia and became one of the most celebrated psychologists after Sigmund Freud (McLeod, S. 2015). Radical Behaviorism Radical Behaviorism "Argued that people's behavior is determined by their reinforcement histories; they behave as their reinforcement histories have programmed them to behave." (Sappington, A. 1990). Meaning that every behavior is an individual is determined based off the pattern of reinforcements and punishments in an individual's life (Craik, K. 1998). Operant Conditioning (Law and Effect-Reinforcement) One of Skinners well known theories is called Operant Conditioning which is intentional actions that have affects on the environment around them (McLeod, S. 2015). Operant Conditioning goes hand in hand with Skinner's theory of the Law-and-Effect- Reinforcement. Which can be defined as "Behavior which is reinforced, tends to be repeated" (McLeod, S. 2015). There are three types of respinses, the first is; Neutral Operant which are responses from the environment that neither increase nor decrease the probability of a behavior being repeated. The second are Reinforces which are responses from the environment that increases the probability of a behavior being repeated. Reinforces can either be positive or negative (McLeod, S. 2105). A positive reinforce can be exemplified through Skinner's invention of the "Skinner's box". This box is an invention that helps reinforce pigeons to preform a certain behavior to receive food such as turning in 360-degree circle to the left, reading, or even pecking a certain point on the box. When the behavior was preformed the pigeon was given access to food and in order to receive more they would have to repeat their behavior. An example of a negative reinforce is to avoid being fired from a job, the person will have to get up on time to go to work. In other words a negative reinforce is the removal of an unpleasant reinforcement by something else that is looked at as a negative. The last response is a punisher which is a response from the environment that weakens behavior, it only tells you what not to do. Punished behavior isn't forgotten its suppressed and can cause aggression, fear, anxiety and so forth. When the punishment is

Essay Sample on Community Its Definition, Development and Types

Essay Sample on Community Its Definition, Development and Types For example, Robert Park, one of the first American Sociologists to define the term stated, The essential characteristics of a community, so conceived are those of: (1) a population territorially organized, (2) more or less completely rooted in the soil it occupies, (3) its individual units living in a relationship of mutual interdependence(Lyons, p. 5). In contrast to this, Minar and Greer defined a community so that it may include a large corporation, Kuhn said that a community may be an informal professional group such as the scientific community, and Nisbet stated that a even a philosophical and psychological commitment to communal lifestyles could be considered community (Lyons 1999). While all of these may be acceptable definitions of community to one person, some or all may be completely unacceptable to someone else. In my studying of community, I would define it similarly with Park. Community, in my opinion, can be defined as a group of people within a small area (generally s maller than a city or town), who share common social ties or have common social goals, and who have interaction among each other. When studying community development, one must analyze what currently exists and then try to create ways for improvement or enhancement. Thus, I believe that the best way to do that is to simplify community into one of its smallest aspects without being so narrow that youre only studying individuals or people without any common ties on which to compare. In addition to this, development within a community is often a rigorous process and thus cannot focus on too large of an area or group at once. If it does so then one end or segment of the city or town is often not considered as important of an area. Moreover, what may be the goal of one portion of the town may be totally dissatisfying to other segments, which could cause many problems if each community within a town is forced to develop among the same common lines. The most common theme among definitions of community is that it consists of people. Another theme that is very common is that there must be some type of common tie to hold the people together. In each of the above definitions this is true. Robert Park spoke of a mutual interdependence, which is much like the social ties or goals that I use. In Minar and Greers large corporation, the common tie is the type of business that the corporation relates to or carries out. In Kuhns scientific community, science or perhaps scientific paradigms is the common tie. Nisbets philosophical or psychological commitment to communal lifestyles may or may not be a physical tie but shares the communal lifestyle as a common theme or bond. In each of the three latter definitions of community, it seems that the only tie that holds them together is that of people and a shared or common tie. While these are all important attributes of community, they cannot stand alone for the purpose of studying community dev elopment for many reasons. Comparison is important in studying community. Thus, it would be difficult to study a comparison of a corporation, scientific communities, and philosophical commitments to communal lifestyles for the purpose or community development. The three are virtually completely independent and have no ties other than they each share people and within each particular group, share common ties. Moreover, Ferdinand Tonnies concepts of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft have long been and continue to be one of the most useful notions used for studying and comparing communities and community development. While some people may consider Minar and Greer, Kuhn, and Nisbets ideas as a community or type of community, it would be difficult to imagine how studying a comparison of each of these could have any useful bearing on community development, especially in terms of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft. Finally, people within communities must have interaction for a community to exist. While the interaction may be fairly insignificant among certain peoples within the community there should be considerable amounts among most members. For example, in a larger, modern-day neighborhood, if each house was filled with middle-income, college graduates, each married with two children who are roughly the same age and whose children all attend the same schools (giving a social tie or connection among each family living in the neighborhood) there still could be no community among the neighborhood if there was no interaction among any of the people who live there. Without the interaction, each would be strangers living amongst themselves, and in doing so would take the community aspect away. Robert Parks definition of community is far more defining and inclusive than any of the other previous definitions discussed above, however, I dont fully agree with him either. The second part of his definition mentioned being predominantly rooted in the soil. While Im not quite sure whether he meant rooted as in being born and raised there or rooted as in just living there, I will assume that he was using the first or the two. If you look at the same large neighborhood mentioned above but with a few changes, I think Ill be able to make my point more clear. In that neighborhood, if the same people lived there with all of the same characteristics, except for that there was a very high level of social interaction among the adults and children, it would be quite possible to think of the neighborhood as a community. Taking the example further, if within the neighborhood, there was a park, exercise facility, swimming pool, neighborhood convenience store, etc., and there was communal babys itting amongst certain members for the smaller children and carpooling to school for the older children, it would become more likely to think of this as a community. In that, if there were approximately 100 houses in which half were occupied for several years, another 20 were occupied for about two or three years, 20 for about one year, and the other 10 had become occupied within the last two or three months, there is really no sense of roots among many of the members, however there is still enough of a system in place for the community to exist and continue. Moreover, each member of the community or neighborhood might be from different parts of the country or at least from different cities and are therefore do not have family or historic roots within the community. Granted, the above example is completely hypothetical, but there are similar neighborhoods popping up all over suburban America. Whether any of these neighborhoods meet any of the combined attributes to be a community, I do not know because I have not done any specific studies, however I think that there probably are some out there. While it is true that many different definitions for community exist, I believe that for the purpose of studying community and community development the best definition is a group of people within a small area (generally smaller than a city or town), who share common social ties or common goals, and who have interaction among each other.

Write a review Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Write a review - Essay Example At the same time, Titanic struck an iceberg in the ocean. Then, Rose’s fiancà © Cal Hockley discovered this romance and accuses Jack of theft of his gift to Rose. In condition of panic because of ship’s sinking, Rose and Jack were re-united and tried to survive together. But, in the cold Atlantic Ocean Jack sacrificed himself in order to save Rose. At the end, Rose is an old woman throwing Cal’s gift back to the ocean. So, this movie can be taken as a complex story that touches multiple sides of human life in genre of Romantic Drama. In this sophisticated context, in a given essay the play of main actors, plot twists and impressive ending are taken as criteria in evaluating this movie as one of the best among all Romantic Dramas. To start with, the main characters played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet are involved in the appealing love-story that emerged for the first time during the cruise on the ship titled Titanic. Actually, the relation between the couple develop in such a passionate and emotional way that it is impossible not to believe them. In addition, the fact that he is a poor risky worker trying to gain attention from a wealthy lady is also important in making their love even more sensual. Thus, the tandem created by DiCaprio and Winslet is really loved by public even nowadays. Moreover, they still are one of the best couples on the screen. In this context, the way these two actors presented the story between Jack and Rose assisted their future careers in Hollywood. Therefore, the play of main actors is on the highest level in Titanic. Furthermore, plot in the movie is highly interesting and full of unexpected difficulties caused by water and people. On the one hand, after liner had crashed into an iceberg everyone left almost with no chance to survive. On another hand, numerous deaths caused by Titanic were driven by human factor. In this context, an additional character Cal who wanted to marry Rose is one of such people.