determinism

Examples of determinism in the following topics:

• Nature vs. Nurture: A False Debate

  • Is nature (an individual's innate qualities) or nurture (personal experience) more important in determining physical and behavioral traits?
  • A "genetic predisposition to violence" could be a mitigating factor in crime if the science behind genetic determinants can be found conclusive.
  • For example, researchers have long studied twins to determine the influence of biology on personality traits.
  • The nature versus nurture debate conjures deep philosophical questions about free will and determinism.
  • Similarly, the "nurture" side may be criticized for implying that we behave in ways determined by our environment, not ourselves.

• The Role of Biology

  • Typically, a person's genotype (genetic makeup) and phenotype (observable traits) are used to determine a person's sex.
  • While sex is the determination of whether a person is biologically male or female, gender is the sociocultural determination of

• Ogburn's Theory

  • Thus, his theory is often associated with technological determinism, a reductionist theory that presumes a society's technology drives the development of its social structure and cultural values.
  • Soft determinism, as the name suggests, is a more passive view of the way technology interacts with socio-political situations.
  • Ogburn, in fact, proposed a slightly different variant of soft determinism, in which society must adjust to the consequences of major inventions, but often does so only after a period of cultural lag.

• Physical Health

  • While gender and race play significant roles in explaining healthcare inequality in the United States, socioeconomic status (SES) is the greatest social determinant of an individual's health outcome.
  • Social determinants of health are the economic and social conditions that influence individual and group differences in health status.
  • Social determinants are environmental, meaning that they are risk factors found in one's living and working conditions (including the distribution of income, wealth, influence, and power), rather than individual factors (such as behavioral risk factors or genetics).
  • Social determinants can be used to predict one's risk of contracting a disease or sustaining an injury, and can also indicate how vulnerable one is to the consequences of a disease or injury.
  • The role of socioeconomic status in determining access to healthcare results in heath inequality between the upper, middle, and lower or working classes, with the higher classes having more positive health outcomes.

• Formal Means of Control

  • Formal means of social control are generally state-determined, through the creation of laws and their enforcement.
  • In democratic societies the goals and mechanisms of formal social control are determined through legislation by elected representatives.

• Race and Genetics

  • Today it is possible to determine, by genetic analysis, the geographic ancestry of a person and the degree of ancestry from each region.
  • Some anthropologists, particularly those working with forensics, consider race to be a useful biological category as it is often possible to determine the racial category of a person by examining physical remains, although what is actually being identified is the geographical phenotype.
  • While a person's race can generally be visually determined, different racial groups do not in fact differ biologically in substantial ways.

• Defining the Sample and Collecting Data

  • It is important to determine the scope of a research project when developing the question.
  • The stages of the sampling process are defining the population of interest, specifying the sampling frame, determining the sampling method and sample size, and sampling and data collecting.
  • A probability sampling is one in which every unit in the population has a chance (greater than zero) of being selected in the sample, and this probability can be accurately determined.
  • Nonprobability sampling is any sampling method where some elements of the population have no chance of selection or where the probability of selection can't be accurately determined.

• Language and Perception

  • The strong version states that language determines thought and emotions/feelings, and linguistic categories limit and determine cognitive categories
  • The strongest form of correlation is linguistic determinism, which holds that language entirely determines the range of possible cognitive processes of an individual.
  • The hypothesis of linguistic determinism is now generally agreed to be false, though many researchers are still studying weaker forms of correlation, often producing positive empirical evidence for a correlation .

• Ideal vs. Real Culture

  • Any given culture contains a set of values that determine what is important to the society; these values can be idealized or realized.
  • Any given culture contains a set of values and value systems that determine what is important to the society as a whole.

• Exchange

  • Social exchange theory argues that people form relationships because they determine that it is in their best interests to do so.
  • As articulated by social exchange theory, individuals only stay in relationships when they determine that the exchange that will result from being in that relationship is worth the cost.