Holism and Reductionism Flashcards
What is reductionism?
The belief that human behaviour can be explained by breaking it down into smaller component parts.
What is holism?
The argument which proposes that it only makes sense to study a whole system rather than its constituent parts. This view is shared with humanistic psychologists.
What are the two types of reductionism?
Biological reductionism
Environmental reductionism
What is environmental reductionism?
Explains behaviour in terms of simple building blocks of stimulus-response.
Key aspects of holism and reductionism.
-Define reductionism
-Define holism
-Biological reductionism
-Environmental reductionism
Give a strength of holism.
There are aspects of social behaviour that only emerge within a group context and cannot be understood at the level of the individual group members. For insance, the effects of conformity to social roles and de-individuation of the prisoners and guards in the Stanford prison experiment could not be understood when studying the participants as individuals as it was the interaction that was more important. This shows that holism provides a more complete understanding of behaviour.
Give a limitation of holism.
Holistic explanations tend to not lend themselves to rigorous scientific testing and can become vague as they become more complex.
Strength of reductionism
Forms the basis of scientific research. In order to create operationalist variables it is necessary to break target behaviours down into constituent parts. This makes it possible to conduct experiments and record observations in a way that is reliable.
Limitation of reductionism
Reductionist approaches have been criticised of oversimplifying complex phenomena leading to a loss of validity. E.g the physiological process involved in pointing your finger will always be the same regardless of context however an analysis of these will not tell us why the finger is pointed. This means that reductionist explanations can only ever form part of an explanation.
