Holism and Reductionism Flashcards
What is reductionism?
- Involves breaking complex phenomenon down into more simple components.
- Researchers say it is a desirable process + are drawn to reductionist methods
= powerful tool, major discoveries
What is holism?
- The view that simple components cannot explain behaviour or experience.
- Breaking down behaviour into components = inappropriate and can only be understood by analysing the person as a whole.
What is the notion of levels of explanation? (Reductionism)
Suggests there are different ways of viewing the same phenomena - some are more reductionist than others
What is an example of levels of explanation?
Schizophrenia:
Sociocultural Level (Lowest) - Influence of social groups on behaviour:
- Research shows significant variation between countries in diagnosing SZ
- Copeland gave 134 US and 194 British psychiatrists a description patient -> 69% US diagnosed SZ, only 2% British
Psychological Level (Middle) - Cognitive/Behavioural/Environmental:
- Family explanations - condition is affected by family environment
- Family dysfunction - maladaptive relationships + abnormal patterns of communication = source of stress to influence SZ
Biological Level (Highest) - Neurochemical, Genetic, Brain structure:
- Dopamine hypothesis - dopamine is fired too easily or often -> characteristic symptoms of SZ
- SZ = abnormally high DZ receptors = more dopamine binding + more neurons firing.
- Dopamine guides attention - disturbances = attention problems found in SZ
What is biological reductionism?
- All behaviour at some level is biological and can be explained through neurochemical, neurophysiological, evolutionary and genetic influences
What is an example of biological reductionism?
Explanation of criminal behaviour:
- Attempt to reduce criminal behaviour to certain candidate genes - particularly CDH-13 and MAOA.
- Found 5-10% violent crime in Finland due to one of these
- Also found CDH-13 gene combos increase likelihood x13
- Adrian Raine reviewed research - 52% concordance of criminal behaviour for MZ twins, 21% for DZ
What is environmental reductionism?
Suggests all behaviour can be explained in terms of simple stimulus-response links
i.e. behaviour can be reduced to a simple relationship between behaviour and events in environment
What is an example of environmental reductionism?
The learning theory of attachment:
- Behaviourists (Dollard + Miller) claim complex emotion of attachment can be reduced to a set of probabilities:
- The mother is likely to provide food which is reinforcing (rewarding) as reduces child’s discomfort.
- Hence she is a rewarding individual and so becomes an attachment figure
What is Gestalt psychology? (humanism)
- ‘the whole’ in German
- Focused especially on perception, arguing explanations for what we see only make sense through a consideration of the whole rather than individual elements.
What is an example of Gestalt psychology?
Humanistic psychology:
- Humanist psychologists believe an individual reacts as an organised whole rather than a set of stimulus-response links.
- What matters most is a persons sense of unified identity
- A lack of identity or a sense of ‘wholeness’ -> mental disorder
What is a strength of reductionism?
It fits with psychology’s scientific status:
- Psychology’s drive for scientific status + focus on objectivity and empiricism.
- Leads to clearly defined variables which can be operationalised and observed objectively -> allows for the inference of casual relationships - establishing cause and effect.
Ultimately helps us to understand, predict and improve human behaviour - not possible with holistic approaches
What is a weakness of reductionism?
Explanations are too simple:
- Accused of oversimplifying complex phenomena -> loss of validity
- Explanations that operate at level of gene, neurotransmitter or neuron do not include analysis of social context.
- Physiological processes involved in stress will be the same regardless of context or stressor BUT an analysis of these processes will not tell us why a person is stressed.
This means this approach can only ever form part of an explanation
What is a strength of holism?
Some behaviour is only understood by looking at the wider picture:
- Often aspects of social behaviour that only emerge within group context and cannot be understood at level of individual group members.
- Such as, effects of conformity to social roles in Stanford prison experiment - could not be understood by studying participants individually.
- It was the interaction between people and behaviour of group that = more imp
Shows holistic/same level explanations provide more complete understanding of behaviour than reductionist
What is a limitation of holism?
Holistic approaches are difficult to test:
- Tend not to lend themselves to rigorous scientific testing and can become vague as become more complex
- Humanistic psychology criticised for lack of empirical evidence - seen as loose set of concepts
- Higher level explanations that combine perspectives present researchers with practical dilemma - if accept there are many factors that contribute e.g. SZ, becomes difficult to establish which is most influential
Suggests when it comes to finding solutions for real-world problems, lower level explanations may be more appropriate.
