Holism And Reductionism Flashcards
What is the holism-reductionism debate?
The question of whether holism or reductionism is the better approach to use in order to understand human behaviour.
What is the holistic approach about?
Studying the whole.
What isn’t there any of between holism and reductionism?
Continuum
What humanistic psychologists take?
A holistic approach.
What do behaviourists take?
A reductionist approach
What is there in the reductionist approach?
A continuum - levels of explanation.
How does the holistic approach look at a system?
As a whole seeing any attempt to subdivide behaviour/ experience into smaller units inappropriate.
What does humanistic psychology focus on?
The individuals experience which isn’t something that can be reduced to biological units for example.
What type of methods does humanistic psychology use?
Qualitative methods to investigate the self whereby themes are analysed rather than breaking the concept into component behaviours.
How does reductionism analyse behaviour?
Breaking it into parts.
What is reductionism based on?
Scientific principle - parsimony - all phenomena should be explained using the simplest principle (lowest level of reasoning).
What are the levels of explanation for understanding OCD?
- socio-cultural level e.g. OCD interrupts social relationships.
- psychological level e.g. the persons experience of anxiety.
- physical level - movements e.g. washing hands.
- environmental/ behavioural level - learning experiences.
- Physiological level e.g. abnormal functioning in the frontal lobes.
- level e.g. underproduction of serotonin.
Each level is more reductionist than the one before.
What can psychology be placed in?
A hierarchy of science:
Sociology - psychology - biology - chemistry - physics.
How would researchers who favour reductionism see psychology?
As ultimately being replaced by explanations derived from those sciences lower down in the hierarchy.
What levels does biological reductionism include?
The neurochemical and physiological levels and also evolutionary and genetic influences.
What is biological reductionism based on?
The fact that we are all biological organisms and so behaviour is at some level biological.
How would biological reductionists argue OCD and OCD drugs work.
Drugs that increases serotonin have been found to be effective in treating OCD. Therefore working backwards low serotonin may be the cause of OCD.
What is the behaviourists approach built on?
Environmental reductionism proposing behaviour is learnt and acquired through interactions with the environment.
How do behaviourists explain behaviour?
In terms of conditioning which is focused on simple stimulus-response links reducing behaviour to these basic elements.
How does learning theory of attachment reduce behaviour?
Reduces the idea of love between the Abby and person feeding the baby to a learned association between the person feeding (neutral stimulus) and food (unconditioned stimulus) resulting in pleasure (conditioned stimulus).
Evaluation of holism: may lack practical value
Holistic accounts of behaviour are hard to use as they become complex. This may stop researchers with a practical dilemma. If we accept there are many different factors that contribute to depression (persons past, personal relationships, job and family circumstances) then it becomes hard to know which is the most influential. It’s difficult to know with to prioritise as the basis of therapy. This suggests holistic accounts may lack practical value whereas reductionist approaches may be better.
Evaluation of reductionist approaches: often form the bass of a scientific approach
To conduct controlled research we need to operationalise the variables being studied - breaking target behaviours into constituent parts. This makes it possible to conduct experiments/ record observations (behavioural categories) in a way that is objective and reliable. E.g. research on attachment (strange situation) operationalised component behaviours e.g. separation anxiety. This scientific approach gives psychology greater credibility placing it on equal terms with the natural sciences.
Counterpoint to reductionism forming the bass of scientific approaches
Reductionist approaches have been accused of oversimplifying complex phenomena leading to reduced validity. Explanations that operate at the level of the gene/ neurotransmitter dont include analysis of the social context within which behaviour occurs. For instance physiological processes involved in pointing ones finger will be the same regardless of context. However an analysis of these wont tell us why the finger is pointed. This suggests that reductionist explanations can only ever form part of an explanation.
Evaluation of reductionism: some behaviours can only be understood at a higher level
Aspects of social behaviour only emerge within a group context and cant be understood in terms of individual group members. E.g. the effects of conformity to social roles in Zimbardo Stanford prison experiment couldn’t be understood by observing individuals. The interaction between people and behaviour of the group was important. There is no conformity ‘gene’ so social processes like conformity can only be explained at the level in which they occur. This suggests that for some behaviours higher level explanations provide a more valid account.
