Holism and reductionism

Question 1

What is holism?

Answer 1

• looks as a system as a whole and any attempt to subdivide behaviour into smaller units is not inappropriate
• This is the view of Gestalt psychologists who state that a whole is greater than the sum of its parts
• An example of this is the humanistic approach which uses qualitative measures where the individual experience is focused on

Question 2

Define holism?

Answer 2

• Proposes that it only makes sense to study an indivisible system rather than it’s consitituent parts

Question 3

Define reductionism?

Answer 3

The belief that human behaviour is best understood by studying smaller constituent parts

Question 4

Describe reductionism?

Answer 4

• based on the scientific principle of parsimony which is that all phenomena should be explained using the simplest principles

Question 5

What are levels of explanations in psychology (context of OCD)

Answer 5

• socio - cultural levels - OCD interrupts social relationships
• psychological levels - experience of anxiety
• physical level - movements such as washing hands compulsively
• environmental/behavioural level - learning experiences
• physiological level - abnormal functioning in the frontal lobe
• neurochemical level - underproduction of serotonin

Question 6

Which level of explanations are the most reductionist?

Answer 6

• the neurochemical level

Question 7

What is biological reductionism?

Answer 7

Includes the neurochemical and physiological levels and evolutionary/Genetic influences

For example, OCD is caused by low serotonin

Question 8

What is environmental reductionism?

Answer 8

• this is the main principle on environmental reductionism and that all behaviour is learned and aquired through interactions in the environment
• additionally, the learning theory of attachment reduces love to an association of feeding and pleasure

Question 9

What is a limitation of the holism approach?

Answer 9

• it may lack practical value
• Holistic accounts of human behaviour are complex and therefore harder to use
• for example, there are many factors that contribute to depression and therefore it is difficult to know which is most influential
• therefore, in therapy it is difficult to prioritise a factor in therapy

Question 10

What is a strength of the reductionist approach?

Answer 10

• One strength is that they form the basis of a scientific approach
• for well controlled research, operationalising variables is studied and behaviours have to broken down into constituent parts
• therefore the reductionist approach is able to conduct experiments and record observations making them reliable and objective
• for example, research on attachment operationalised seperation anxiety

C = reductionist approaches can oversimplifying complex phenomena, reduces validity. The neural explanations do not analyse social contexts for behaviours to occur. For example, the physiological processes are important for context.

Question 11

What is a limitation of reductionism?

Answer 11

• behaviour can be understood at a higher level
• aspects of social behaviour may only be able to emerge in a group context
• for example, with the stanford prison experiment, conformity was only able to be understood by observing the interactions between people and the behaviour of a group
• There is no conformity gene so conformity can not be explained at reductionist levels of explanations
• Therefore Holistic approaches provide more valid accounts