Holism and Reductionism - AO3 Flashcards
Biological reductionism limitation:
P - Bio reductionism may not address a cause of a condition.
E - E.g someone suffering with depression, bio reductionism may say they have gene alleles meaning her brain releases low levels of serotonin. So prescribe SSRI.
E - But the cause may be due to their negative schema which is a psychological explanation, this is a higher level of explanation than biological, so bio reductionism ignores higher levels of explanations.
L - In treatment can be more effective to consider more holistic explanations.
Limitation of Holism:
P - Humanistic approach says we should focus on all aspects of behaviour so we cannot break behaviour down into simpler parts.
E - can’t establish a cause and effect relationship.
L - So cannot be studied scientifically.
Application to treatment:
P - Strength of a reductionist approach is there application to treatment.
E - For example in psychopathology treatments for OCD, involve biological reductionism.
E - As one explanation for OCD says the symptoms are a cause of abnormal serotonin levels in the areas of the brain which are involved in detecting threats. This explanation was tested by Soomro et al and he found medication which increases serotonin activity like SSRI’s improved symptoms of OCD.
L - Now SSRI’s are an effective treatment for OCD and Depression.
Strength of biological reductionism:
P - Reductionism involves breaking down complex behaviours into more simple parts like stimulus response relations. Are all cause and effect relationships.
E - Relationships can be tested experimentally, Varying Iv, measuring DV and controlling EV.
E - E.g Skinner conducted environmental reductionism so we can test the effect of positive reinforcement on behaviour, can be empirically test so the reductionist explanations are falsifiable and can be tested using the scientific method.
L - Reductionist approach is a scientific approach.
