holism and reductionism: levels of explanation

Question 1

what is holism

Answer 1

an approach to understanding the human mind and behaviour that focuses on looking at things as a whole

Question 2

what is reductionism

Answer 2

theory in psychology centered on reducing complex phenomena into their most basic parts

Question 3

levels of explanation (types of reductionism) : biological reductionism

Answer 3

refers to the way that biological psychologists try reduce behaviour to a physical level and explain it in terms of neurons, neurotransmitters, hormones, brain structure

Question 4

levels of explanation (types of reductionism): environmental reductionism

Answer 4

all behaviour can be reduced to the simple building blocks of stimulus- response associations

Question 5

what is this debate about

Answer 5

how we choose to study individuals

Question 6

theoretical example: if I wanted to study a car is it best to study how it functions as a whole or are you going to get enough detail from just just focusing on the engine

Answer 6

the parts are the reductionism
looking at the whole is the holism

Question 7

what are levels of explanation in psychology

Answer 7

relates to how I’m going to view a particular behavior or characteristic with an individual and there’s 3 different levels of explanation

Question 8

biological (LOWER)

Answer 8

it is not sufficient on its own usually the root cause, evolution-genetics, structure and function

Question 9

psychological (MIDDLE)

Question 10

cultural and social (HIGHER)

Question 11

example of depression in individuals in levels of explanation

Answer 11

lowest level you could focus on is= biology of depression and could potentially view it is to do with low levels of serotonin in an individual (but may not be sufficient on its own
middle level= psychological explanation of depression that it is a result of the thought processes and schemas that people have
Higher level= focus on the cultural and social aspects of depression and that across different cultures depression varies across different genders, time periods

Question 12

there are 3 levels of explanations

Question 13

levels of explanation

Answer 13

what level of reductionism we can break it down to/ how much holism are we going to allow

Question 14

what examples to use for biological reductionism and environmental reductionism

Answer 14

psychopathology
OCD- the genetic explanation of OCD which asserts that its the COMT and SERT gene in terms of malfunctioning of those genes which ultimately results in OCD so if I wanted to study OCD I can reduce it down to the biological level by the genes

Question 15

another example

Answer 15

psychopathology
Phobias- looking ta the environmental stimulus response reductionism of the 2 process model which asserts you can understand a phobia by reducing it down to a particular event which born that phobia . So the phobia started because there was an association made between an event, the particular event that happened and a particular thing that happened around that time that created the phobia. to be then maintained by the avoidance behavior

Question 16

holism

Answer 16

the understanding that I cant view/understand an individual’s behavior simply looking at tiny parts you need to take a holistic view ( incl context) look at individual as an whole i.e. taking a idiographic approach

Question 17

example of holism

Answer 17

humanistic approach about looking at a person as a whole o illustrate the holism debate