Holism V Reductionism Flashcards
What is meant by reductionism?
The belief that human behaviour can be broken down into simple component parts. The simplest explanations are used to understand behaviour.
What is meant by holism?
The belief that human behaviour should be viewed as an integrated experience and not separate parts.
Define biological reductionism.
Reducing behaviour down to a physical level and explaining it in terms of neurons, hormones etc. For example OCD caused by COMT and SERT genes.
Define environmental reductionism.
Reducing behaviour to stimulus - response associations. For example the 2 process model in phobias.
Define experimental reductionism.
Complex behaviour reduced down to a single variable for testing. For example examining memory in isolated variables.
Reductionism abides by the view that there are levels of explanation. What are they?
Behaviour can be viewed at different levels. Social/cultural is the lowest (least reductionist) level, such as deindividuation in aggression; psychological is the middle level such as social learning theory; biological is the top (most reductionist) level such as genes.
Define parsimony.
The idea that complex phenomena should be explained in the simplest terms possible.
Give 2 examples of reductionism in psychology.
Environmental reductionism: bandura said children would behave aggressively after seeing adults behave aggressively.
Experimental reductionism. Loftus broke down misleading info into one work in a sentence.
Evaluate the reductionist approach.
C - treating OCD w SSRIs is saying that it’s just neurotransmitters causing it and ignored social context. However OCD changes with the zeitgeist and this mistakes the symptoms for the disorder. Also AN explained by biology ignored social and cultural factors such as why it’s more prevalent in women and why rates have increased.
Reductionism also has methodological issues eg they often use non-human animals like Pavlov and skinner. This ignores context and uniqueness of humans which means we lose validity.
Give 2 examples of holism in psychology. Gestaut
- Freud and gender - role off the unconscious, role of the parents etc means parents can be aware.
- Gestaut said when we look at an object we look at it as a whole. Encourages research into perception.
Evaluate the holistic approach.
C - unscientific. Can’t establish causation so cant identify variables that are the testable ie self actualisation or successful resolution of the Oedipus complex. Untestable.
Can’t generate practical applications if we can’t isolate a cause. If there are many reasons for an illness where do you start treating them?
What is an example of a middle ground between reductionism and holism?
Diathesis stress model - can break down and at least measure a number of factors that contribute to behaviour but they’re explained at different levels.
