holism vs reductionism

Question 1

Holism is the view that

Answer 1

it makes sense to study a system as a whole instead of reducing explanations to the individual components

human behaviour can’t be reduced to one explanation

shared by humanistic psychologists

Question 2

reductionism view

Answer 2

analyses behaviour by breaking it down into simple components; appreciated by the majority of psychologists as it’s led to major discoveries

Question 3

criticisms of the reductionism view in comparison to holism

Answer 3

critics argue that reductionist explanations only provide a limited understanding of behaviour as we cannot predict how a whole system will behave from knowledge of individual components

Question 4

levels of explanation in psychology suggests

Answer 4

that each level is more reductionist than the one before

1. cultural/social explanations of behaviour; social groups
2. Psychological explanations of behavior
3. Biological explanations of behaviour; hormones

Question 5

biological reductionism AO1

Answer 5

form of reductionism which suggests all behaviour is at some level biological, reduces behaviour to the action of:

neurochemical influence
neuropsychological factors
evolution
genetics

Question 6

environmental (stimulus-response) reductionism

Answer 6

only concerned with physical level for explaining behaviour, mind regarded as ‘black box’

attempt to explain all behaviour in terms of stimulus-response links learned from experience

Question 7

strength for holism - some social behaviours are only

visible in a what context?

Answer 7

some social behaviours are only
visible in a group context and cannot be understood at the level of individual group members

e.g. conformity to social roles, zimbardo’s experiment is only understood in a group contest

suggests holistic approach give a more complete understanding of behaviour

Question 8

limitation for holism -

Answer 8

holistic approaches can be
vague and difficult to test scientifically e.g. humanistic psychology which takes the holistic approach is criticised for lacking empirical evidence

high-level explanations (that combine different perspectives) provide practical dilemmas e.g. which factor is most influential and which can be used for therapy

Question 9

strength for reductionism

Answer 9

when behaviours are broken down into parts they become easier to operationalize and test scientifically

e.g. conduct reliable experiments. Behaviourists can demonstrate complex behaviours using stimulus-response tasks in a lab

Gives psychology scientific credibility

Question 10

limitation for reductionism

Answer 10

reductionist approaches many less valid due to oversimplifying complex phenomena

biological explanations don’t consider social context which may be where behaviour gets its true meaning, scientific study will tell us why a person has acted a certain way

reductionist approaches offer only part of the explanation