holism vs reductionism

Question 1

what is holism?

Answer 1

sees behaviour as best understood as a whole rather than the sum of its constituent parts
-less scientific and makes behaviour harder to predict, but doesn’t ignore the complexity of human behaviour

Question 2

what is reductionism?

Answer 2

sees behaviour as best understood by reducing it down to its constituent parts

Question 3

what are levels of explanation?

Answer 3

levels of explanations for behaviour, where you can decide whether to look at a behaviour holistically or reductionist based on if you should look at only one level or multiple

Question 4

what are some of the levels of explanation?

Answer 4

-social cognition
-social groups (family etc)
-interpersonal interaction
-cognition and emotion
-learned associations
-genetics
-physiology
-cellular biology
-biochemistry (eg intoxicated)

Question 5

what is the principle of parsimony?

Answer 5

-morgan 1903
-no need to explain behaviour in terms of complex processes, and explanations should be as simple as possible within the evidence in the field of investigation

Question 6

what is biological reductionism?

Answer 6

-explains behaviour using biological systems eg genetics
-don’t take into account higher levels of explanation (eg learned associations)
-more precise and simple explanation, can be tested more easily, can generate treatments
-too simplistic, sometimes viewed as incomplete

Question 7

what is environmental reductionism?

Answer 7

-stimulus-response reductionism
-eg classical conditioning
-too simple for some behaviours
-simplicity means it’s easy to test
-advantage of parsimony, argued to be more effective than complex explanations

Question 8

what is the interactionist perspective?

Answer 8

argue all explanations have relevance, and it’s difficult to decide which is better since it varies for each situation

Question 9

how does the debate relate to schizophrenia?

Answer 9

-family dysfunction = holistic
-genetic = biological reductionist

Question 10

how does the debate relate to aggression?

Answer 10

-genetics = biological reductionism (but MAOA requires environment interference, so its interactionist)
-de-individuation is more holistic

Question 11

how does the debate relate to cognition and development?

Answer 11

-vygotsky = holism (tutoring)
-piaget = interactionist
-mirror neuron explanation is the most reductionist in the topic

Question 12

evaluate the holism v reductionism debate

Answer 12

-biological reductionism can help with the development of drug therapies, helping mental health
-acknowledged that the likelihood of a behaviour being purely biological is low, complexity means purely reductionist explanations are often insufficient
-reductionist are easier to rest because there is fewer factors to consider, empirical work can be conducted, giving it academic weight
-reductionist = other explanations are ignored