Holism vs Reductionism Flashcards
What is Holism?
It is an argument or theory which proposes that it only makes sense to study behaviour or experience if we understand the person or behaviour as a whole.
What is Reductionism?
It is the belief that human behaviour is best explained by breaking it down into smaller fundamental parts.
What is Biological reductionism?
It is a form of reductionism which attempts to explain social and psychological phenomena at a lower biological level.
What is Environmental reductionism?
It is the attempt to explain all behaviour in terms of stimulus-response links that have been learned through experience.
What is an example of biological reductionism?
Effects of psychoactive drugs on the brain have contributed much to our understanding of neural processes.
Imbalances of serotonin and dopamine are believed to be linked to severe mental disorders.
Drug therapies aimed to restore balance and reduce symptoms
What is an example of environmental reductionism?
Phobias which are a form of anxiety are suggested to be learned behaviours, a complex behaviour that has been reduced to the simplistic form of stimulus response. Phobias are learned through classical conditioning and maintained through operant conditioning like negative reinforcement
An example of a point for Holism?
Some aspects can’t be understood in Group context and only in individual context, affects of conformity to social roles and deindividuation of prisoners in Stanford prison experiments, could not be understood by studying the participant as individuals but rather as a group. This makes holism have a greater global understanding.
An example of a point against Holism?
Holism tends not to lend themselves to scientific testing which means there is a lack of empirical evidence which means it is difficult to establish which affect is most influential
An example of a point for reductionism
Reductionism involves scientific research in order to create operationalized variables it is necessary to break target behaviours down into parts. This allows them to conduct experiments with greater credibility.
An example of a point against reductionism
Reductionism can over simplify complex phenomena leading to a loss of validity as it does not include the analysis of the social context if it is biological reductionism.
