Holism vs Reductionism debate Flashcards
What is reductionism
Complex behaviour is reduced to basic components
E.g. stimulus response links
What is holism
Multiple factors are taken into account, looking at behaviour as a whole multi level experience
What are levels of explanation
Behaviour explained through a hierarchy that shows theres different ways to view the same event, with each view differing in reductionism levels
Bottom - reductionist explanations - E.g. biological explanations like Depression caused by low serotonin/candidate genes
Middle - Psychological explanations - E.g. Beck’s cognitive theory/Ellis’s ABC model for depression
Top - Holistic explanations - cultural and social explanations - depression explained through social withdrawal, insomnia etc which is seen as weird
What is biological reductionism/example
Behaviour is simplified and explained through biological factors such as genes, neurotransmitters
Example - Biological approach states that OCD is caused by high dopamine/low serotonin levels
What is environmental reductionism/example
Behaviour is simplified/explained through environmental factors such as association and reinforcement.
Example - classical conditioning suggests attachment is formed through unconditional stimulus being paired with neutral stimulus to form conditioned stimulus
Evaluate the holism vs reductionism debate
Reductionism may lead to effective drug therapies - SSRI’s more effective than placebos for OCD - counter - other treatments may be better but aren’t considered
Holism explains aspects of social behaviour e.g. Stanford prison experiment - conformity/deindividuation can only be studied in group setting
Holism isn’t scientific - having many different levels of explanation for depression makes it harder to treat
Reductionism ignored complexity of human behaviour - SSRI’s can reduce symptoms caused by biology but the symptoms haven’t been addressed and removed. Can be caused by factors such as abuse
