I&D- Holism & Reductionism

Question 1

What does reductionism involve?

Answer 1

• Reductionism involves breaking a complex phenomenon (like behaviour) down into
  constituent elements.
• Reductionism considers this process to be desirable because complex phenomena are best understood in terms of a simple explanation.

Question 2

What does the reductionist approach suggest?

Answer 2

• The reductionist approach in psychology suggests that explanations for a behaviour should begin at the highest level and then progressively look at component elements;
• Highest level: cultural and social explanations of behaviour.
• Middle level: psychological (behavioural) explanations of behaviour.
• Lowest level: biological explanations of behaviour.

Question 3

What does environmental reductionism argue?

Answer 3

• Environmental reductionism argues that behaviour can be reduced to a simple relationship between behaviour and events.
• The complex emotion of attachment is reduced to a set of probabilities: the mother is likely to provide food which is reinforcing.
• Hence, she is a rewarding individual and so becomes a ‘loved one’.

Question 4

What does biological reductionism argue?

Answer 4

• Biological reductionism reduces human behaviour to the level of the action of neurons, neurotransmitters, hormones and so on.
• For example, it has been suggested that schizophrenia is caused by excessive activity of the neurotransmitter dopamine because drugs that block this neurotransmitter reduce schizophrenic symptoms.

Question 5

What does holism focus on?

Answer 5

Holism focuses on systems as a whole rather than on the constituent parts, and suggests that we cannot predict how the whole system will behave just from
knowledge of the individual components.

Question 6

What does humanistic psychology believe?

Answer 6

• Humanistic psychology believes that the individual reacts as an organised whole rather than a set of stimulus-response links.
• What matters is a person’s sense of a unified identity and thus a lack of identity or sense of ‘wholeness’ leads to a mental disorder.

Question 7

What does cognitive psychology believe?

Answer 7

• Cognitive psychology recognises the importance of understanding an entire system.
• Memory is a complex system which in recent years has been understood in terms of connected networks. - Each neuron is linked to many other neurons.
• These links develop through experience and with each new experience the links are strengthened or weakened.
• The network as a whole behaves differently than individual parts.

Question 8

Evaluate reductionism. (STRENGTHS)

Answer 8

1) Both biological reductionism and environmental reductionism are viewed as scientific.
- Breaking complex behaviours into small constituent parts means that they can be scientifically tested and over time explanations of behaviour based
on scientific evidence will emerge.

2) Biological reductionism has led to the development of biological therapies, such as drugs.
- For example, SSRIs are more effective than placebos at treating the symptoms of OCD and reduce the symptoms for up to three months after the treatment.
- The use of SSRIs in patients with OCD has helped to reduce the anxiety associated with OCD thus providing relief for some patients.

Question 9

Evaluate reductionism. (LIMITATIONS)

Answer 9

1) Some psychologists argue that biological reductionism can lead to errors of understanding because it is simplistic and ignores the complex interaction of many factors in determining behaviour.
- For example, to treat conditions like
ADHD with drugs in the belief that the condition consists of nothing more than neurochemical imbalances is to mistake the symptoms of the phenomenon for its true cause.
- Ritalin may reduce these symptoms, but the varied factors which gave rise to the ADHD have not been addressed.
- Since the success rates of drug therapy are so highly variable, the purely biological understanding seems
inadequate.

2) Much of the research which supports environmental reductionism used nonhuman animals (e.g. Pavlov and Skinner).
- But is human behaviour simply a scaled up version of that of dogs or rats?
- Critics of reductionism point to the social
context in which humans are embedded from the earliest moments of life, and to hard-to-measure factors like cognition, emotion, and intentionality. In this case as well, the reductionist position seems, if not clearly incorrect, then at least inadequate.