Issues and debates: holism and reductionism

Question 1

what is reductionism?

Answer 1

.breaking down a phenomenon into its constituent parts and ignoring the interactions/connections between parts

Question 2

what are the 3 levels of explanation of reductionism?

Answer 2

.social and cultural explanation
.psychological explanation
.biological explanation

Question 3

what are the 2 types of reductionism?

Answer 3

.biological reductionism
.environmental reductionism

Question 4

what is biological reductionism?

Answer 4

.biological psychologists try to reduce behaviour to a physical level and explain it in terms of neurotransmitters, hormones, brain structure

Question 5

what is environmental reductionism?

Answer 5

.behaviourists assume that all behaviour can be reduced to a stimulus and response

Question 6

what is a strength to taking a reductionist approach?

Answer 6

reductionism is more scientific so gives psychology more credibility because objective evidence can be collected

Question 7

what is a negative to taking a reductionist approach?

Answer 7

.oversimplifies behaviour and doesn’t explain why the behaviour is happening

Question 8

what is holism?

Answer 8

.idea that human behaviour should be viewed as a whole integrated system and not as separate parts

Question 9

who suggested in the 1920’s/30’s that ‘the whole is greater than the sum of its parts?’

Answer 9

gestalt psychologists

Question 10

what do gestalt psychologists do?

Answer 10

.they adopt a holistic approach to perception: when we perceive something in the real world, we do so as a whole rather than as a collection of bits and pieces

Question 11

which approach supports the idea of holism?

Answer 11

.humanistic approach

Question 12

how does the humanistic approach support the idea of holism?

Answer 12

.the approach argues that humans react to stimuli as an organised whole rather than a set of stimulus-response links.
.it investigates all aspects of the individual as well as interactions between people

Question 13

what is a strength to taking a holistic approach?

Answer 13

.gives a more complete understanding of behaviour and acknowledges interactions between people are important

Question 14

what’s an example of where taking a holistic approach gave a more complete understanding of behaviour?

Answer 14

Zimbardos Stanford prison experiment -couldn’t be understood by studying the participants as individuals, it was the interaction between people and behaviour that was most important

Question 15

what is a negative to taking a holistic approach?

Answer 15

.can’t get evidence for holism as it’s not scientific however humanists would argue that’s not a problem

Question 16

how is taking a holistic approach not scientific?

Answer 16

.because behaviour cannot be studied in a lab because there are so many factors that could be influencing behaviour