Issues and Debates: Holism vs Reductionism

Question 1

Holism

Answer 1

• Gestalt psychologists believe that you can only make sense of a system or concept by investigating the system as a whole, rather than its consistent parts.

Question 2

Reductionism

Answer 2

• Belief that behaviours are best explained by breaking them down in order to understand their constituent parts.

Question 3

• Biological reductionism:

Answer 3

social phenomena can be explained by biological phenomena.

Question 4

• Environmental reductionism:

Answer 4

behaviours can be explained by the stimuli that a person experiences.

Question 5

• Holism lacks practical value eval

Answer 5

• Holism lacks practical value – because you cannot establish causation. There are too many variables flying around, so you don’t know which one caused a behaviour.
• A broad approach means that you tend not to focus on a particular variable. Therefore, giving it less detail.

Question 6

eval biology holism

Answer 6

• Holism tends to neglect biological accounts because it considers environmental explanations.

Question 7

eval focus reductionist

Answer 7

• Reductionism is good because it allows us to focus on an issue – thus allowing us to study in a more efficient way.

Question 8

eval measurable

Answer 8

• Difficult to make things measurable when taking a holistic approach – it’s easier in reductionism.

Question 9

getting all the way eval

Answer 9

• Concerning reductionism, it is often better to be economic in our explanations. Why investigate everything when investigating one thing will get us most of the way there.

Question 10

The case for Holism

Answer 10

• Some behaviours only make sense at the interpersonal level. For example, conformity and deindividualization.
• Holism gives us a complete picture of a psychological issue, rather than necessarily leaving things out by using more reductionist approaches.

Question 11

The case against Holism

Answer 11

• Holistic explanations do not lend themselves to scientific enquiry. You can’t look at all explanations concurrently because you wouldn’t know what aspect accounted for a difference in the IV.
• If you look at all explanations you can end up not deciding which is the most influential, e.g depression.

Question 12

The case for Reductionism

Answer 12

• Allows creation of clearly operationalised variables because you reduce behaviour to its most essential elements.
• Thus, allowing more scientific investigations.

Question 13

The case against Reductionism

Answer 13

• Reductionism necessarily simplifies issues.
• It also misses out on the experience of behaviour. This is known as phenomenology, or the qualia of an experience.