L5: Holism And Reductionism

Question 1

Define Reductionism

Answer 1

• Breaking a complex phenomenon into its consitituent elements
• It is desirable because complex phenomena are best understood in terms of a simple explanation

Question 2

What does the reductionist approach suggest?

Answer 2

• Explanations should begin at the highest level and then at the component elements
  Highest: Cultural and Social explanations
  Middle: Psychological (behavioural) explanations
  Lowest: Biological explanations

Question 3

Define Environment Reductionism

Answer 3

• Behaviour can be reduced to a simple relationship between behaviour and events
  e. g mother likely to provide food reinforcing attachment. Rewarding individual = gets love

Question 4

Define Biological Reductionism

Answer 4

• Reduces human behaviour to level of action of neurones, neurotransmitters, hormones and etc.
• e.g Schiz = too much dopamine as drugs that block dopamine lower symptoms

Question 5

Define Holism

Answer 5

• Focuses on systems as a whole rather than on the constituent parts.
• We cant predict how the whole system will behave just from knowledge of the individual components

Question 6

Which approaches use holism

Answer 6

• Humanistic: Individual reacts as an organised whole rather than stimulus-response links. People’s sense of a unified identity/ lack of leads to a mental disorder
• Cognitive: Understanding an entire system e,g memory is a complex system which has been udnerstiid as a connection of networks. Each neurone links to another. These develop through experience. The whole network behaves differently to individual parts

Question 7

Evaluation of Reductionism (+)

Answer 7

(+) Reductionism is scientific. Breaking behaviour into small parts means they can be scientifically tested over time
(+) Bio reductionism leads to the development of biological therapies like drugs. SSRIs are more effective than placebos for OCD and reducd symptoms and anxiety

Question 8

Evaluation of Reductionism (-)

Answer 8

• Bio reductionism can lead to errors as it is simplistic and ignores complex interactions of many factors in determining factors e.g ADHD meant to be a chemical imbalance byt Ritalin reduces symptoms when it increases levels of neurotransmitters
• Research supporting env reductionism is based on animals. Can we extrapolate data from animals? Humans have cognition, emotion and intentionality
• Env reductionism can mean a true cause of behaviour can be overlooked e.g a women was treated for phobias towards insects with Systematic Desensitisation, but it didnt work. Her husband had an insect nickname, and her phobia was an expression of her marital difficulties