Lesson 6 - Holism vs Reductionism

Question 1

What is biological reductionism?

Answer 1

Refers to the way that biological psychologists try to reduce behaviour to a physical level and explain it in terms of neurons, neurotransmitters, hormones and brain structure etc.

Question 2

What is environmental reductionism?

Answer 2

Aka stimulus reductionism. Behaviourists assume that all behaviour can be reduced to the simple building blocks of stimulus-response associations and that complex behaviours are a series of S-R chains

Question 3

What is holism?

Answer 3

The idea that human behaviour should be viewed as a whole integrated experience and not as separate parts

Emerged from Gestalt psychology rejects the ideals of structuralism that Wundt advocated for. It sees that behaviour can only be understood when we take into account the whole picture of perception.

This is also linked to the humanist approach, which argues that humans react to stimuli as an organised whole, not just a series of stimulus-response links.

Question 4

What are levels of explanation?

Answer 4

Explanations of behaviour varying from the most fundamental reductionist explanations and those more higher holistic explanations.

The lowest level focuses on physiological factors like attempts to explain behaviour in terms of neurochemicals and genetics.

The middle levels are about environmental reductionism and machine reductionism (cognitive explanations)

The highest levels tend to focus on sociocultural explanations like values, customs and areas of tension in society. It can also take into account interactionist ideas.

Question 5

What is parsimony?

Answer 5

The idea that complex behaviours can be driven by the simplest terms possible

Question 6

What is reductionism?

Answer 6

The belief that human behaviour can be explained by breaking it down into simpler component parts. Based on the idea of parsonmony

Question 7

Strengths of reductionism

Answer 7

• The reductionist method is favoured by scientists as a method of research. Most experimental psychology is based on the idea that you can find causal relationships through relatively simple experiments where behaviour is reduced to variables.