LS6 - Holism & Reductionism

Question 1

Holism

Answer 1

Human behaviour should be looked at as a whole and not integrated parts.

Question 2

Real World Holism

Answer 2

Things only make sense when you look at the whole image, humanistic psychology argues humans react to stimuli as an organised whole, rather than a set of stimulus response links hence qualitative methods are used to analyse people.

Question 3

Reductionism

Answer 3

To understand someone, their behaviours and experiences must be broken up and individually analysed and explained using the most basic principles.

Question 4

Levels Of Explanation

Answer 4

All behaviour can be analysed with different levels of explanations from most reductionist to most holistic.

Question 5

Highest Level Of Explanation

Answer 5

Sociocultural Factors

Question 6

Middle Level Of Explanation

Answer 6

Mild Reductionism i.e. cognitive behaviours

Question 7

Lowest Levels Of Explanation

Answer 7

Hard Reductionism i.e. physiological factors.

Question 8

Biological Reductionism

Answer 8

Psychologist reducing behaviour to physical factors e.g. genes and neurones.

Question 9

Environmental Reductionism

Answer 9

All behaviour can be reduced to simple building blocks of S-R associations and the more complex the behaviour, the more S-R chains.

Question 10

S-R Chains

Answer 10

Stimulus response chains

Question 11

Reductionism (+)

Answer 11

Scientist Support
Scientific Credibility

Question 12

Reductionism (-)

Answer 12

Lacks Ecological Validity
Ignores Behaviour Complexity
Methodology

Question 13

Scientist Support (+)

Answer 13

Most studies imply human behaviour can be studied effectively, through simple experiments, allowing researchers to study behaviour in controlled environments.

Question 14

Scientific Credibility (+)

Answer 14

Both biological and environmental determinism are viewed as scientific as they allow complex behaviours to be tested in smaller parts.

Question 15

Lacks Ecological Validity (-)

Answer 15

Studies using reductionism are often questioned for their reliability due to labs being different to natural environments.

Question 16

Ignores Behaviour Complexity (-)

Answer 16

Biological reductionism ignores the complexity of behaviours e.g. treating ADHD with drug therapy, mistakes its symptoms for its true cause.

Question 17

Methodology (-)

Answer 17

Methodology of environmental reductionism is poor e.g. human behaviour is scaled up as most test subjects are animals anyway.

Question 18

Holism (+)

Answer 18

Group Context
Blends In With Other Theories

Question 19

Holism (-)

Answer 19

No Scientific Testing
Don’t Establish Causation

Question 20

Group Context (+)

Answer 20

Some social behaviours only emerge in group context e.g. conformity, you need to look at the whole group.

Question 21

Blends In With Other Theories (+)

Answer 21

It tries to provide a complete and realistic understanding of human behaviour.

Question 22

No Scientific Testing (-)

Answer 22

Holistic explanations can become vague and complex e.g. humanistic approach which is difficult to scientifically approach.

Question 23

Don’t Establish Causation (-)

Answer 23

Doesn’t look at established behaviours in terms of operationalised, manipulative variables.