Reductionism Flashcards
What is reductionism?
Breaking a behaviour down to parts and focusing on one aspect to understand the whole behaviour
What is holism?
Considering the whole thing, the whole person - looks at all aspects of a subject: nature and nurture, culture and gender
How is social impact theory reductionist?
Criticised for developing en equation to calculate how people behave in conditions. Ignores individual differences, some people more influenced than others.
How are dispositional explanations of obedience reductionist?
They only focus on the character of the individual and don’t consider the scenario e.g personality expanations
How is social identity theory reductionist?
Only focuses on one factor = the mere existance of two groups, doesn’t account for why the extent of prejudice varies
How is agency theory reductionist?
Criticised for not explaining why someone obey an authority figure or offering explanations for differing levels of obedience
How is the MSM reductionist?
It artificially breaks memory up into parts like STM and LTM for the purposes of study
How does reconstructive theory differ to the MSM?
Less reductionist, considers past experiences and perception
Why can reductionism be a disadvantage for cognitive psychology?
Due to the interrelatedness between the systems and stores
Why is biological psychology reductionist?
Explains behaviour through action of single mechanisms - hormones, parts of the brain. Take a reductionist approach to find cause and effect
How is reductionism a limitation for biological psychology?
Neglects factors at other levels that interact with each other to produce the behaviour
How is learning psychology reductionist?
CC+OC explain behaviour as a result of stimulus response connections being formed, reduce complexity by reducing what stimulates the brain to a single stimulus to measure response
How is systematic dessensitisation more holistic?
Treats the whole person as the individual can build their own heirachy and use various means to relax
Strengths of reductionism?
- Easier to control when looking for one factor
- Can establish cause and effect
- Easy to replicate
- Makes theories more credible
- Allows variables to be operationalised
- Scientific
Weaknesses of reductionism?
- Lacks detail in explanations
- Treats humans as robots
- Unlikely to be the truth
- Can’t really apply to human behaviour
