Reductionism - AO1

Question 1

What are the 3 levels of explanation ?

Answer 1

• Highest level: Cultural and social explanations of how social groups affect behaviour.
• Middle level: Psychological explanations of behaviour.
• Lower level: Biological explanations and how they affect behaviour.

Question 2

We can consider any behaviour in terms of all 3 levels …

Answer 2

Example: Memory

• Can be explained at a social level.
• Can be explained at a psychological level in terms of episodic memories.
• Can be explained in terms of a biological level in terms of certain areas of the brain where memories are stored and formed.

Question 3

Biological reductionism:

Answer 3

• Human behaviour is explainable at a physical level.
• Biological psychologists reduce behaviour to the action of neurons, neurotransmitters and hormones.

Question 4

Environmental reductionism:

Answer 4

• Behaviourists suggests behaviour can be explained in terms of a stimulus response links.
• Simple relationship between behaviour and events in the environment.
• Examples of such explanations include the behaviourist explanation offered for attachment.

Question 5

Experimental reductionism:

Answer 5

• Reducing complex behaviours to isolated variables.
• Experimental approach: where behaviours are reduced to operationalised variables that can be manipulated to determine causal relationships.

Question 6

Reductionism definition:

Answer 6

Involves breaking a complex phenomenon down into more single components. Implying this is desirable because complex phenomena are best understood in the terms of a simpler level of explanation.