Reductionism/Holism Flashcards
What is the Reductionist side of the debate about?
involves looking for the most basic, underlying reasons behind human behaviour.
Research should be conducted by isolating one variable at a time to establish cause and effect (e.g. through experiments)
What is the Holism side of the debate about?
involves trying to understand how multiple factors interact and influence behaviour (e.g. biological, cognitive, social, etc.)
Methods should involve studying multiple factors that influence behaviour (e.g. more than one IV)
How does Loftus and Palmer relate to reductionism?
investigating the impact of changing a single word on memory for the event
How does Sperry relate to reductionism?
experiment conducted to isolate the function of each hemisphere of the brain
How does Piliavin relate to holism?
the arousal cost reward model of helping explains behaviour as resulting from biological, cognitive and social factors
How does Levine relate to holism?
investigated several factors including gender differences, simpatia cultures, pace of life, PPP, collectivism and population size on helping
What are the strengths of reductionism?
Tends to involve using scientific experimental methods to investigate the impact of one factor at a time
Highly controlled lab experiments tend to be used which allow cause and effect to be established (increasing construct validity)
Replicable, reliable procedures followed
What are the strengths of holism?
When a holistic approach is used, it allows lots of factors to be considered which should increase the validity of the conclusions drawn
Allows us to see behaviours which are the result of interacting factors (e.g. multiple genes) but would not be seen if a single factors was investigated on its own
What are the weaknesses of holism?
It can make it harder to pin down which out of the many factors is having the biggest influence on behaviour
May be of limited use as it makes it harder to make predictions about how people would behave
What are the weaknesses of reductionism?
Human behaviour is too complex to be reduced down to single factor explanations (reducing validity of the conclusions drawn)
When experimental methods are used, the findings can often lack ecological validity
