reductionism vs holism

Question 1

reductionism definition

Answer 1

the tendency to explain complex psychological phenomena by reference to only one factor such as learning or biology

Question 2

holism definiton

Answer 2

trying to explain phenomena by seeing all the component parts. it is the idea that there is more than one reason

Question 3

what three studies link to reductionism

Answer 3

chaney
casey
maguire

Question 4

what three studies link to holism

Answer 4

pilliavan
levine
bocchiaro

Question 5

how does chaney support the reductionism debate

Answer 5

only focused on reinforcement from the funinhaler ignoring other factors such as parental attitudes which could affect compliance to taking asthma medication

Question 6

how does casey support the reductionism debate

Answer 6

brain functioning (activity in frontal gyrus and ventral striatum) leads to ability to delay gratification

Question 7

strength of the reductionism debate

Answer 7

tends to be scientific as they tend to only focus on solely a single cause for behaviour which is also the idea behind manipulating an independent variable in an experiment

Question 8

weakness of the reductionism debate

Answer 8

oversimplifies human behaviours as it is complex and involves many interactions with various factors. Behaviour cannot be defined by one behaviour

Question 9

how does pilliavans study support the holism debate

Answer 9

examined lots of different variables to understand helping behaviours eg) race, gender, victim, number of bystanders

Question 10

how does levines study support the holism debate

Answer 10

looked at multiple variables such as economic well being, pace of life and population size when looking at helping behaviour

Question 11

how does bocchiaros study support the holism debate

Answer 11

looked at many different variables the influence of the authority figure as well as personality traits, faith, decomposed games measures to investigate whistleblowing.

Question 12

strength of the holism debate

Answer 12

more likely to explain why things happen. This therefore gives a more valid and complete picture of human experience

Question 13

weakness of the holism debate

Answer 13

it makes it difficult to research when investigating multiple variables its harder to control extraneous variables and measure accurately