reductionist/holism

Question 1

reductionism

Answer 1

• research
  involves looking for the
  most basic, underlying
  reasons behind
• Research should be
  conducted by isolating one
  variable at a time to
  establish cause and effect
  (e.g. through experiments)

Question 2

holism

Answer 2

• research 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)

Question 3

studies that are reductionist

Answer 3

• Bandura – the learning of aggression was
  explained solely in terms of observation of
  role models (e.g. as opposed to, say,
  genetic inheritance)
• Loftus and Palmer - investigating the
  impact of changing a single word on
  memory for the event

Question 4

studies that are holistic

Answer 4

• Piliavin - the arousal cost-reward model
  of helping explains behaviour as resulting
  from biological, cognitive and social
  factors interacting
• Lee – looked at the interaction between
  the age of a child and the culture they
  come from (in relation to their attitudes
  towards lying and truth-telling)

Question 5

strengths of research being reductionist

Answer 5

• Tends to involve using scientific
  experimental methods to investigate the
  impact of one factor at a time
• Highly controlled laboratory experiments
  tend to be used which allow cause and
  effect to be established (increasing
  construct validity)
• Replicable, reliable procedures followed

Question 6

weakness of research being reductionist

Answer 6

• 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

Question 7

strengths of research being holistic

Answer 7

• 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
  factor was investigated on its own

Question 8

weakness of research being holistic

Answer 8

• 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