Holism vs reductionism.

Question 1

What is the basis of the debate?

Answer 1

Holism and reductionism debate is concerned with level at which it is appropriate to explain human behaviour.

Question 2

What is holism?

Answer 2

• The idea that any attempt to break up behaviour and experience is inappropriate.
• When we perceive something in the real world, we do so as a whole rather than collection of bits and pieces. What we see only makes sense when we consider the whole image, rather than the individual elemets that make up our vision.

Question 3

What is reductionism?

Answer 3

Reductionist explanations try to break thought and action into the smallest, simplest parts, whilst holistic explanations consider the whole person as an indivisible system.

Question 4

What is biological reductionism?

Answer 4

• Explaining behaviour using biological systems. This could be genetics, physiology of the body and the brain or biochemistry.
• Advantage = it’s a more precise and simple explanation for behaviour with more scientific elements.
• Is an assumption of biological approach and has been successfully applied to number of different topic areas.
• e.g. effects of psychoactive drugs on the brain have contributed much to our understnading of neural processes and the fact it might be possible to explain serious mental health disorders such as OCD.

Question 5

What is environmental reductionism?

Answer 5

• Explaining behaviour through stimulus and response, suggesting all behaviour can be explained through what has been learnt through environment - CC and OC.
• The behaviourist approach is built in environmental reductionism, this means that analysis of human behaviour would be described at a physical level.
• Doesn’t concern itself iwth mental processes of the mind that occur at psychological level.
• e.g. phobias are suggested to be learnt behaviours, a complex behaviour that has been reduced to the simplistic form of stimulus and response.

Question 6

Levels of explanation.

Answer 6

The essence of this debate is to do with explaining behaviour in different levels and focuses on which level provides the best explanation of behaviour.
- Highest level = social and cultural explanations (the influence of social groups on behaviour).
- Middle level = psychological explanations (cognitive, behavioural/environmental).
- Lowest level = biological explanations (neurochemical, genetic, brain structure etc.)

Question 7

Strength of holism.

Answer 7

P: There are aspects of a social behaviour that only emerge within a group context and cannot be understood at the level of individual group members.
E: For instance, the effects of conformity to social roles and
deindividuation of the prisoners and guards in the Stanford Prison Experiment could not be understood by studying the
participants as individuals. It was the interaction between people and behaviour that was important.
C: This shows that holistic/same level explanations provide a more complete and global understanding of behaviour than reductionist approaches.

Question 8

Limitation of holism.

Answer 8

P: Holistic explanations in psychology tend not to lend themselves to rigorous scientific testing and can become vague and speculative as they become more complex.
E: For example, holistic psychology, which takes a holistic approach for behaviour, tends to be criticised for its lack of empirical evidence. If we accept that there are many factors that contribute to
depression, it becomes difficult to establish which is most
influential and which one to use as a basis for therapy.
C: This suggests, when it comes to finding solutions for real-world problems, lower level explanations maybe more appropriate.

Question 9

Strength of reductionism.

Answer 9

P: A reductionist approach often forms the basis of scientific
research. In order to create operationalised variables it is
necessary to break target behaviours down into constituent parts.
E: This makes it possible to conduct experiments and record observations (behavioural categories) in a way that is meaningful
and reliable. For example, the behaviourist approach demonstrates complex learning broken down into simple stimulus-response links
within the lab.
C: This gives psychology greater credibility, placing it on equal
terms with the natural sciences lower down in the reductionist
hierarchy.

Question 10

Limitation of reductionism.

Answer 10

P: Reductionist approaches have been accused of oversimplifying
complex phenomena leading to a loss of validity.
E: Explanations that operate at a biological level do not include the analysis of the social context within which behaviour occurs.
C: This means that reductionist explanations can only ever form part of an explanation.