Holistic And Reductionism Flashcards
What is reductionism
Involves breaking a complex phenomenon down into its constituent elements. This phenomena should be explained using the most basic principles that are often the simplest and easiest levels of explanation
What does the reductionist approach suggest
That explanations of behaviour should begin at the highest level and then progressively look at component elements;
Highest level: cultural and social explanations of behaviour
Middle level: psychological explanations of behaviour
Lowest level: biological explanations of behaviour
What is an example of levels an explanation
If a teenager commits a violent crime:
-low level of explanation would emphasise physiological factors like genes, low serotonin…
-mid level would be psychological explanations or cognitive explanations like SLT
-High level would be More complex socio cultural factors such as if the area is poverty or high crime rate
What is environmental reductionism
Argues that behaviour can be reduced to a stimulus response association and that complex behaviours are a series of S-R associations.
What is biological reductionism
Reduces behaviour to the level of the action of neurons, neurotransmitters, hormones and so on. For example it has been suggested that schizophrenia is caused by excessive activity of the neurotransmitter dopamine because drugs that inhibit this reduces schizophrenic symptoms
What is Holism
Focuses on a system as a whole rather than on the constituent parts, and suggest that we cannot predict how the whole system will behave just from knowledge of the individual components
What does the humanistic approach believe
Humanistic psychology also advocates a holistic approach, as it argues that humans react to stimuli as an organised whole, rather than as a set of stimulus-response links. As an approach, it uses qualitative methods to investigate all aspects of the individual, as well as the interactions between people.
What does the cognitive approach recognise
The importance of understanding an entire system. Memory is a complex system which in recent years has been understood in terms of connected networks. Each neuron is linked to many other neurons and these links develop through experience and the links are strengthened or weakened. The network as a whole behaves differently to individual parts
Strengths reductionism
Scientists are drawn to the reductionist explanations as a method of research. E.g. most experimental psychology is based on the assumption that human behaviour can be studied effectively though relatively simple experiments, where complex behaviour is reduced to isolated variables. This allows researchers to study factors that influence human behaviour in a controlled manor whilst establishing a causal relationship. This would not be possible if psychologists attempted to study all of human behaviour at once
Biological reductionism has led to the development of biological therapies, such as drugs. For example, SSRIs are more effective than placebos at treating the symptoms of OCD and reduce the symptoms for up to three months after the treatment. The use of SSRIs in patients with OCD has helped to reduce the anxiety associated with OCD thus providing relief for some patients.
Weakness reductionism
Some psychologists argue that biological reductionism can lead to errors of understanding because it ignores the complexity of human behaviour. For example to treat conditions like ADHD with drugs in belief that the conditions consist of nothing more than neurochemical imbalances is to mistake the neural phenomenon for its true cause. Ritalin May reduce symptoms, but the conditions that gave rise to ADHD have not actually been addressed. Whether or not this is true depends on what one thinks of as causation, but since success rates of drug therapy are so highly variable, the purely biological understanding seems inadequate
Much of the research which supports environmental reductionism used non- human animals (e.g. Pavlov and Skinner). But is human behaviour simply a scaled- up version of that of dogs or rats? Critics of reductionism point to the social context in which humans are embedded from the earliest moments of life, and to hard-to-measure factors like cognition, emotion, and intentionality. In this case as well, the reductionist position seems, if not clearly incorrect, then at least inadequate.
Strengths holism
There are aspects of social behaviour that can only emerge within a group context and cannot be understood by looking at analysing each group member. For example conformity and de-individuation can only be studied by looking at the group behaviour and not the individuals
Weakness hols I’m
Holistic approaches do not lend themselves to rigorous scientific testing and can become vague and complex. For example humanistic approach, which takes a holistic view towards behaviour tends to be difficult to test scientifically as it is criticised as being a lose set of concepts
