Reductionism and holism

Question 1

What is the basis of this debate?

Answer 1

There are different levels for explaining psychological behaviour with lower forms being more reductionist than those at a higher level (holist).

Question 2

What is meant by holism?

Answer 2

Holism considers the view that the behaviour or individual is greater than its components. This means that we should consider the broader picture of different impacts causing one behaviour.

Holism believes that we should not reduce things down to their most basic components and consider higher order causes. Holism values qualitative research gaining a fuller representation of individuals.

Question 3

What is meant by reductionism?

Answer 3

Reductionism is the reduction of complex behaviour down to the sum of its basic components. It suggests that complex behaviour can be understood by examining the individual components that make it up.

Question 4

What is biological reductionism?

Answer 4

This suggests behaviour is down to things such as genetics, biochemical imbalances and evolution. Through understanding these, we can understand broader behaviour.

Question 5

What is environmental reductionism?

Answer 5

Behaviourism reduces all behaviour down to stimulus response learning and neglects any greater cause of behaviour due to the behaviourist claim of ‘tabula rasa’

Question 6

AO3 - reductionism

Answer 6

Reductionism allows us to understand behaviour better focusing on single causes allowing us to be scientific in testing rather than holism that fails to pinpoint cause and effect relationships between variables.

· Reductionism has led to effective treatments due to the concern with single variables causing behaviour. This means we can adapt or change this issue to assess the effect of the change developing appropriate treatment.

· Over simplicity means there may be a lack of accuracy or complete understanding or failure to capture the true nature of the disorder. This leads to an issue with the treatment not being effective and waste.

Question 7

AO3 - holism

Answer 7

Understanding the whole means that it is reflective of real life as we are all impacted by many factors at once due to the nature of human thought processing.

· Holistic approach provides a wider range of options for treating people having fewer side effects than drug treatments which would be an example of reductionism.

· Holism may reveal areas overlooked by a reductionist view.

· Being too broad may mean that you overlook a real cause of a disorder.

· It is hard to be truly holistic as there are many ‘important factors’ in a disorder however it is difficult to decipher which are and which are not important factors.