Reductionism vs Holism

Question 1

What is Holism?

Answer 1

The debate concerned with whether it is best to understand the complexity of human behaviour by reducing it to their simplest structures or parts or to view human behaviour as a whole integrated experience.

Question 2

What is Reductionism?

Answer 2

The scientific view that human behaviour is best explained by breaking it down into simpler component parts.

Question 3

What is Biological Reductionism?

Answer 3

Biological reductionism refers to the way Psychologists reduce behaviour to its physiology and explain behaviour in terms of genetics, neurotransmitters, hormones and biological structures.

Question 4

What is Environmental Reductionism?

Answer 4

Environmental reductionism reduces behaviour to a simple stimulus-response.

Question 5

What is Parsimony?

Answer 5

The idea that complex behaviour should always be explained in its simplest parts.

Question 6

What are the Levels of Explanation?

Answer 6

This view by Rose (1976) argues that there are different levels of explanations. These include the highest level of Social and Cultural explanations, middle Psychological levels and the lowest being Biological explanations.

Question 7

What is the argument of Holism?

Answer 7

Holism is the argument that human behaviour is too complex to be broken down into simple parts. Therefore by being holistic psychologists consider the ‘whole’ individual as a sum of its parts.