hollism vs reductionism

• hollism:

  • indivisible system rather than constituent parts - experience only understood when considered as a whole
  • cant predict how system will behave from just individual components
• reductionism:

  • behaviour explained by breaking down into smaller constituent parts
  • parsimony = phenomena should be explained using simplest lowest level principles
• biological reductionism:

  • all behaviour is at some level biological, can be explained by neurochemicals + genetic influences - applied to explain mental illness and treatment
• environmental reductionism:

  • learning occurs through interactions in environment
  • applied to explain learning theory + phobias
• levels of explanation: different way of explaining the same concept

  • highest: cultural + social explanations
  • middle: psychological (cognitive/behavioural)
  • lowest: biological (lower levels more reductionist)
• memory levels of explanation:

  • highest: cultural expectations affect what we remember
  • middle: cognitive aspects e.g capacity, types of memories
  • lowest: localisation of memory in the brain
• attachment levels of explanation:

  • highest: different attachments influences by cultures
  • middles: behavioural = food + attachment as secondary drive
  • lowest: attachment is innate
• EVALUATION: case against reductionism

  • Welpe developed SD - found no improvement for women with insect fear, man gave her insect nickname
  • not conditioning, marital problems, focus on behaviour would be wrong
  • lower levels of explanation may distract from other levels
• EVALUATION: case against holism

  • humanistic criticised for lack of empirical evidence
  • higher levels create problems - many factors involved, difficult to establish one as more influential
  • use lower levels for irl problems
• EVALUATION: biological reductionism

  • led to less institutionalisation + more humane treatment, greater tolerance of the mentally ill
  • not always successful - bio level ignores context + function of behaviour
  • psych explanations take casual factors into account + produced therapies