Reductionism vs holism

Cards (5)

  • What topics link to this debate
    • OCD: neural explanation with serotonin -> biologically reductionist
    • Learning theory of attachment: stimulus response -> environmentally reductionist
    • Behavioural explanation for the acquisition of phobias: classical conditioning -> environmentally reductionist
    • Diathesis stress model of OCD-> holistic
  • Outline of debate
    The debate of which level it is appropriate to explain human behaviou. Reductionism focuses on explaining human behaviour by breaking it down into smaller constituent parts whereas holistic focuses on considering the whole person as an indivisible system.
  • Levels of explanation
    There are different ways of viewing the same behaviour in psychology. The debate focuses on what level is most appropriate to explain behaviour. The nature of this debate is to find which level best explains the behaviour as each level is more reductionist than the one before it. I.e. OCD can be explained via socio-cultural, psychological level, physical level, physiological level and then the neurochemical level.
  • Biological reductionism
    This is based on the assumption that we are biological organisms made up of physiological structures and processes, therefore all behaviour is at some level biological and can be explained through neurochemical, neurophysiological, evolutionary and genetic influences.
  • Environmental reductionism
    This is reducing behaviour down to stimulus-response. Behaviourist psychologists build their assumptions upon this as they study only observable behaviours and break complex learning down into stimulus-response that can be studied in a laboratory.