Holism vs Reductionism

• What is holism?

  The idea that human behaviour should be viewed as a whole integrated experience, and not as separate parts.
• What are the two types of holism?

  Gestalt psychology and humanistic psychology
• What is Gestalt psychology?

  Gestalt psychology uses a holistic approach when looking at perception. When we perceive something in the real world, we do so a a whole rather than as a collection of bits and pieces.
• What is humanistic psychology?

  It argues that humans reacts to stimuli as an organised whole.
• What is reductionism?

  Reductionism is based on the idea of parsimony which is where you explain complex ideas using the most simplest terms. Reductionism is the belief that human behaviour can be explained by breaking it done into simpler component parts.
• What are the two types of reductionism?

  Biological reductionism and Environmental reductionism.
• What is biological reductionism?

  Biological psychologists try to reduce behaviour to a physical level and explain it in terms of neurons, neurotransmitters, hormones and brain structure.
• What is an example of biological reductionism?

  The biological approach claims that OCD is caused by higher levels of dopamine and lower levels of serotonin.
• What is environmental reductionism?

  Behaviourists assume that al behaviour can be reduced to the simple building blocks of stimulus and response associations and that complex behaviours are a series of stimulus and response chains.
• What is an example of environmental reductionism?

  The behaviourist approach claims that phobias are initiated through classical and operant conditioning.
• What is meant by levels of explanations?

  The different ways of viewing the same phenomena in psychology.
• What are the different levels on the levels of explanation?

  1. The highest level = social and cultural explanations e.g social influence.
  2. The middle level = psychological explanations e.g memory theories
  3. The lowest level = physiological explanations e.g biological explanations
• Evaluation of Holism vs Reductionism:

  1.Reductionism is consistent with scientific approach.

  • Reductionism has scientific credibility . Scientific psychology aims to be able to predict and control behaviour thus reductionism is consistent with the aims of science because it allows for cause-and-effect relationships to be established through lab experiments.
• Evaluation of Holism vs Reductionism:

  2.Practical application of reductionism.

  • By taking a reductionist approach towards explaining and treating mental health disorders psychologist found the effectiveness of drug therapies.
  • An example is how SSRI’s are used to treat depression based on the idea that depression is caused by low levels of serotonin which takes a biological reductionist outlook.
• Evaluation of Holism vs Reductionism:

  3.Holism provides a complete understanding of human behaviour.

  • Due to the complexity of behaviour, some behaviour can only be examined from a holistic level such as the conformity and deindividuation of the Stanford prison experiment.