Holism and Reductionism

• Holism

  The idea that human behaviour should be understood not as separate parts but as an integrated whole
• Reductionism

  Explaining complex behaviours by breaking them down into their smaller parts
• Levels of explanations

  There are different levels at which behaviour can be explained ranging from a low reductionist perspective to a higher holistic perspective
• Biological reductionism

  Form of reductionism which attempts to explain social and psychological phenomena at a lower biological level
• Environmental reductionism

  The attempt to explain all behaviour in terms of stimulus response links that have been learned through experience
• Holism explained

  • Seeing a person as a whole
  • Seen in the humanistic approach
  • Use qualitative methods to investigate the self
• Biological reductionism

  • All behaviour is somewhat biological
  • Biologically reductionist arguments work backwards
  • If drugs increasing serotonin are effective in treating OCD then low serotonin could be said to cause OCD
  • We have reduced OCD to low levels of serotonin
• Environmental reductionism

  • All behaviour is learned through interactions with the environment
  • Explain behaviour in terms of conditioning
  • The learning theory of attachment reduces the idea of love between an infant and mother to a learned association between the mother and food leading to pleasure
• Levels of explanation: OCD

  • Socio-cultural level- OCD interrupts social relationships
  • Psychological level- The person experiencing anxiety
  • Physical level- washing one's hands
  • Physiological- abnormal functioning in the frontal lobes
  • Neurochemical- low levels of serotonin
• AO3 Holism: Some behaviours can only be understood in a group

  • Research into conformity provides support for holism
  • There are social behaviours that only emerge within certain groups and can't be understood at the individual level
  • Conformity to social roles of the prisoners and guards in Zimbardo cannot be fully understood by simply studying the PPs alone
  • Analysing the interaction between PPs and the behaviour of the entire group was more important in understanding what was happening
  • A holistic explanation can provide understanding reductionist approaches ignore
• AO3 Reductionism: Scientific

  • Reductionistic approaches form the basis of a scientific approach
  • In order to conduct well controlled research we need to operationalise variables
  • Breaking down components to have an IV and DV so then experiments can be objective and reliable
  • This allows cause and effect to be established
  • Examples include the Strange Situation and BF Skinner
• AO3 Holism: Lack of practical value

  • Holistic accounts of human behaviour become hard to use as they become more complex
  • For example if we take a humanistic approach to explain depression it becomes hard to say which factor is the most influential in developing depression
  • It become difficult on what to base the therapy on if we don't know the most important factor
• AO3 Reductionism: Ignores other explanations

  • Most psychologists acknowledge that the likelihood that behaviour is purely biologically driven is low
  • The complexity involved in every behaviour means that a purely reductionist explanation is insufficient
  • Taking a reductionist viewpoint may mean that other explanations are ignored such as CBT which tackles belief systems in people with depression
  • A reductionist viewpoint and its subsequent treatment may lead to addressing the symptoms rather than the underlying cause