AO3

• Holism

  • Provides a more complete picture: Some examples of behaviour can only be understood at the holistic level, such as the conformity and deindividuation of Zimbardo’s prisoners and guards in his Stanford Prison Experiment.
  • Therefore, holistic explanations may provide a more ‘complete’ picture of behaviour.
• Holism

  Holistic explanations are frequently used by the humanistic approach. However, there is a lack of empirical evidence associated with higher-level explanations and holistic viewpoints may simplify complex phenomena too far. As such, humanism is still seen as a set of rather looselyjoined abstract concepts. Therefore, holistic explanations may not be suited towards more complex behaviours
• reductionism

  • Ignores the complexity of behaviour — Reductionist explanations may lead to a loss of validity because they ignore the social context where behaviour occurs, which often gives behaviour its meaning. For example, from a reductionist viewpoint, the act of speaking would be the same across all scenarios due to each individual having the same biological mechanism for this. However, such a view ignores the social context of this speaking, such as with the aim of alerting someone, voicing an opinion etc.