Holism and Reductionism

• Holism

  • Considers the whole person as an indivisible system.
  • Understands that behaviour is complex and the product of different influences interacting with one another.
  • Hard to scientifically test or establish cause and effect because the methods used tend to be qualitative to understand thoughts and feelings
• Reductionism

  • Reducing behaviour down to its smallest components
  • Behaviour can be understood by examining the simple components
  • Testing these ideas can establish cause and effect
• Levels of explanation

  Levels of explanation refers to the different ways of viewing behaviour. The 'level' can tell us how reductionist or holistic something is

  The lowest level considers Physiological explanations, where behaviour is explained in terms of neurochemicals, genes and brain structure; The middle level considers phycological explanations (cognitive and behavioural) and the highest level considers social and cultural where behaviour is explained in terms of the influence of social groups
• Strength of reductionism

  Cause and effect relationship can easily be established because behaviour is broken down into its smallest components
• Strength of reductionism

  This perspective has real world applications as it enables treatment to be developed for individuals suffering from mental illness. For example, antipsychotics are used to decrease dopamine levels in schizphrenics
• Strength of Holism

  The individual is studied in context and the qualitative methodologies employed by this perspective mean that really rich detailed information is gathered
• Weakness of reductionism

  Breaking behavior down into its smallest parts is problematic because it ignores all other possible causes on behavior, such as the social context. We can never be certain that only one single factor causes our behavior
• Weakness of holism

  This perspective can be viewed as unscientific as the methods used can be subjective and open to bias
• Weakness of holism

  The higher level of explanation make it difficult to identify cause and effect. This means that it can be difficult to find an appropriate treatment for an individual if their behavior has multiple causes. When finding solutions to real-life problems, the lower levels may be more appropriate
• Strength of reductionism

  Conducting research from this perspective can be viewed as scientific as it uses controlled lab methods to examine human behavior