reductionism

• breaking human behaviour or what is to be studied into parts so that can be studied
• explaning something by breaking it down into its simplest parts
• science is by definition reductionist
• milgram used a controlled environment scripted verbal prods and a measurable way of studying obedience where partcipants either agreed to give an electric shock to someone or they didn't the voltage could be measured
• reductionism means breaking something down into parts to stidy it then findings from the study are put together to make sense of the whole
• example of hm a person whose memory was badly affected the whole person isnt studied so much as the parts of the brain that were damaged to see if those parts could be linked to memory deficits . looking at parts of the brain is a reductionist aooroach
• milgrams work reduced obedience to authority to a lab experimental task not taking into account other factors that re;ate tp obedience
• though milgram used a lot of variations to test different factors they were still tested individually which is reductionidt
• being social is a whole thing and looking at parts such as in-group/out-group behaviour can lose the whole
• social impact theory looks at the parts of social behaviour . this is reductionist and can help to study an area that is complex and hard to study otherwise
• memory is reduced into two main parts short-term and long-term or into different types such as semantic and acoustic
• memory as a whole is hard to study through life histories could perhaps be carried out using someone older and noting what they say about where their memory is reliable and where it isn't
• using experiments to try to find cause and effect conclusions about memory sothat firm body of knowledge can be built does tend to require a narrower or more reduced way of looking at memory than a life hsitory might uncover
• neurophsiology looks at how different parts of the brain relate to memory in real life which overlooks the brain as a holistic profesor
• looking at the stimulus and seeing the effecr on the response which isnt focusing on the cognitive processes between the stimulus and the response
• learning theories use experiments and fit this diea of science very well so they also fot in wth the idea of being reductionist . in considering a treatment for someone there might be a holsitic approach which means considering everything about that individual
• it could be said that systematic desensotisation treats the whole person as the individuals can build their own hierachy and can use various means to relax . in fact there a re cognitive elements of systematic desensitisation
• therefore although behaviourism seems to take a reductionist view when being used in therapy there is a more holsitic focus