reductionism

• holism- states that we can only understand behaviour when it is seen as a whole
• examples of holism- the humanistic approach, humanistic psychology focuses on the individuals experience, which is not something we can reduce to units
• humanistic psychology uses qualitative methods to investigate the self, through the analysis of themes rather than component behaviours
• reductionism- all behaviour should be explained using the most simple principles possible
• according to reductionism, human behaviour can and should be explained by breaking it down into its simpler component parts
• biological reductionism focuses on biological explanations for behaviour and is based on the premise that we are biolgical organisms, eg the biological approach to OCD- OCD has been reduced to two neurotransmitters
• environmental reductionism- attempts to explain behaviour in terms of stimulus response links- basis of behaviourism- in attachment, the idea of love is reduced to a learned association between the provider of food and the pleasure of receiving food
• one problem with holistic approaches is that they may lack practical value, as holistic explanations for behaviour tend to be very complex
• holistic approaches make it difficult to determine which factors hold most importance in a subject, eg humanistic psychologists would suggest that there are many factors which contribute to development of depression, such as their past, their present situation, job and family circumstances
• problem with taking a holistic approach- may lack practical value, holistic explanations tend to be very complex, eg taking a holistic approach with depression is taking a lot of factors into consideration such as their past, family circumstances, their job, present situation etc
• reductionist approach has very good practical value- because of its nature of homing in on one particular aspect which can be targeted for treatment, eg focus on genes and neurotransmitters has meant that bio reductionism has led to development of drug therapies like SSRIs, shown to be highly effective, eg Soomro et al from the OCD topic has proven these treatments are successful
• strength of reductionist approach- very much in line with scientific approaches, in order to conduct well-controlled scientific research, variables need to be operationalised- means breaking down into component parts, allows us to record observations objectively and reliably etc, cause and effect- gives psychology a high level of credibility and places it on the same stream as natural sciences
• reductionist approaches have been accused of oversimplification of complex behaviour, eg explanations that exist at the bio level do not include any analysis of the context within which the behaviour occurs
• an example of why reductionism may be negative- bio- without taking the context into account when treating mental illnesses with drugs, it is possible that only the symptoms are being treated rather than the true cause
• a problem with reductionism is that some behaviours can only be understood at a higher level, eg aspects of some social situations only emerge within a group context and cannot be understood in terms of the individual group members, making a holistic approach more relevant- eg stanford prison study