Holism vs Reductionalism

• 3 layers of Reductionism:

  • Biological - lowest
  • Psychological (Cognitive, Behavioural)
  • Environmental (stimulus response)
• Reductionism - the belief that human behaviour can be explained by breaking it down into simpler component parts
• Reductionism is based on the scientific assumption of parsimony: the idea that complex phenomena should be explained in the simplest terms possible.
• Occham's Razor: one should not make unnecessary assumptions and that the answer to a problem is often the simplest.
• Holism - human behaviour should be viewed as a whole experiences, and not as separate parts
• holos - greek word for whole
• Psychologists who adopt a holistic approach are known as Gestalt Psychologists
• To show a method is reductionist, state that it oversimplifies behaviour by ignoring other aspects