Issues and Debates

• Holism


  An argument or theory which proposes that it only makes sense to study an indivisible system rather than its constituent parts
• Reductionism


  The belief that human behaviour is best explained by breaking it down into its smaller constituent parts. It is based around the scientific principle of parsimony
• Reductionist hierarchy


  • Sociology
  • Psychology
  • Biology
  • Chemistry
  • Physics
• Reductionist hierarchy


  • Increased reductionism moving down
• Sociology


  A socio-cultural level is our societal system as a whole. It is the social cultural context we are in
• Psychological


  Occurring in the mind. Our thoughts, emotions. Mental rather than physical
• Physical


  Relating to the body rather than the mind. Actual tangible things we touch
• Physiological


  The biological mechanisms of the body. The way the body functions on a biological level
• Neurochemical


  The way the body functions on a chemical level. The chemical processes that occur in our brain
• Biological reductionism


  Attempts to explain social and psychological phenomena at a lower biological level
• Strengths of biological reductionism

  • Scientific - theories can be tested
  • Easy to replicate studies - clear procedures
  • Allows for successful treatments - if we can find a biological cause, we can treat it
• Weaknesses of biological reductionism

  • Too simplistic - loses the whole person and can result in us missing important factors such as environment
  • Ignores learned behaviour - we know that learning plays a key role and so to ignore it would be not using a huge amount of information we already have
  • Ignores social factors - society and social influence have a huge effect on us every day
• Environmental reductionism


  The attempt to explain all behaviours in terms of stimulus-response links that have been learnt by experience (all observed behaviour)
• Strengths of environmental reductionism


  • Successfully explains behaviour like phobias that have a clear event as their starting point
  • Parsimony - simple is better to understand behaviour that is complex
• Weaknesses of environmental reductionism


  • Can be too simplistic - we can't ignore or dispute the fact that our biology and physiology have a huge impact on our behaviour
  • Focus is on learned association - ignores other factors that might be important in understanding
• Aspects of behaviour that require a holistic approach


  • Conformity to social roles and deindividualisation
• Holistic explanations


  • Humanistic psychology is often seen as a loose set of concepts
• Reductionist research


  • Pavlov's dog - clear cause and effect relationship established
• Reductionist explanations


  • Physiological process of a child crying
• Idiographic approach


  Focuses more on the individual case as a means of understanding behaviour, rather than aiming to formulate general laws of behaviour
• Nomothetic approach


  Attempts to study human behaviours through the development of general principles and universal laws
• Idiographic approach


  • Attempts to describe the nature of the individual and capture the richness of the human experience
  • Individuals are studied as unique entities, with their own subjective experiences, motivations and values
  • Doesn't try and compare or measure individuals against standards or norms of larger groups
• Key examples of idiographic approach


  • Humanistic approach - client-centred therapy
  • Psychodynamic approach - most research comes from individual case studies
• Idiographic research


  • The case of HM (memory)
• Idiographic research


  • Freud's Psychosexual Stages of Development using the case of Little Hans
• Nomothetic approach


  • Aims to produce general laws of human behaviour
  • These general laws provide a benchmark against which we can compare, classify and measure individuals
  • Can be used to predict future behaviour based on trends and norms
• Key examples of nomothetic approach

  • Behaviourist approach - Skinner studied hundreds of pigeons and rats to develop laws of learning
  • Biological approach - use scientific methods such as brain scans to make generalisations about localisation of functions in the brain
  • Cognitive approach - Atkinson and Shiffrin developed general laws such as MSM of memory which they believed could be generalised to everyone
• Nomothetic research


  • IQ testing - provides a baseline average standard IQ of 100
• Nomothetic research


  • Participants are reduced down to a set of numbers or scores, and the subjective nature of human experience is lost
• Interactionist approach


  The goal of modern psychology is to provide rich, detailed descriptions of human behaviour as well as the explanation of such behaviour within the framework of general laws
• Free will


  The notion that humans can make choices and are not determined by biological or external forces
• Determinism


  The view that an individuals behaviour is shaped by, or controlled by internal or external forces rather than an individuals will to do something
• Hard determinism


  Implies free will is not possible as our behaviour is always caused by internal or external events beyond our control
• Soft determinism


  All events, including human behaviour, have causes, but behaviour can also be determined by our conscious choices in the absence of coercion
• Biological determinism


  The belief that behaviour is caused by biological influences that we can not control
• Environmental determinism


  The belief that behaviour is caused by features of the environment (e.g. systems of reward and punishment) that we cannot control
• Psychic determinism


  Belief that behaviour is caused by unconscious conflicts that we cannot control
• Causal explanation


  Things where we can clearly identify the cause of, or the reason behind. We are looking for the actual mechanical cause as a way to explaining the phenomenon
• Hard determinism


  • Stephen Mobley's appeal on the basis of inheriting a 'criminal gene'
• Free will


  • Research suggests those with a high internal locus of control tend to be more mentally healthy