holism and reductionism

• Holism


  whole is greater than the sum of its parts

  eg humanistic, qualitative approaches
• reductionism


  levels of parsimony, reducing to simplest principles
• biological reductionism 


  physiological

  neurochemical

  evolutionary

  genetic
• environmental reductionism


  behaviour reduced to stimulus responses

  eg love/attachment learnt through classical conditioning
• AO3 -


  impractical and tend not to lend themselves to rigorous scientific testing eg too many factors contributing to depression

  reductionist explanations oversimplify complex phenomena so loose validity
• AO3 +


  reductionist explanations have scientific credibility

  makes it possible to conduct experiments or record observations for example, Loftus & Palmer EWT