AO1 - Holism and Reductionism

• Holism: Argues that psychology should look at the whole individual rather than one specific part to explaining human behaviour

  • It does not deny potential influences of genetics but feels it is necessary to take a step back from the detail and look at an individual's social context
• One example of holism is the humanistic approach

  • Peers and family can place conditions of worth on a person and these can be influenced by social/cultural factors
• Reductionism: Based on the assumption that complex human behaviour should be explained in its simplest terms possible e.g. simple basic units - this is known as parsimony
• One type of reductionism is biological reductionism
• Biological reductionism:

  • Explaining complex human behaviour by narrowing it down to basic biological systems, e.g. genetics
  • For example, the evolutionary explanation of partner preferences implies there is some genetic transmission of that behaviour
  • Biological explanation of schizophrenia reduces schizophrenia down to the inheritance of the maladaptive genes e.g. PCM1
• Another type of reductionism is environmental reductionism
• Environmental reductionism:

  • Simplifies complex human behaviour down to learning through stimulus, response and association, e.g. classical conditioning
  • For example, learning theory suggests phobias can be explained as learning through a negative experience which are then associated with the phobic stimulus - this ignores both biological and cognitive influences
• Levels of explanation refers to how explanations of human behaviour can vary from those at a lower more fundamental level which focuses on basic units to those at a higher more holistic level which look at multiple influences on human behaviour
• The lowest level of explanation is extreme reductionism which explains complex behaviour and experience by breaking it down into smaller component parts

  • For example, biological reductionism where behaviour is explained by neurochemicals, brain structures and genes
• A mid level explanation focuses on how psychological and environmental factors influence behaviour

  • For example, the behavioural approach which focuses on learning from the environment and the cognitive approach due to its focus on psychological factors such as internal mental processes
• The highest level of explanation considers social and cultural explanations, where behaviour is explained in terms of the influence of social groups
• Schizophrenia can be explained by various levels of explanations

  • Social-cultural context: Family dysfunction
  • Psychological level: Dysfunctional thought processes, e.g. meta representation
  • Biological level: Neurochemicals, e.g. dopamine or genetics