Reductionism vs holism

• What is holism ?

  • rejects dualism and any ideas of thinking, feeling and actions being seperate
  • considers humans as a whole alongside their biology and free will
  • interactions approach as considers a variety of levels
• What is reductionism ?

  • it is easier to analyse behaviour by breaking it down into smaller components and perspectives

  1. biological
  2. environmental
  3. machine
• Biological reductionism ?


  Explaining behaviour from a biological perspective

  • genes
  • hormones
  • neurochemicals
  • neural structures
• Environmental ?


  Simplifying behaviour into a response from a singular stimulus
• Machine ?


  reducing human fucntione to mechanical processes
• What are the levels of explanations ?

  • behaviour can be explained in degrees of reductionism in a hierarchy
  • at the bottom are smalller components that explain behaviour analytically
  • at the top are more holistic concepts that consider a rounder view
  • demonstrates interaction between volume and reductionism which shows the predisposition of genetics
• What are the different levels. ?

  • Sociology-culture, environment,family
  • psychology- cognitive,emotion
  • biology- genes, hormones,
  • chemistry-neurochemsitry
  • physics- atoms
• What is a sz example of the levels ?

  Sociology - stressful living environment or family - sz mother

  psychological- cognitive dysfunction

  biological + chemical - enlarged ventricles + high dopamine levels
• Evaluation ?

  1. biological reductionism- explains drug therapy
  2. environmental reductionism- is not appropriate for complex human functions
  3. reduxtionist methodology is scientific
• Holism strengths ?

  • holistic + qualitative methodology is rich in detail and provides unique persoectives
• Holding weakness ?

  • subjective and time consuming
• What did hollism allow ?

  • research into conformity as we needed to look at the bigger picture not jsut stimulus response
• What approach is holistic ?

  humanistic
• What approach is reductionist ?


  Behaviourism

  SL

  biological
• What approach is interactionist ?

  Cognitive