Hollism and reductionism

• Reductionism 


  Seeks to analyse behaviour by breaking it down into its constituent parts - based on scientific principle parsimony - all phenomena should be explained using simplest (lowest level) principles
• Levels of explanation

  eg OCD

  • socio-cultural level - OCD interrupts social relationship
  • Psychological level - persons experience of anxiety
  • Physical level - washing hands
  • environmental level - learning experiences
  • Physiological level - abnormal functioning in the frontal lobes
  • Neurochemical level - underproduction of serotonin

  Each level is more reductionist than the one before
• Biological reductionism


  Includes neurochemical and phsyiological levels and also evolutionary and genetic influences

  Based on premise we are biological organisms - all behaviour is at some level biological

  Biologically reductionist arguments often work backwards - eg drugs that increase serotonin have been found to be effective in treating OCD, therefore working backwards, low serotonin may be a cause of OCD

  Reduced OCD to level of neurotransmitter activity
• Environmental reductionism 


  Behaviourist approach is built on this

  eg learning theory of attachment reduces idea of love between baby and caregiver to a learned association - feeding and pleasure
• Holism 


  Looks at a human as a whole

  Humanistic - looks at indivual experience
• W of hollism: Practical value

  Eg If we accept multiple causes leading to a persons depression, it becomes hard to know which is the most influential, cannot form cause and effect, difficult to know which to prioritise as the basis of therapy - lack practical value.
• S of reductionist: Scientific approach

  In order to conduct well controlled research we need to operationalsie the variable to be studied - break target behaviours down into constituent parts - this makes it possible to conduct experiments and record observations in way thats objective and reliable eg strange situation operationalsied component behaviours such as seperation anxiety

  Scientific approach gives psychology greater credibility placing it on equal terms with nautral sciences
• w reductionism: higher level

  Some behaviours can only be understood at a higher level - often aspects of social behaviour that only emerge within a group context and cannot be understood in terms of the individual group members eg zimbardo study could not be understood by observing the participants as individuals, it was interaction between people and the behaviour of the group was important - no conformity gene

  --> for some behaviours higher levels of explanation provide more valid account