Reductionism vs Holism

• Reductionism involves reducing behaviour from a higher level of explanation to a lower one whilst still fully explaining the behaviour
• The socio-cultural level of explanation is the belief that behaviour can be explained by understanding things that occur in our social environment, as well as cultural influences
• The psychological level of explanation is the belief that behaviour can be explained in terms of our mental processes and attitudes towards past experiences
• The cognitive level of explanation is the belief that behaviour can be explained by understanding how individuals process information
• The behavioural level of explanation is the belief that behaviour can be explained with reference to learning processes like reinforcement and punishment
• The biological and evolutionary level of explanation is the belief that behaviour can be explained in terms of biology
• The holist argues that there may be different levels of explanation, but that behaviour can’t be perfectly reduced to any single one of them
• Biological reductionism is need on the idea that all behaviour has its root in biological and therefore can be fully explained at the biological level of explanation
• Environmental reductionism simplifies behaviour into a stimulus-response action
• Holism argues that simple components aren’t fully able to explain behaviours, and theories should focus on the whole system rather than component parts
• Holists don’t deny the influence of genes or biology but feel that human behaviour is more complicated
• Interactionism is the view that several levels of explanation are necessary to explain behaviour
• Interactionists would argue that each level has relevance in certain situations and it’s not clear which has the best explanatory power