Holism and Reductionism

What is holism?

The belief that behaviour is better understood by looking at it as an indivisible system rather than an it’s constituents

What is reductionism?

The belief that behaviour is better understood by breaking it down into smaller constituent parts

What is biological reductionism?

A form of reductionism which reduces behaviour to a biological level (action of genes, hormones etc)

What is environmental reductionism?

A form of reductionism which reduces behaviour to simple stimulus-response links that have been learned through experience

What is experimental reductionism?

A form of reductionism where a complex behaviour is reduced to a single (isolated) variable for purpose of testing

What is parsimony?

The idea that complex phenomena should be explained in the simplest of terms possible

What is meant by levels of explanations?

Explanations for behaviour can vary from a lower basic level to a higher, more holistic level. Each one is more reductionist that the one above.

What are the 4 levels of explanation starting with the most holistic?

1. socio-cultural level

2. psychological level cognitive

3. psychological level behaviourist

4. biological level

State an example which show biological reductionism and environmental reductionism:

1. Biological = explaining mental disorder (OCD and Schizophrenia) in term of candidate genes and neurotransmitters

2. Environmental = classical/ operant conditioning

State 2 examples which shows holism:

Gestalt psychology and humanism

What is Gestalt psychology?

This is a form of psychology developed by a group of German psychologists which focus is on perception and argued that explanations for what we see only makes sense through a consideration of the whole rather than the individual learning

Outline a study which supports gestalt psychology and insight learning:

Wolfgang Kohler 1925 - Hungry chimpanzees prove that insight learning can occur when all elements of a problem and the inter relationship between them are understood as a whole

What do human psychologists do?

They focus on the individuals experience which is not something that can be reduced to, for example biological units. They use qualitative methods to investigate the self whereby themes are analysed rather then breaking the concept into component behaviour

Give an example of environmental reductionism:

cupboard love - learning theory of attachment reduces the idea that love (between baby and person who does felling) to a learned association between the person doing the feeding (neutral stimulus) and food (unconditioned stimulus) resulting in pleasure (conditioned response)