reductionism vs holism

What is reductionism?

. Scientific view that human behaviour is best explained through breaking it down into simpler component parts

What is biological reductionism?

. The way psychologists reduce behaviour and explain it in terms of genetics, neurotransmitters, hormones and biological structures

What is an example of biological reductionism?

. Schizophrenia - caused by excessive activity of the neurotransmitter dopamine

What is environmental reductionism?

. Reduces behaviour to a simple stimulus-response

What is an example of environmental reductionism?

. Attachment - infant responders with pleasure when care-giver feeds them - association is formed and the caregiver becomes the CS who will create the CR of pleasure in the infant

What is parsimony?

. Complex behaviour should always be explained in its simplest parts

What are the levels of explanation?

. Proposed by Rose

. Different levels of explanations - highest levels of social and cultural explanations - middle psychological and lowest being biological

What is holism?

. Human behaviour is too complex to be broken down into simpler parts

. Consider the ‘whole’ individual as a sim of its parts

What is an example of holism?

. Maslows hierarchy of needs - considers all contributors to human behaviour uses

Evaluation of Reductionism vs Holism

. Reductionism is scientific

. Holism is a more effective way of explaining behaviour and looks at context

. Holistic treatments are more effective long term than reductionist ones - SSRI’s - CBT - Eysenck

Eysenck…

. Theory of personality

. Explains uniqueness through drawing on general laws of personality