Issues and debates 

The holism and reductionism debate focuses on whether it is more beneficial to look at the whole person, or break down complex behaviours into simpler components.

Holistic explanations suggest that human behaviour is best understood as an integrated experience, and that we should consider the complex interaction of different factors, whereas reductionist explanations suggest that human behaviour is best understood by focussing on the smallest, simplest parts involved.

Holism

Holism proposes that human behaviour should be viewed as the product of different influences, which all interact. In other words, ‘the whole is greater than the sum of its parts’.

Trying to understand human behaviour by just studying one influence means that complex behaviour can be misunderstood. So, the idea of holism is that to fully understand human behaviour the whole person has to be studied.

Examples of approaches in Psychology which are more holistic, include Humanistic Psychology which investigates many aspects of the individual as well as the interactions between people.

Reductionism

Reductionism involves breaking human behaviour down into more simple components. It implies that this process is desirable because complex phenomena are best understood in terms of a simpler level of explanation. Psychologists are drawn to reductionist explanations and methods of research because reductionism is a powerful research tool, which has led to major discoveries for example treatments for psychological disorders.

Reductionism is based on the scientific principle of parsimony: all phenomena should be explained using the most basic (lowest level) principles. This is often the simplest, easiest and most economical level of explanationBiological Reductionism

Biological reductionism is the view that all behaviour can be explained at a lower biological level in terms of the actions of genes, neurotransmitters

This is the assumption of the biological approach and has been successfully applied to a number of different topic areas in Psychology. Examples: The dopamine hypothesis

Environmental (Stimulus-Response) Reductionism

Environmental reductionism is the view that all behaviour can be explained in terms of simple stimulus-response links, which involves learning the relationship between a behaviour and a corresponding event in the environment.

This is the assumption of the behaviourist approach and has been successfully applied to a number of different topic areas in Psychology. Examples: Phobias

Levels of explanation refers to the belief that behaviour can be explained at different levels ranging from lower-level (reductionistic) explanations which focus on basic components or units to higher-level (holistic) explanations which consider multiple variables.

Rose (1976) put forward levels of explanations in Psychology, from the lowest (most scientific), to the highest (least scientific):

· The highest (most holistic) level includes social and cultural explanations, where behaviour relates to the impact of social groups and norms (e.g. Social Psychology).

· The middle level includes psychological explanations, which focus on behaviour and its underlying thoughts (e.g. Cognitive Psychology and Social Learning Theory).

· The lowest (most reductionist) level involves biological explanations, where all behaviour can be explained in terms of genes, brain

structure, neurochemicals.

Reductionism provides a basis for scientific research – A strength of reductionist approaches is that most psychologists are drawn to them as they often form the basis of

scientific research. In order to create operationalised variables it is necessary to break target behaviours down into constituent parts. This makes it possible to conduct experiments or record observations (behavioural categories) in a way that is meaningful and reliable. Whereas, a problem with holism is that it is difficult to test integrated theories because you cannot isolate the variables – this means it is hard to establish cause and effect. Therefore, reductionism gives psychology greater credibility, placing it on equal terms with the natural sciences.

Reductionism ignores the complexity of human behaviour – A limitation of reductionist approaches is that they have been accused of oversimplifying complex phenomena. This can lead to errors of understanding because it ignores the complexity of human behaviour. For example, schizophrenia is often treated with anti-psychotic medication in the belief that the condition consists of nothing more than imbalanced neurochemicals. This is problematic because even though anti-psychotic medications may reduce the symptoms in many individuals, the cause of the condition may not have been addressed. For example, the schizophrenia may be due to high levels of expressed emotion or double bind communication (Bateson et al). Furthermore, the success rates of anti-psychotic medication are so variable, that the purely biological understanding seems inadequate. This suggests that we have to be careful in that, reductionist explanations may distract us from a more appropriate level of explanation. Reductionist explanations can only ever form part of an explanation.

Holistic explanations provide a more complete understanding of human behaviour – One strength of holism is that, often there are aspects of social behaviour that only emerge within a group context and cannot be understood by purely examining the individual group members. For instance, Zimbardo’s research into the effects of conformity to social roles and the deindividuation of the prisoners and guards in the Stanford prison experiment, could not be understood by studying the participants as individuals. It was the interaction between people and the behaviour of the group that was important. This shows that holistic explanations provide a more complete and global understanding of behaviour than reductionist approaches.

4) Holistic approaches do not lend themselves to rigorous scientific testing – A limitation of holistic explanations in psychology is that they can become vague and speculative as they become more complex, and so they tend not to lend themselves to rigorous scientific testing. For example, holistic explanations that combine many different approaches, present researchers with a practical dilemma. If we accept that many factors contribute to schizophrenia, for example: family dysfunction; imbalance in the levels of dopamine; dysfunctional thinking, it becomes difficult to establish which is most influential and which

one to use, as a basis for therapy. This suggests when it comes to finding solutions for real-world problems, lower level (reductionist) explanations may be more appropriate.