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HOLISM AND REDUCTIONISM, MACRO
OIP (5)
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HOLISM AND REDUCTIONISM
- THE HOLISM AND REDUCTIONISM DEBATE
- the debate is the question of whether holism or reductionism is the better approach to use in order to understand human behaviour
- holism = about studying the 'whole'
- reductionism = about studying small constituent parts
- argument which states behaviour only makes sense when studying the whole picture rather than its constituent parts.
- this was the view of Gestalt psychologists who argued that the *whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
- therefore knowing about the parts doesn't help us understand the essence of the person
- humanistic psych focuses on the individual's experiences, which isn't something that can be reduced to themes, e.g. biological units
- humanistic psychologists use qualitative methods to investigate the self whereby themes are analysed rather than breaking the concept into component behaviour.
- seeks to analyse behaviour by breaking it down into its constituent parts.
- based on scientific principle of parsimony - that all phenomena should be explained using the simplest (lowest level) principles
- Levels of explanation in psychology
- there's different ways to explain behaviour - some more reductionist than others. e.g. OCD may be understood at a:
- socio-cultural level, e.g., OCD interrupts social relationships
- psychological level, e.g., the person's experience of anxiety
- physical level - movements, e.g., washing ones hands
- environmental/behavioural level - learning experiences
- physiological level, e.g., abnormal functioning in the frontal lobes
- neurochemical level, e.g., underproduction of serotonin
- which of these best explains OCD is a matter of debate, but each level before is less reductionist than the next.
- includes the neurochemical and physiological levels (given in levels of explanation) and also evolutionary and genetic influences
- based on the premises that we are biological organisms. thus all behaviour is at some level biological
- biologically reductionist arguments tend to work backwards, e.g. drugs that increase serotonin have been found to be effective in treating OCD. therefore, working backwards, low serotonin may be a cause of OCD.
- we've reduced OCD to the level of neurotransmitter activity.
- ENVIRONMENTAL (STIMULUS-RESPONSE) REDUCTIONISM
- behaviourist approach is built on environmental reductionism, proposing all behaviour's learned and acquired through interactions with the env.
- behaviourist explain behaviour in terms of conditioning which is focused on stimulus-response links, reducing behaviour to these basic elements
- e.g. learning theory of attachment reduces idea of love (between baby and person who does feeding) to a learned association between person doing feeding (neutral stimulus) and food (unconditioned stimulus) resulting in pleasure (conditioned response.
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- P: holism approach may lack practical value
- E: holistic accounts of behaviour tend become hard to use as they become more complex - this presents researchers with a practical dilemma. if we accept, from humanistic perspective, that there's many different factors that contribute to depression (person's past, present relationships, job, family circumstances etc.) then becomes difficult to know which si most influential = difficulty deciding which to prioritise as basis of therapy.
- E: weakness - suggests holistic account may lack practical value (whereas reductions may be better)
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MACRO 
MICRO
increased reductionism