Reductionism-Holism - These notes are all about the different topics in the psychology. These are PDF

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These notes are all about the different topics in the psychology. These are about the issues and debates with each study, area and perspective....

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Reductionism vs Holism Reductionism - reduce the whole into simplest component parts, only takes one factor into account Holism - takes into account a number of factors that determine behaviour and how they interact

1. Principles and Concepts: 1. This debate is concerned with the nature of the explanation - how well it takes into account factors that influence our behaviour 2. In other words, to explain a complex phenomenon (like human behaviour) one needs to “reduce” it to its constituent elements

2. Different positions within the debate Reductionism: 1. The experimental and laboratory approach in various areas of psychology (e.g. behaviourism, biological, cognitive) reflects a reductionist position. 2. This approach inevitably must reduce a complex behaviour to a simple set of variables that offer the possibility of identifying a cause and an effect Holism: 1. A holistic approach therefore suggests that there are different levels of explanation and that at each level there are “emergent properties” that cannot be reduced to one

3. Research to illustrate different positions within each debate Reductionism

Holism

Loftus and Palmer (eyewitness testimony) Grant (context-dependent memory) Bandura (transmission of aggression) Chaney (Funhaler) Sperry (split brain) Freud (little Hans) Baron Cohen (autism in adults) Hancock (language of psychopaths) Social area Biological area Cognitive area Behaviourist perspective Psychodynamic perspective

Milgram (obedience) Piliavin (subway Samaritan) Levine (cross-cultural altruism) Kohlberg (moral development) Lee (lying and truth-telling) Casey (delay of gratification) Blakemore and Cooper (early visual experience) Maguire (taxi drivers) Gould (bias in IQ testing) Individual differences area Developmental area

5. Exam questions Outline how one core study supports the view that behaviour is reductionist [4 marks] The reductionist view only takes one factor into consideration. One study that supports this is Freud’s study of Little Hans. Hans shows lots of different behaviours through dreams, fantasies and phobias and Freud says all of this is due to the Oedipus Complex, such as the Phallic stage or the Anal stage. This is reductionist because it doesn’t take into account the environment or family members 6. To what extent does the debate link to psychology, areas and key pieces of research (evaluation)

Strengths - Reductionism: 

Scientific – can test individual parts

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Can explain some behaviours

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Treatments can be developed

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The opposite points would apply to holism

Weaknesses - Reductionism: 

Lacks ecological validity

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Doesn’t explain why all behaviours develop in the first place

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Other factors are important, e.g. social factors in mental health treatment

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The opposite points would apply to holism...