| What is holism? | The idea that human behaviour only makes sense when studying a whole system rather than its constituent parts.
Eg: humanistic approach |
| What is the order of levels from most holsitic to reducitonist | -Socio-cultural level
-Psychological elve
-Physical level
-Physiological level
-Neurochemical level |
| What is the socio-cultural level | Behaviour influenced by people around you |
| What is the psychological level? | the cognition behind behaviour |
| What is the physical level? | physical movements involved in behaviour |
| What is the physiological level? | activity within the brain and body |
| What is the neurochemical level? | effect of neurotransmitters and hormones |
| What is reductionism? | The idea that human behaviour is best explained by breaking it down into smaller constituents parts.
It explains behaviour using the lowest levels of explanation. |
| What is biological determinsim? | The idea that we are biological organisms so all behaviour at some point if biological.
Explains behaviour thorough neurochemistry, evolutionary and genetic influence |
| What is environmental reductionism? | The idea that environment shapes our behaviour. Breaks complex learning up into stimulus-response links.
Occurs at the physical level, not concerned with cognition occuring at the psychological level. |
| What level is biological approach on? | Neurochemical and physiological (Biological reudctionist) |
| What level is the cognitive approach on? | Psychological
Machine reductionist |
| What level is the learning approach on? | Social learning theory: social-cultural level
Behavourist - Physical level
Environmentally reductionist |
| What level is humanism on? | Sociocultural level
Holism |
| What level is psychodynamic on? | Psychological level
Reductionist |
| A strength of the holistic approach? | -Certain behavouris only emerge in a group context
-Eg: Zimbardo research would not have made sense on a reductionist levle as the experiment needed to see the ways in which ppts would react to being surrounded with people in similar situations
-It was the ppts interactions with others and the prison environemnt that was significant
-Therefore, holisim and socio-cultural level is better at explaning grp behaviour |
| A strength of the reductionist approach? | -It makes for a more scientific approach
-Makes it posisble to conduct experiments and obersvations in an objective and reliable way
-Operationalisation is key in psychology and reductionism allows varibles to be clearly defined
-By following the laws of science, psychology as a subject can gian more credibility and make nomothetic laws of behaviour |
| Weakness of Holism approach? | -Can be seen as a less scientific approach
-Holisitic explantion are often criticiesd for being unfalsifiable - like the humanistic apporahc
-It also makes it difficult to create effective treatemtns when considering multiple factors
-Therefore, reductionism is better for treating psychopathologies (eg: the neurochemical level to create drugs) |
| A weakness of reductionist? | -It can be seen to over-simplify complex phenomena
-Explanations that focus on neurochemicals ignore the social context in which behaviour occurs
-So, although treatments like drugs may help patients, they do not address the social trigger of disorders like depression/OCD
-Therefore, reductionsit explanattions can only ever be part of an overall explantion, meaning that if a pateint overall issue is not helped with the drug, it is uneffective. |
