A01: Holism and Reductionism
- Created by: theninjaemu
- Created on: 03-04-18 11:47
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- A01: Holism and Reductionism
- Holism
- People and behaviour should be studied as a whole system
- This is the view of humanistic psychology
- Reductionism
- Behaviour is analysed by breaking it down into constituent parts
- This is based on the scientific principle of parsimony
- Parsimony: all phenomena should be explained using the most basic principles
- Levels of explanation
- There are different ways of viewing the same phenomena in psychology
- e.g. OCD
- Socio-cultural level: 'odd' behaviour
- Psychological level: obsessive thoughts
- Physical level: repetitive hand washing
- Physiological level: hypersensitivity of the basal ganglia
- Neurochemical level: underproduction of serotonin
- Each level is more reductionist than the one before
- Biological redutionism
- Physiological and neurochemical level
- Behaviour can be explained through genetic and evolutionary infulences
- This has been used in the explanation and treatment of mental illness
- Environmental reductionism
- Behaviour is broken up into simple stimulus-response links
- Analysis occurs at the physical level
- The behaviourist approach is built on environmental reductionism
- Holism
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