Reductionism
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Holism and Interactionism
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Assumptions
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Reductionism
involves explaining a phenomena by breaking it down into its
constituent parts - analysing it. Reductionism works on the
scientific assumption of parsimony - that complex phenomena should be explained in the simplest underlying priciples possible.
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Holism
looks at same/higher level explanations. Interactionism shows how
many aspects of a phenomenon or levels of explanation can interact
together to provide a complete picture. Both approaches involve
taking a gestalt approach, assuming that 'the whole is greater than the
sum of its parts'.
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Examples in Psychology
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There have been many attempts to use reductionism to explain behaviour in psychology, for example:
Structuralism - one of the first approaches to psychology pioneered by
Wundt and Titchener involved trying to break conscious experience down
to its constituent images, sensations and feelings.
Behaviourism - assumed that complex behaviour was the sum of all past stimulus-response learning units.
Biopsychology - aims to explain all at the psychological or mental
level in terms of that at the physiological, neurochemical or genetic
level. Ultimately, psychology would be replaced by biology and
the other natural sciences lower down the reductionist ladder.
A simple reductionist hierarchy of approaches
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Humanism
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| Behaviourism |
| Psychoanalysis |
Cognitive Psychology
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Biopsychology
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Other approaches have proposed higher level holistic and/or interactionist explanations of human behaviour, for example:
Humanistic Psychology - investigated all aspects of the individual as
well as the effect of interactions between people. Gestalt
therapy developed by Fritz Perls aims to enable people to accept and
cope with all aspects of their life and personality.
Social Psychology - looks at the behaviour of individuals in a social
context. Group behaviour may sho characteristics that are greater
than the sum of the individuals which comprise it (or less in the case
of social loafing).
Psychoanalysis - Freud adopted an interactionist approach, in that he
considered that behaviour was the result of the dynamic interaction of
the id, ego, and superego.
Abnormal Psychology - mental disorders are often explained by an
interaction og biological, psychological and environmental
factors. Schizophrenia may be due to a genetic predisposition
triggered by environmental stress. An eclectic approach is often
taken using drugs and psychotherapy.
Perception - Illusions show that humans perceive more than the sum of the sensations on the retina.
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For
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Reductionist
explanations in psychology adopt a very scientific and analytical
approach, which has worked very well with the ntural sciences.
By breaking phenomena down into smaller, simple components (as
behaviourism did with stimulus-response units) these constituent parts
are often more easily tested.
Bt explaining behavioural phenomena in terms of their underlying
physical basis, psychology gains the scientific support and credibility
of these well established and robust sciences and unifies with them to
provide a consistent picture of the universe.
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The
interactionis approach can integrate many different levels of
explanation to provide a more complex and realistic understanding of
behaviour.
Holism does not ignore the complexity and the 'emergent properties' of
higher level phenomenon. For example, there may be aspects of
crowd behaviour that could not be explained in terms of the people in
the crowd.
Functional explanations are only possible at higher levels - examoning
the social reasons why we show a certain aggressive behaviour is often
more useful than providing a detailed neuronal, hormonal and
physiological explanation of the act.
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Against
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Oversimplification
- reductionist explanations often ignore many importan interactions and
the emergent properties of phenomena at higher levels. The whole
may be greater than the sum of its parts.
Value of Explanation - higher level explanations may be less detailed
and more useful than lower level ones. The meaning of an action
such as a hand wave is only gained from its situation (e.g. greeting or
drowning) not its underlying physiological description.
Value of Reductionism - Rose (1976) argues that different levels of
discourse cannot be substituted for each other. This raises the
probelm of the relationship between the mind and the brain - is a
feeling of pain the same as the activation of nerve cells ina
particular part of your brain? A neorologist may follow the
neuronal path of a pin prick up the arm and into a reception area of
the brain, but the neurologist would have to rely on your conscious
(psychological level) verbal report to know whether you felt pain or
not.
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There
is great practical difficulty in investigatin the integration of
explanation from different levels. research into mental disorders
is beginning to understand the interaction of envirnomental,
psychological and biological explanations of disorders like depression.
Holistic explanations of psychological phenomena that assume the mind
is not the same as the body, tend to ignore the huge influence of
biology on behaviour.
Holistic explanations tend to get more hypothetical and divorced from
physical reality the higher they go up the reductionist ladder.
Higher level theories appear to lack the predictive power of the
physical sciences (although there is a corresponding increase in the
complexity of the systems being investigated.)
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