Reductionist & Holistic Approaches

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Reductionist Psychological Approaches

There are five approaches to psychology: biological, cognitive, behaviourist, psychodynamic and humanistic. The first three approaches are generally reductionist and the latter two are generally holistic.

The biological approach- reductionist

The biological approach looks at genetics, brain chemistry (hormones/neurotransmitters) and brain structure.
So this is biological reductionism because it focuses on constituent parts.
The aim attempts to look at cause and effect relationships.
It does not look at other factors such as social influence, environment or behaviourist influences.

The cognitive approach - reductionist

The cognitive approach is also reductionist.
This approach looks at cognition as being like a computer.
- A computer takes in information (input), processes the information, then generates an output.

Reductionism

The cognitive approach is similar: humans take in sensory information, the brain processes the information, then it generates a response.
- This is referred to as machine reductionism.
This is reductionist because it does not take into account how humans differ from computers.
- For example, computers do not forget, whereas humans do.

The behaviourist approach

The final reductionist approach is the behaviourist one.
Environmental reductionism is the concept where humans receive stimulus from the outside environment and then respond accordingly.

The behaviourist approach cont.

There are two types of conditioning:
- Classical.
- Operant.
Both involved stimulus-response.
This type of reductionism does not take into account any other influences such as biological or genetic factors.

Holistic Psychological Approaches

The psychodynamic approach - Freud

The first holistic approach, generally speaking, is the psychodynamic approach.
Freud developed his theory of personality on three competing aspects:
- The id.
- The ego.
- The superego.
He believed that personality and behaviour were the results of the interaction between the three.

Psychodynamic approach - holistic

Because the psychodynamic approach considers the conscious, unconscious and childhood events, which are multiple factors, it is a holistic approach.
As a result, the psychodynamic approach is not as scientific because it is difficult to test the various parts.

The humanist approach

Finally, humanism is the other holistic approach.
Humanistic psychologists examine the individual as a whole.
They believe that breaking down human behaviour into basic parts is too reductionist.

The humanist approach cont.

They agree with looking at the interactions of all of a person’s experiences and their feelings to explain behaviour.
The approach is more qualitative and subjective because it tends to use self-reporting techniques. This looks at the whole individual, not basic parts.