Reductionist & Holistic Approaches
Psychology: AQA A Level, topic 8.1.9
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
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 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.
Test yourself on Reductionist & Holistic Approaches
Which of these approaches to psychology are mainly reductionist?
Which of these is NOT part of personality and behaviour according to Freud?