Holism and Reductionism
- Created by: Dorii
- Created on: 25-01-17 14:49
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- Holism and Reductionism
- Reductionism
- breaking down a complex phenomenon into its most basic elements.
- physiological: since human beings are biological organisms it should be possible to reduce behaviour to its neurophysiological compenents
- schizophrenia and excessive activity of dopamine
- +scientific, +drug treatments and it does not blame the individual for his illness
- - combination of factors (Diathesis stress), environmental influences
- environmental:all behaviour can be explained in terms of stimulus-response links
- attachment- operant and classical: feeder associated with food, child gets rewarded everytime he/she gets food; feeder is secondary reinforcer
- -non-human animals, zoocentric, -says that the only way of motivating people is through reinforcement and punishment, - ignores other factors
- evolutionary-natural and sexual selection
- relationships, adaptivity
- unfalsifiable, non-scientific,-ignores other factors
- provides a basic premise for explaining human behaviour
- relationships, adaptivity
- machine reductionism- used by cognitive approach thinking that we are computers
- ignores motivational and emotional factors, computers do not make mistakes, forget things etc but we do
- AO3- mental functions represented as connectionist networks, because the network behaves (differently) as a whole, despite having individual units linked to each other
- ignores motivational and emotional factors, computers do not make mistakes, forget things etc but we do
- Holism
- looking at behaviour as a whole, rather than a set of individual elements
- Maslow-humanistic psychology- several needs were identified rather than one single motivation, individual reacts as an organised whole
- Gestalt (whole in German)psychology- what we see only makes sense through the consideration of the whole eg perception
- cognitive psychology: connectionist networks: each unit is linked to many other units, links are developed through experience- holistic because the connectionist network works together as a whole
- higher level explanations lack predictive power, better to reduce things to their simplest components
- can be appropriate- there are certain levels of explanations, behaviour could be explained through the use of most of them:
- 1- molecular)lowest), 2 biochemical, 3 physiological, 4 psychological,5 sociological (highest)
- There are different perspectives called levels of explanations from which behaviour can be explained. From the most basic, lowest level such as the molecular explanation to the highest, holistic multivariable level, such as the sociological explanation, behaviour is capable of being explained.
- 1- molecular)lowest), 2 biochemical, 3 physiological, 4 psychological,5 sociological (highest)
- Reductionism
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