Reductionism Vs Holism.. Which is more important?
Reductionism is when psychologists study human behaviour by reducing it to simple components i.e. the biological approach would reduce human behaviour down to genes and hormones and study it with only them in mind. There are many strengths of the reductionist approach such as: reducing human behaviour down to certain, simpler components makes it easier to study because there’s less to take into consideration than there would be if it was being studied with the holistic approach. Also, it makes reasons for human behaviour more understandable because it manages to pin the behaviour down to a particular aspect of their personality and therefore the psychologist does not have to take into consideration all factors of the personality and then decide which contributes to which type of behaviour, also, because behaviour is being reduced down to simpler components it makes certain concepts easier to test. Another advantage of reductionism is the fact that it is scientific and tends to use the scientific method of controlled lab experiments which aids replication. Finally, if we reduce explanations to their most basic level then we are less likely to used subjective and inaccurate explanations.
As well as the advantages reductionism does have its disadvantages, such as: reductionism tends to reduce complex behaviour down into explanations that are way too simplistic, because of the simplicity of the explanation and the fact that the psychologist is not taking into account the person as a whole it means that important causal factors could be overlooked. Also, some of the higher level explanations may be more interesting and engaging as opposed to over facing the person reading up on the investigation with scientific jargon. It can also detract from the study of the ‘whole’ person/animal, for example, in IQ testing.
Holism is where human behaviour is studied by studying the person as a whole as opposed to reducing the person to component parts. There are many advantages of using the holistic such as: it gives the complete picture, i.e. background of the person which gives an inclination as to why a certain disorder was acquired, which makes it more realistic. Also, it does not ignore the complexities of human behaviour which in turn makes it more realistic as well, because it does not ignore the complexities of human behaviour it means that the explanation it provides is of a higher level than it would be if the behaviour was reduced to simplistic component parts.
As well as having many advantages it also has many disadvantages such as: it is less scientific than reductionism, meaning that it can at times be subjective and inaccurate. Also, it is difficult to investigate human behaviour at different levels because it is up to the person to divulge whatever information they wish to. Also, holistic explanations tend to be hypothetical because nothing is ever certain.
Taking all of this into consideration I think that in terms of psychological research the reductionist approach to research is more important. This is because is is objective and reliable and can be replicated to add to the field of psychology. Although it doesn’t take into account the person as a whole it is simpler and easier for the psychologist to make assumptions and add to the field of psychology it also pushes psychology more into being a science because it uses scientific methods which makes the subject reputable among other scientists and also the general public.
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Personally I like interactionsim best which is where both holism and reductionism work simultaneously together but if I was forced to pick one I would probably pick reductionism like you. Reductionism to me is more important as it is parsimonious it explain things by the simplest underlying principle which I think is more use than looking at something holistically and having to work out what it means for yourself. Gestalt showed us that you look at a word holistically not each letter so there are many case when the holistic method is more useful such as identifying a familiar face as well but over all I think the reductionist method is more widely used and more important.
Reductionism and Holism are both very intricate designs that both have their own advantages and disadvantages. However looking at this concept in a fundamentally basic way we can come to a quick conclusion that in itself holism is the best method to use; we can’t pin something as complex as the human mind down to a singular perspective or concept, when it’s obvious that everyrthing co-interact to cause such behaviour modifications etc., however we can also come quickly to the idea that as idealistic holism is, it’s not neccessarily possible due to the timing, costs and pure difficulty of analysis every exact thing all at once from every different perspective. This is were reductionism comes in to hand, were we look at a specific behaviour in one, and only one, perspective, which leads to much greater detail and depth in this one area. This isn’t as effective as the holistic method, however in theory if we do enough reductionist experiments on the same thing from individually different perspectives, and then combine all of these studies we may reach a holistic result at the end.
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