Issues and Debates
Reductionism
AO1:
• Reductionism means looking at the smaller, isolated parts of human behaviour when studying
and measuring it
• Holism looks at the whole person instead and considers the influences of experience/ culture/
socialisation on human behaviour
Social
• Social psychology considers how individuals, groups, society, and culture affect human
behaviour
Cognitive
• Cognitive psychology involves experimental reductionism where much of the research done is
reduced to operationalised isolated variables of recalling numbers or words to enable a
causal relationship to be reached.
• Cognitive psychology involves case studies of brain damaged patients in order to better
understand how memory works and the effects of brain damage on specific memory.
Biological
• Biological psychology attempts to reduce behaviour down to a physical level and explain it in
terms of neurons, neurotransmitters, hormones, or brain structure.
• Brain scanning techniques are often used to isolate areas of the brain which may be causing
specific behaviours
Learning
• behaviourists such as Skinner explain all behaviour as being a result of past learning. The
relationship between stimuli and responses to them (reinforcement/ punishment) are the basis
for all we know and how we behave. This is a reductionist view because complex behaviour is
being reduced to simple stimuli and response relationship
• Watson and Rayner focussed on the pairing of a NS with an UCS to produce a CR of fear in
Little Albert.
Clinical
• An increase in the amount of dopamine has been linked to the onset of schizophrenia as too
much dopamine in the mesolimbic system is likely to cause positive symptoms of sz.
• Gottesman and Sheilds has also found that there is a genetic link to sz as MZ twins had a 42%
concordance rate for sz compared to only 9% in DZ twins.
Social AO3:
• Consideration of why humans obey through evolution and socialisation in agency theory is a
more holistic approach to studying obedience
• Although, if agency theory were true and we had an innate drive to obey, everyone would
obey. This means that agency theory may be considered reductionist as it ignores individual
differences.
• Social psychology looks at personality (F-scale/ LOC), situational (is the authority legitimate/
proximity – Milgram’s variations) and cultural factors when assessing human behaviour making
it more holistic as it considers things like individual differences.
• However, social impact theory attempts to reduce social influence to an equation which
predicts when people are likely to obey so is more reductionist as it ignores factors such as
having an authoritarian personality.
Cognitive AO3:
,Issues and Debates
• Multi-store model assumes attention and rehearsal is required for memory which is reductionist
as it ignores how people recall experiences they have not rehearsed (flashbulb memory)
• Bartlett’s reconstructive memory relies on schemas which come from whole life experience
therefore is holistic so not all cognitive psychology can be considered reductionist.
• Using case studies allows cognitive psychologists to gain rich in-depth research on memory by
using observations to gather qualitative data. For example, the case of HM demonstrated the
ability to learn procedural skills without rehearsal, showing that reducing memory to a set of
stores (which the MSM does) is insufficient to explain how all memory works and meant that
cognitive psychologists should have a more holistic approach to memory.
• Models of memory have become more holistic over time. The working memory model explains
memory as a complex system which combines previously stored knowledge with new incoming
information.
Biological AO3:
• Chester found when testing female saliva that there was a correlation between having a low
functioning MAOA gene and being aggressive – reductionist as it explains aggression due to
genetics.
• Although, research in biological psychology is often correlational and therefore cause and
effect for the behaviour cannot be established. Therefore, a single gene may not be the cause
of a behaviour, epigenetics suggests that genes only predispose individuals and that social
factors are needed too which is less reductionist
• Raine adopted methods such as PET scans to isolate parts of the brain to explain aggressive
behaviour in NGRIs. This is important in understanding the specific role of different parts of our
brain.
• However, Raine concluded that violent behaviour could not be caused by a single brain region
and that multiple areas are involved and predispose the individual to violent behaviour when
combined with other social, psychological, and environmental factors so could actually be
considered fairly holistic.
Learning AO3:
• Pavlov reduced human behaviours to a stimulus – response pairing and could easily measure
the effect of the pairing by seeing if whether after pairing the NS (bell) with the UCS (food),
the dogs would salivate to the sound the bell.
• Social learning theory suggests learning is more holistic and includes cognitive processes
involved in attention to role models that individuals identify with, so not all learning theories
are reductionist.
• As Watson and Rayner only focussed on stimulus-response associations they ignored possible
external factors for Little Albert’s emotional reaction to the phobic stimuli.
• However, some behaviours appear to be too complex to be understood by a reductionist
approach. For example, learning may be influenced by reward and punishment, but is likely to
be influenced by many other factors, such as upbringing or biological dispositions.
Clinical AO3:
• Biological treatments to sz/anorexia take a reductionist approach as the use of drugs will only
alter neurotransmitter levels and ignore any other factors for the onset of sz.
• Cognitive treatments such as CBT have a more holistic approach to treatment as they look at
multiple factors (cognitive/ behavioural/social) which could affect the onset of the disorder
which is specific to the individual such as early childhood experience, rather than reducing the
cause to an imbalance of neurotransmitters.
• Reducing the onset of sz to an imbalance of dopamine can be helpful in developing drugs such
as phenothiazines which block dopamine receptors and have been effective in preventing sz
,Issues and Debates
symptoms. However, research such as Carlssons shows how the dopamine hypothesis is too
reductionist as other neurotransmitters are also involved in the onset of sz such as glutamate or
serotonin.
• The genetic cause of sz may be considered too reductionist as the concordance rate is only
42% this shows that whilst there may be a genetic link to schizophrenia other environmental
factors may also affect the onset of sz making the genetic approach alone too reductionist.
, Issues and Debates
Reductionism
AO1:Reductionism means looking at the smaller, isolated parts of human behaviour when studying and
measuring it. Holism looks at the whole person instead and considers the influences of experience/
culture/ socialisation on human behaviour
AO1: Social psychology considers how individuals, groups, society, and culture affect human behaviour
AO3: Consideration of why humans obey through evolution and socialisation in agency theory is a
more holistic approach to studying obedience
AO3: Social psychology looks at personality (F-scale/ LOC), situational (is the authority legitimate/
proximity – Milgram’s variations) and cultural factors when assessing human behaviour making it more
holistic as it considers things like individual differences.
AO3: However, social impact theory attempts to reduce social influence to an equation which predicts
when people are likely to obey so is more reductionist as it ignores factors such as having an
authoritarian personality.
AO1: Cognitive psychology involves experimental reductionism where much of the research done is
reduced to operationalised isolated variables of recalling numbers or words to enable a causal
relationship to be reached.
AO1: Cognitive psychology involves case studies of brain damaged patients in order to better
understand how memory works and the effects of brain damage on specific memory.
AO3: Multi-store model assumes attention and rehearsal is required for memory which is reductionist as
it ignores how people recall experiences they have not rehearsed (flashbulb memory)
AO3: Bartlett’s reconstructive memory relies on schemas which come from whole life experience
therefore is holistic so not all cognitive psychology can be considered reductionist.
AO3: Using case studies allows cognitive psychologists to gain rich in-depth research on memory by
using observations to gather qualitative data. For example, the case of HM demonstrated the ability to
learn procedural skills without rehearsal, showing that reducing memory to a set of stores (which the
MSM does) is insufficient to explain how all memory works and meant that cognitive psychologists
should have a more holistic approach to memory.
AO1: Behaviourists such as Skinner explain all behaviour as being a result of past learning. The
relationship between stimuli and responses to them (reinforcement/ punishment) are the basis for all we
know and how we behave. This is a reductionist view because complex behaviour is being reduced to
simple stimuli and response relationship
AO1: Watson and Rayner focussed on the pairing of a stimulus and response between a rat and Little
Albert’s emotional reaction.
AO3: As Watson and Rayner only focussed on stimulus-response associations they ignored possible
external factors for Little Albert’s emotional reaction to the phobic stimuli.
AO3: However, some behaviours appear to be too complex to be understood by a reductionist
approach. For example, learning may be influenced by reward and punishment, but is likely to be
influenced by many other factors, such as upbringing or biological dispositions.
AO3: Social learning theory suggests learning is more holistic and includes cognitive processes involved
in attention to role models that individuals identify with, so not all learning theories are reductionist.
AO1: Biological psychology attempts to reduce behaviour down to a physical level and explain it in
terms of neurons, neurotransmitters, hormones, or brain structure.
AO1: Brain scanning techniques are often used to isolate areas of the brain which may be causing
specific behaviours
AO3: research in biological psychology is often correlational and therefore cause and effect for the
behaviour cannot be established. Therefore, a single gene may not be the cause of a behaviour,
epigenetics suggests that genes only predispose individuals and that social factors are needed too
which is less reductionist
AO3: Raine adopted methods such as PET scans to isolate parts of the brain to explain aggressive
behaviour in NGRIs. This is important in understanding the specific role of different parts of our brain.
AO3: However, Raine concluded that violent behaviour could not be caused by a single brain region
