Is Psychology Reductionist and Is This a Bad Thing?

Reductionism can be defined as a theory that reduces every complicated phenomena into a number of simple psychological components or principles and then identifies or explains these phenomena merely in terms of those fundamental parts (Sloane, 1945; Peele, 1981; Ausubel, 1982; Barendregt & Rappard, 2004; Vul, 2011). For instance, in psychological studies reductionism tend to oversimplify all cognitive processes, human behaviour or social activity into more basic component, and so disregard the complexities of human mind. The reductionist approach has led to several vital discoveries in scientific studies as they compromise simpler explanation for a complicated phenomenon and, the effects of one variable can be solely isolated and tested, in order to discover causal relationships. For example, in order to develop an understanding of stress the nervous system and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal system needs to be studied (Minton, 1994). Rose (1997, as cited in Nagel, 1998) introduced few types of reductionism; philosophical reductionism, which implies that if all science is unitary psychology should easily merge into other sciences, thencomplex psychological behaviour needs to be broken down to physical laws (Jessor, 1958). Methodological reductionism; for instance, in order to find out about the nature of memory and specifically deduce something related to the structure of long-term memory, (Hulme, Maughan & Brown, 1991) conducted a study based in a laboratory, giving participants a list of familiar and unfamiliar words to remember.Based on the findings a generalisation of how human long-term memory functions may be made. However, these kinds of researches in psychology are at the reductionist level.

Currently the type of reductionism that is of most interest in psychology claims that all behaviours should be reducible to biology (Oppenheim & Putnam, 1958; Peele, 1981), meaning that most mental phenomena (consciousness) are equated with biological phenomena. In this essay the idea of reductionism will be analysed through psychological research and a conclusion can then be made based upon evidence to decide whether psychology is a reductionist or not.

Reductionism tends to be applicable when explaining behaviour in basic terms, with the more focused sciences at the top and general sciences at the bottom. Behaviours can be explained at different levels, ranging from molecular (physics), followed by the intracellular (biochemistry) then parts of individual’s (physiology), people’s behaviour (psychology) and finally the behaviour of groups (sociology).For instance, mental disorders may be explained by neurotransmitters (physiology) or in terms of the mind (unconsciousness) and in terms of social systems (dysfunctional family). However, when explaining behaviour all level of explanations needs to be taken into account. For example, by taking physiological explanation into account schizophrenia is caused by excess levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine located in the brain (Howes & Kapur, 2009; Jentsch, Robert & Roth, 1991). The evidence for the involvement of dopamine comes from drugs, such as amphetamines (when taken by people without psychiatric disorder) cause behaviour that resembles the positive symptoms of schizophrenia (Angrist, Rotrosen & Gershon, 1980). The drug has the effect of increasing dopamine levels in the brain. However, one problem with this dopamine hypothesis is that not every patient with schizophrenia who takes drugs to reduce dopamine levels has their symptoms reduced, and also everyone who takes drugs that increases levels of dopamine may not show the symptoms. This clearly shows that individual differences are difficult to explain by reductionists, mainly because despite being in its smallest constituent, behaviour is oversimplified. This suggests that dopamine cannot be the only explanation, as every human being is uniqueand therefore all respond differently. So, reductionist explanation is limiting, because the same symptoms or behaviour in two persons may be caused by different factors, such as environmental or biological factors (Walker & Diforio, 1997).

However, The best solution is probably the diathesis stress model, which combines all approaches together. The diathesis-stress model indicates that physiological explanations tend to offer a predisposition to mental illnesses. Also, an alternative explanation is that a stressful life event causes the onset of mental disorders (Walker & Diforio, 1997; Eberhart, Auerbach, Bigda-Peyton & Abela, 2011). The individual may have a predisposition to the disorder but only people who experience stressors will develop the disorder. The diathesis stress model can be applied to the cognitive and biological explanation, suggesting that people may have vulnerability for mental illness but the disorder only manifests itself when triggered by life events or when a person misinterprets other people’s behaviour.

Although physiological explanation can be seen as reductionist and simplistic, they do offer explanations of mental disorders behaviour. Understanding what is going on in abnormal behaviour by relating it to healthy behavioural processes is undeniably reductionist, but sometimes reductionism helps psychology to devise treatment strategies for mental illnesses. They are not intended to provide exhaustive explanations for why these symptoms exist. They do however; offer some kind of insight into what it might feel like to experience such disorders. For instance, offering anti-depressants to treat patients suffering from depression may seem like an optimum solution but the underlying cause may be disregarded, such as unconscious mental process or personal experience. However, physiological reductionism attempts to consider a more humane tactic to treat certain mental illness, as the individual with mental illness are not to be blamed and the patients have essentially no control or choice in the matter. Nevertheless, most of these theories are merely reductionist-oriented explanation.

In addition, there is some evidence proposing that mental disorders are inherited or at least there is a significant genetic component (Petronis, 2004). Family, twin and adaption studies have been used to investigate this genetic explanation. If the cause of mental disorders were entirely genetic, then the concordance rate between MZ twins would be 100% (Evans & Martin, 2008). However, Evans & Martin (2008) research have notfound100% concordance so it clearly shows that other factors must be involved in the onset of certain disorders. It is impossible to isolate the effects of genes (nature) from nurture (shared environment) when studying behaviour. Therefore, studies that indicate the concordance rates for disorders must be treated with caution, to avoid impractical cause and effect links.

Furthermore, Bandura (1965) claimed that social learning has an influential role on children’s aggressive behaviour. However, biological explanations of aggression have stressed factors that have nothing to do with social learning butmore to do with biological influences, such as the role of hormonal mechanisms. For example, high levels of testosterone have shown to be associatedwith aggressive behaviour (Archer, 1991). These findings emphasise that aggressive behaviour cannot be purely base on a learned behaviour. Also, this explanation neglects to take into account various approaches to explain certain behaviour and therefore being a reductionist.Additionally, there are significant methodological problems in these experimental researches, as research usually does not equate to real world, which could then lead to falsification of the findings. Also, using the social learning theory (Bandura, 1965) to isolatecertain behaviour into various chunks may not provide a full understanding of how behaviour functions as a whole. This suggests that reductionism may be appropriate for simpler systems rather than a complex human behaviour.

However, Morley and Hall (2003) argue that genetic vulnerability associated with anti-social behaviour only inadequately predict an increased risk of aggressive behaviour in an individual than the general population.Other factors (such as environmental influences) determine whether aggressive behaviour is displayed in a particular situation. Similarly, (Hines and Malley-Morrison, 2005)claim that some people are more likely to commit anti-social behaviour as a result of their genotype. Alternatively, suggesting that genetic influences are probabilistic rather than reductionist. Twin researchers also assume that MZ and DZ twins raised in the same environment experience the same experience with their co-twin, therefore any greater similarity between MZ twins must be due to the greater genetic similarity. However, Evans and Martin (2003) suggest that parents, teachers and peers treat MZ twins more similarity than DZ twins; therefore greater similarity in terms of aggressive behaviour may also be due to the greater similarity of their experiences. In this respect, various approaches needs to be considered to explain behaviour, as using simple explanations may be inappropriate.

Having said that reductionism can be appropriate for some levels of explanation, it makes more sense to use cellular biology to explain living cells, rather than psychology.But if all animals and humans are made of atoms, then their behaviours can be reduced to a physical level. Researches believe that the two types of units including the physical brain and physical mind interact with each other (Pandya, 2011). Also suggesting that the mind can have an influence on physiology. For example, Martin, Martin, Rai, Richardson and Royall (2001) found that same level of serotonin was altered in the brain of depressed patients who received psychotherapy and those who received drug as a treatment.

On the other hand the multi-store model (MSM), which was proposed by Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) uses mechanistic, computer analogies to explain cognitive processes such as attention, memory and problem solving. This model is using reductionism to explain how memory functions, as the brain is equated with acomputer system. This model plays a restricted role in understanding evolution or memory, as it describes memory at a reductionist-level. Also, research associated with memory often involves memorising a list of nonsense words to measure the capacity or the duration of long-term and short-term memory, and the findings often offer an erroneous explanation of memory in general (Hulme & Maughan & Brown, 1991).Researches have found limited evidence for long-term memory. The finding to such studies should not be generalised, as the key variable is oversimplified.However, some research have found evidence for long-term memory, Bahrick, Bahrick and Wittlinger (1975) investigated recall of high school yearbooks photos to find out the duration of long term memory, they found 90% accuracy of long term memory, mainly because the information was meaningful to the participants.

In addition, reductionism overlooked the notion of emotion, mostly because it is difficult to determinehow someone is feelingbylooking at neurotransmitters located in the brain. Nevertheless, studies have found that certain hormones such as noradrenalineleads to better memory performance in an individual (Stegeren, 2008). This yield to the conclusion that perhaps there may be an association between biology and behaviour (emotion). However, while it is possibleto observe how human brain responds to certain sounds by looking into a scanner, the scanner cannot reveal how the person feels when they hear a particular sound. For instance, (Schmidt and Trainor, 2001) found that certain section of the brain associated with happiness is stimulated while listening to a particular sound, however this does not mean that the person is happy. In this respect, using reductionism may not be an unacceptable way of assessing feelings.

There are many arguments against the idea of reductionism in psychological studies. A prime example of these disagreements involves the discussions of nature versus nurture that whether environmental factors have any involvement in shaping behaviour. Ecological influences can shape behaviour throughout the lifespan even if that person was born with certain genes associated with mental disorders; environmental factors such as family and society play a major role in shaping any further behaviour. The diathesis stress models places an importance on the interaction between the person and their environment, suggesting the biological predisposition to any mental disorders is dormant until stress in the environment makes it active.

The diathesis stress model brings together unrelated causal factors into a unified model. The flexibility of the model is that individual differences can account for various contributing factors of mental illnesses (Patten, 2013; Sloane, 1945). This means that the model can explain most instances of mental disorders. The source of stress could be genetic, or perhaps disrupted and inconsistent parenting and communication within family. All the factors above have been suggested as having a causal role in the development of mental disorders, although none of them alone is sufficient to cause the disorder. For example, it seems as though schizophrenia is a complex disorder reflecting problems with genetics and birth, as well as with more general problems living in a busy society. However, such factors do feed into the diathesis stress model described. Alongside with the biological explanation schizophrenia should also be treated at the level of experience.

However, further research is sorely needed in the area of reductionism in psychology, as most of these explanations are inconsistentbecause in psychology human behaviour cannot be explained entirely in terms of one single factor, such as physiology, genetic, culture, ethnicity or cultural factors. Therefore, the all these factors should not be disregarded as most people suffering from mental illness may have distinct personality traits, specific genotype or abnormal brain structure, which makes them more vulnerable to develop certain type of mental disorder.Furthermore, reductionist theory fails to explain realism in psychology, as it only view a series of components rather than the whole, which can lead to inadequate explanations of the reality. Perhaps acknowledging all phases of explanations such as physiological, ecological or emotional could lead to a better understanding of the reality.Finally, the reductionist approach has been criticised by many, nonetheless the fact that studying the brain allows a deeper understanding to the cause of most behaviour cannot be ignored.

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