Lesson 4.3.1.4

4.3.1.4 Holism and reductionism Quiz: AQA Psychology, Unit 3

20 questions

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Lesson 4.3.1.4, Holism and reductionism: 20 multiple choice questions for the AQA Psychology (7182), Unit 3: Issues and options in Psychology, written with Revision Ninja.

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The 20 questions

  1. What is holism in psychology?

    • Explaining behaviour only through the individual's unconscious drives and early childhood conflicts
    • Explaining behaviour by measuring the speed of a single neuron in a controlled laboratory setting
    • Explaining behaviour in terms of the whole person or system, taking account of the many factors that act together
    • Explaining behaviour by isolating one neurotransmitter and measuring its effect on a single response

  2. What is reductionism in psychology?

    • Explaining behaviour by counting the number of people present in a social situation
    • Explaining complex behaviour by breaking it down into simpler component parts or processes
    • Explaining behaviour by reference only to the culture a person belongs to
    • Explaining complex behaviour only through the whole person's personal history and goals

  3. What is biological reductionism?

    • Explaining behaviour in terms of the person's social class and family setting
    • Explaining behaviour in terms of stimuli and learned responses alone
    • Explaining behaviour in terms of the whole person's sense of meaning and self-worth
    • Explaining behaviour in terms of biological processes such as neurotransmitters, genes or brain structures

  4. What is environmental (stimulus-response) reductionism?

    • Explaining behaviour in terms of the neurotransmitter levels in the brain's reward system
    • Explaining behaviour in terms of the whole person's unconscious motives and conflicts
    • Explaining behaviour in terms of observable stimuli and responses, as in behaviourism
    • Explaining behaviour in terms of the individual's conscious goals and self-concept

  5. Which is a lower level of explanation than the individual person?

    • The cultural level, such as the norms and values of a whole society
    • The neural or biochemical level, such as the activity of neurotransmitters in the brain
    • The whole person level, such as their goals and personal history
    • The social group level, such as the behaviour of a team or family

  6. Which is an example of a holistic approach in psychology?

    • Skinner's operant conditioning, which studies the rate of individual responses
    • Gestalt psychology, which studies perception as organised whole patterns rather than separate parts
    • Measuring the speed of a single neuron in a controlled experiment
    • Counting the number of words a participant recalls from a list

  7. What is a main criticism of reductionism?

    • It requires participants to be interviewed in depth about their lives
    • It always produces qualitative data that is impossible to analyse
    • It cannot be used in any form of scientific research or experiment
    • It can lose important information about the whole behaviour and the interactions between its parts

  8. A researcher explains depression entirely in terms of serotonin levels. Which approach is this?

    • Social sensitivity
    • Holism
    • Biological reductionism
    • The idiographic approach

  9. A researcher explains a child's fear of dogs entirely as classical conditioning after a bite. Which approach is this?

    • Holism
    • The nomothetic approach
    • Environmental (stimulus-response) reductionism
    • Social sensitivity

  10. A psychologist explains a person's behaviour through their social context, relationships and personal history considered together. Which approach is this?

    • Reductionist
    • Holistic
    • Nomothetic
    • Experimental

  11. Which explanation of schizophrenia is the most holistic?

    • An explanation based only on the number of hallucinations reported
    • An explanation based only on a single gene
    • An explanation based only on dopamine levels in the brain
    • A combined model involving genetic vulnerability, life stress and family environment acting together

  12. Which statement describes a strength of reductionist explanations?

    • They ensure that results generalise to every culture in the world
    • They allow variables to be isolated and tested under controlled conditions
    • They avoid any need for scientific methods or measurement
    • They always capture the full complexity of human behaviour

  13. A study finds that memory is affected by sleep, emotion and stress acting together. Which approach does this illustrate?

    • Biological reductionism
    • Holism
    • Environmental reductionism
    • The nomothetic approach

  14. Which is an example of a researcher using a reductionist method?

    • Interviewing a family about its history over several years
    • Testing one drug's effect on one neurotransmitter in a controlled experiment
    • Writing a case study of an individual's whole life story
    • Observing a group interacting in its natural setting over time

  15. Which level of explanation would a biological reductionist prefer?

    • Cultural values and social norms
    • The individual's personal goals and ambitions
    • Neurotransmitters and brain structures
    • Family and peer relationships

  16. Which evaluation of reductionism is most balanced?

    • It is always inferior to holism because it cannot be tested scientifically at all
    • It explains everything about human behaviour completely and without any gaps
    • It offers precise, testable explanations but may miss interactions between different levels of explanation
    • It has no value in explaining physical or biological behaviour

  17. Why might biological reductionism be criticised for oversimplifying depression?

    • It relies on too many brain scans to be practical
    • It cannot identify any biological structures in the brain
    • It ignores psychological and social factors, such as stressful life events and relationships
    • It requires too many participants to be feasible in practice

  18. Why do many psychologists favour an approach that combines levels of explanation?

    • Behaviour is multi-determined, so a single level of explanation rarely accounts for it fully
    • Single-level explanations are always incorrect and should never be tested
    • Combining levels avoids the need to collect any evidence at all
    • Combining levels makes all human behaviour completely predictable

  19. Which is a limitation of holism?

    • It is harder to test scientifically because many variables interact at the same time
    • It cannot describe any behaviour that occurs in real life
    • It can only be used in research with animal subjects
    • It reduces behaviour to chemical reactions in the brain

  20. Which argument best links reductionism to the scientific method?

    • Reducing a phenomenon to measurable components allows hypotheses to be tested and replicated
    • Reductionism proves that all behaviour is random and unpredictable
    • Reductionism rejects all forms of measurement and quantification
    • Reductionism relies entirely on subjective case studies of individuals

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