Study Notes
Issues & Debates: Holism
- Level:
- A-Level
- Board:
- AQA, OCR
Last updated 22 Mar 2021
Holism comes from the Greek word ‘holos’, which means ‘all’, ‘whole’ or ‘entire’ and is the idea that human behaviour should be viewed as a whole integrated experience, and not as separate parts.
Gestalt psychology adopts a holistic approach to perception: when we perceive something in the real world, we do so as a whole rather than as a collection of bits and pieces. What we see only makes sense when we consider the whole image, rather than the individual elements that make up our vision.
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Consequently, some cognitive psychologists also take a holistic approach. For example, within the area of perception, visual illusions demonstrate that humans perceive more than the sum of the sensations on the retina.
Humanistic psychology also advocates a holistic approach, as it argues that humans react to stimuli as an organised whole, rather than a set of stimulus-response links. As an approach, it uses qualitative methods to investigate all aspects of the individual, as well as the interactions between people.
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