Methodological Individualism vs. Holism
This entry speaks to the
nature of the individual element. Individualism says that the individual
element is an independent entity that has self-contained properties, though, of
course, it draws on resources around it. An example is the popular idea that
the individual is responsible for his/her own fate. Your success and failure
depend ultimately on how hard you work.
Holism says that the individual
element is inextricably tied to other individuals. Individuals are
interdependent, and they are internally related in the sense that each is
imbued with, and constituted by, the qualities of others. An example is a child
in a family. The child's psychology depends utterly on the way he/she is
treated. Any intrinsic tendencies are modulated and mediated by experience.
From this perspective, the child is not entirely responsible for his/her
behavior.
Holism regards individuals or
elements as reciprocally influencing each other. The child affects the family
while being affected by it. This dialectical relation of individuals/elements
comprises a system, or a whole. The whole is composed of individuals and
affected by them. It is not independent of individuals. However, the whole is
not simply a sum of independent individuals sequentially summed together, one
after the other (see the entry on reductionism). The whole is more than the sum
of the parts.
Solomon Asch explains the
holistic nature of social interactions in the case of two boys carrying a log.
The boys adjust their actions to each other and to the object. The two do not
apply force separately. There is a unity of action that embraces the
participants and the common object. This performance is a new product, unlike
what each participant would do singly and also unlike the sum of their separate
exertions. What each contributes is a function of his relation to the other,
how the other acts. The other's actions lead to changes in the self's behavior.
Self is permeated by other. Larger social units, such as teams and
institutions, manifest other kinds of emergent properties.
Emergence is central to
holism. It denotes the fact that the whole is different from the sum of the
individual constituents. This whole then affects the qualities of the
constituents. They are not self-sufficient, independent qualities.
These examples illustrate how
the two approaches construe the nature, or existence, of the individual. These
ontological perspectives of individualism and holism entail corresponding
epistemologies, or ways of acquiring knowledge.
An ontology that construes
individual elements as self-contained and self-determining, and as combining
arithmetically to form groups, necessarily insists that knowledge of things
consists of reducing complexity to simple, separate individual elements --e.g.,
a group is simply a collection of individuals co-existing. An ontology that
construes elements as part of a system of relations that constitute them,
insists that knowledge of things requires understanding elements as complex,
multifaceted entities that are dialectically related to other things and embody
their features.
Individualistic and holistic
ontologies and epistemologies also entail distinctive methodologies.
Methodological Individualism
Positivism
Methodological individualism
is the hallmark of positivism. Positivism construes phenomena as simple,
homogeneous, separate, variables. A variable is defined as qualitatively
invariant, and only quantitatively variable. The reason it is qualitatively
invariant is because it is separate from other variables. This prevents others
from imbuing it with their qualities, altering its quality, and complicating
it. Intelligence, depression, aggression, and all other psychological phenomena
are construed as separate variables with simple, fixed qualities.. Only their
degree varies in different conditions. This ontology leads positivists to
concentrate on measuring quantities of variables. They eschew investigating, or
theorizing about, their qualities which are taken for granted as obvious,
simple, and fixed.
Methodological individualism
is also evident in positivistic instruments such as questionnaires. Each item
on a questionnaire is a separate (discrete) element that supposedly taps a
discrete psychological attribute. Items are randomly presented in order to
prevent any association among them that would bias the subject away from
responding to each one independently. In addition, each response is treated as
a separate element that is accorded equal weight, and can be summed with the
others. Sums are indifferent to the order of the elements. 5 + 3 + 1 is the
same sum as 1 + 3 + 5. Sums presume that items are independent of each other,
and that a 5 at the beginning is the same as a 5 at the end of a sequence. Of
course, responses are statistically correlated together (e.g., in factor
analysis). However, it is a correlation of separate, independent items.
Qualitative
methodology
One might suppose that
methodological individualism, or atomism, is the basis of positivistic
methodology, while holism is the basis of qualitative methodology. However,
this would be a simplification. In fact, individualism is pervasive in
qualitative research, along with holism.
Individualism in qualitative
methodology takes the form of treating individual subjects as self-contained
individuals who create their own meanings and behaviors. Researchers focus on
recording and reporting individuals' subjective accounts. They do not attempt
to understand an individual's subjectivity as influenced by other people and
conditions. (see entry on subjectivism).
This is characteristic of a
good deal of discourse analysis. While some analysts relate discourse to
cultural values and practices, many emphasize discourse as an invention of the
individual speaker. Margaret Wetherell and Jonathan Potter advocate this
position.
It appears in Wetherell's
analysis of 17-year old boys' sexuality. She analyzes the discourse Aaron had
with his friends about a weekend during which he slept with four girls. At one
point, his friend Paul wondered whether Aaron had deliberately set out to have
lots of sex ("out on the pull") that weekend. Wetherell analyses the
conversation as follows:
What I wish to note is Paul's new description of Aaron's
activities as "out on the pull". This account seems to be heard [by
Aaron] as an uncalled for accusation in relation to the events of Friday night
and Aaron and Phil issue denials Š in attempting to reformulate and minimize
the actions so described -- `just out as a group of friends'. (Wetherell, 1998,
p. 399).
Wetherell construes
dialogue as a way that individuals represent themselves to each other and
themselves. She focuses on the mechanics of how individuals accomplish this:
Paul describes Aaron, Aaron hears the description, he responds. This
methodology does not go beyond identifying sequential conversational acts. It
does not utilize long patterns of dialogue to interpret statements, code them,
organize them, make inferences or deductions from them concerning psychological
or cultural issues. This restriction conforms to discourse theory that speech
is an invention that expresses the individual, it is not a reflection of
cultural or psychological processes. Wetherell is not interested in the nature
of Aaron's sexual desire -- i.e., whether it is impersonal, egocentric, loving,
considerate, domineering, instrumental, etc. -- and how these sexual qualities
might reflect macro cultural factors. She is concerned with how individuals voluntaristically
present sex in discourse.
Methodological Holism
Holistic methodology is only
found in qualitative methodology. It does not appear in positivism.
One of
the most important applications of holism in qualitative methodology is
Dilthey's hermeneutics. (see entry on objectivism). The central idea is that
the psychological significance of any behavioral expression can only be
discerned by relating that response to other
responses. The significance of a response is not
transparent in a single behavior. For example, to know whether a remark is a
joke or an insult, you must situate it in a context of other comments, the
speaker's countenance, and other behaviors. By itself, the comment is
ambiguous. The context disambiguates the element.
This
relating of behaviors in order to disclose psychological phenomena is known as
the hermeneutic circle.
If we
want to hermeneutically interpret the psychology of a mother who spanks her
child, we must know how the child acted before he was spanked, how the mother
behaves toward him in other situations, what she says to him during and after
the spanking, how she behaves toward him after the spanking, her facial
expression during the spanking, how she explains the spanking to her husband
and friends, etc. Only this complex configuration of related behaviors reveals
whether her spanking was motivated by concern for the child's well-being,
hatred for the child, revenge against the child, or by frustration which was
provoked by an event unrelated to the child.
Similarly,
the cognitive processes which enable a student to perform well on a math test
is only known by observing her extended solution to several math problems in
different situations. Test performance may express a number of psychological
phenomena. It may reflect the student's ability to memorize material, it may
reflect test taking ability, anxiety, or mathematical reasoning. Which of these
possibilities is operative is only disclosed by observing the pattern of steps
which the pupil takes to solve problems in different situations.
Kurt
Goldstein used a hermeneutic analysis to diagnose neurological deficits. He
observed the pattern of responses by which patients match a colored stimulus
with objects of similar color. Normal and impaired subjects often find the same
number of objects that match the hue of the stimulus; however their pattern of
responses is quite different. The patient proceeds sequentially by first
matching the stimulus to an object that most closely resembles it (O1),
then matching another object (O2) to (O1),
then matching (O3) to (O2), and so on. In contrast,
normal subjects compare each color directly with the stimulus color. The
qualitative difference in the behavioral patterns reveals the patient's
deficit.
This is
a hermeneutical, holistic analysis because it examines patterns of interrelated
responses which indicate the quality and significance of each. The fact that O3
is matched to O2 rather than to the stimulus hue makes it a
different (impaired) kind of response and indicates it to be a different kind
of response. Hermeneutic methodology that elucidates patterns is holistic. In
contrast, counting the number of correct matches, and comparing the sums for
normals and patients obscures patterns and the qualitative differences of responses
within them. As we have mentioned, sums of responses are indifferent to their
order and their interrelationship. A sum treats each response as separate and independent. Sums are
individualistic forms of methodology, while patterns are holistic.
Cultural hermeneutics
The highest form of
methodological holism not only elucidates patterns of behaviors among
individuals, it additionally recognizes the internal relationship between
psychological phenomena and cultural phenomena. This cultural-hermeneutical
interpretation of psychology was actually the crux of nineteenth century German
hermeneutics. It has been largely overlooked as hermeneuticists focus on the
behaviors of individuals apart from culture. However, Dilthey maintained that the interpretation of meaning belongs to the
larger science of history. To understand means to understand historically. It
means to understand that psychological phenomena such as self concept,
sexuality, motivation, reasoning, memory, emotions, perception, mental illness,
and developmental processes are integral components of macro cultural factors
such as institutions, artifacts, and cultural concepts, and embody their
features. Cultural hermeneutics elucidates this cultural quality of
psychological phenomena, as Carl Ratner explains in his writings.
A Synthesis
In
their current forms, holism and individualism approach psychological phenomena
very differently, and are antithetical. However, a synthesis is possible. This
cannot be an eclectic, unprincipled, combining together. For this would combine
weaknesses as well as strengths. Nor can the synthesis take the form of a
golden mean that is in between the extremes. For that negates the strengths of
the positions by watering them down with their opposites.
A workable
synthesis requires a reformulation that makes holism and individualism
logically consistent through a set of common principles. Lev Vygotsky explained
what this involves. He said that an analysis of complex patterns into units is
necessary and workable. It requires construing the part as embodying qualities
of related parts, patterns, wholes. This reformulates the individualistic
concept of an element as an independent entity with a self-contained quality.
It makes the unit logically consistent with its holistic existence, internally
related to other units.
Vygotsky (1987,
p. 46-47) explained this as follows: "A psychology concerned with the
study of the complex whole must replace the method of decomposing the whole
into its elements with that of partitioning the whole into its unitsŠ in which
the characteristics of the whole are present." "In contrast to the
term `element,' the term `unit' designates a product of analysis that possesses
all the basic characteristics of the wholeŠThe living cell is the real
unit of biological analysis because it preserves the basic characteristics of
life that are inherent in the living organism."
These units can
be studied, counted, and added. The benefits of analysis can thus be integrated
into methodological holism. This enables holism to become a precise, rigorous,
scientific approach. It loses its pejorative connotation as a mystical,
ineffable, impractical methodology.
See also: subjectivism,
reductionism, objectivism
Additional Readings
Asch, S.
(1952). Social psychology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Goldstein,
K. (1948). Language and language disturbance. Grune & Stratton.
Ratner, C.
(1997). Cultural psychology and qualitative methodology. New York:
Plenum.
Ratner, C.
(2002). Cultural psychology: Theory and method. New York: Plenum.
Ratner, C. (2006). Cultural psychology: A
perspective on psychological functioning and social reform. Mahwah, NJ:
Erlbaum.
Ratner, C. (2007a). Cultural psychology and
qualitative methodology: Scientific and political considerations. Culture
and Psychology, 2007, 13,
Ratner, C. (2007b). A macro cultural-psychological theory of emotions.
In P. Schultz, & R. Pekrun (Eds.). Emotions in Education (chap. 6).
Academic Press.
Ratner, C. (2007c). Contextualism versus Positivism
in Cross-Cultural Psychology. In G. Zheng, K. Leung, & J.Adair (Eds), Perspectives
and progress in contemporary cross-cultural psychology. Beijing: China
Light Industry Press.
Sayers, S. (2007). Individual and society in Marx and
Hegel: Beyond the communitarian critique of liberalism. Science and Society,
71, 84-102.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1987). Collected works, vol. 1. New York:
Plenum.
Wetherell, M. (1998). Positioning and interpretative
repertoires: Conversation analysis and post-structuralism in dialogue. Discourse
& Society, 9, 387-412.