Reductionism

Reductionism is the practice of reducing psychological phenomena to biological factors. One famous example is the notion of love: "Love is nothing more than hormones and neurotransmitters." This practice, however, is shunned in Psychology because research on both psychological and biological factors show that they direct and influence each other. Some examples of psychological phenomena that underscore the relationship between biological and psychological factors in research are: (1) word and spatial discrimination, wherein principles of discrimination interact with research on hemispheric specialization; (2) learning a motor skill, wherein it is classified as a skill that is psychologically slow and hard to undo, in reference to brain processes that works slowly but permanently alter connections between neurons; (3) obesity, wherein excessive eating habits are learned and may result from cultural pressure and past experiences, in relation to a genetic predisposition to gain weight; and, (4) the difference between working memory and long-term memory in concept and according to different brain regions and neuronal connections.