Reductive

of or relating to ; serving to reduce or abridge:
an urgent need for reductive measures.
of or relating to change from one form to another:
reductive chemical processes.
employing an analysis of a complex subject into a simplified, less detailed form; of, pertaining to, or employing ; reductionistic.
something causing or inducing a reductive process.
Contemporary Examples

But it would be reductive to make that parallel a blanket one.
Philip Seymour Hoffman: An Actor First Tim Teeman February 1, 2014

Because it’s too cautious to dramatize real problems and too reductive to tackle them realistically.
Generic and Superficial ‘Tyrant’ Amerisplains the Middle East Andrew Romano June 24, 2014

It is all too easy to be heavy-handed and reductive, something of which Freud himself was guilty on many occasions.
Goce Smilevski’s ‘Freud’s Sister’ Lauren Elkin January 10, 2013

But even that’s too reductive for a series that relishes the gamesmanship, intrigue, and corruption that follows in their wake.
Game of Thrones Comes to HBO Jace Lacob April 3, 2011

He had read a positive review of his own work that nonetheless struck him as reductive and inaccurate.
Constructive Criticism: Reviewing the Idea of Reviewing Ben Greenman May 19, 2013

Historical Examples

At a boiling heat, in presence of dilute acids, it is split up, yielding a reductive sugar.
Scientific American Supplement, No. 648, June 2, 1888. Various

Now that the law compels a list of dangerous drugs on the label, the cures proceed admittedly by a reductive principle.
Habits that Handicap Charles B. Towns

adj.

1630s, “that reduces;” 1650s, “that leads or brings back,” from Medieval Latin reductivus, from reduct-, past participle stem of Latin reducere (see reduce). Related: Reductively.