Idiographic & Nomothetic

define idiographic approach

Focuses on the individual case as a means of understanding behaviour, rather than aiming to formulate general laws of behaviour

define nomothetic approach

Aims to study human behaviour through the development of general principles & universal laws

The idiographic approach suggests that psychology should be the study of…

individuals

why does the idiographic approach suggests that psychology should be the study of individuals?

by obtaining lots of detailed information about that individual we can understand human behaviour better

The nomothetic approach suggests that psychology should be the study of…

large and varied groups to make generalisation about what is typical in different aspects of human behaviour

The nomothetic approach seeks to essentially…

establish norms

An idiographic approach is one that studies people as…

unique individuals

what is the focus of idiographic studies?

subjective experiences, motivation & values

what type of data does idiographic studies produce?

qualitative

An idiographic approach produces qualitative data through…

case studies and unstructured interviews

The idiographic approach creates a…of the individual

complete & global account

A nomothetic approach studies human behaviour through…

the development of general principles

Nomothetic approaches are often…

reductionist & deterministic

why are nomothetic approaches highly scientific?

they use controlled experiments to study large groups of people

what is the central aim of idiographic research?

to describe the richness of human experience and gain insight into the person’s unique way of viewing the world

idiographic research attempts to describe the…

nature of the individual

in idiographic research people are studied as…

unique entities each with their own subjective experiences, motivations & values

in idiographic research there is no attempt to…

compare those to a larger group, standard or norm

what is the central aim of nomothetic research?

to produce general laws of human behaviour, that will provide a benchmark against which people can be compared, classified and measured - future behaviour can then be predicted and/or controlled

nomothetic research is closely aligned with…

scientific methodology of experiments

nomothetic research will study…

large numbers of people in order to establish ways in which people are similar (which will also inform the ways people are different from one another)

how is the humanistic approach idiographic

Rogers & Maslow took a phenomenological approach to the study of human beings & were only interested in documenting the conscious experience of the individual. Humanistic psychologists were more concerned with investigating unique experiences than producing general laws of behaviour.

what are examples of idiographic approaches?

humanistic & psychodynamic

how is the psychodynamic approach idiographic?

Freud’s observations of individuals such as Little Hans to explain how phobias may develop

what are examples of nomothetic approaches?

behaviourist & biopsychology

how is the behaviourist approach nomothetic?

Skinner studied animals to develop the general laws of learning. Behaviourists suggest that the basic processes that govern learning are all the same in all species (animals could replace humans in research)

how is biopsych nomothetic?

Sperry’s split-brain research is the basis for understanding hemispheric lateralisation - that the left hemisphere is dominant in terms of speech and language & that the right hemisphere is dominant in terms of visual-motor tasks.

explain how the nomothetic approach has been accused of losing the whole person

• nomothetic approaches would tell us that there is a 1% of developing schizophrenia in a person’s lifetime, but doesn’t tell us anything about what life is like for someone who has been diagnosed with the disorder.

• This causes problems as understanding the subjective experience of schizophrenia, which would have been investigated in a holistic approach, might have proved useful in devising appropriate treatment options.

• This means that, in its search for generalities, the nomothetic approach fails to relate to human experience which limits its value

explain how the idiographic approach is narrow & restricted

• meaningful generalisations cannot be made without further examples as there is no adequate baseline with which to compare behaviour

• the idiographic approach has limited usefulness as it can not be used alone to establish psychological theories and conclusions.

• Furthermore, the methods associated with the idiographic approach, such as case studies, often rely on the subjective interpretation of the researcher, in other words bias is a part of the investigation which limits the objectivity and thus validity of conclusions.

• This clearly demonstrates the limited real-world usefulness of the idiographic approach in psychology as it is difficult to build effective general theories of human behaviour in complete absence of nomothetic research.

explain the idiographic & nomothetic approaches being used in tandem

• the idiographic approach can contribute to the nomothetic approach to develop theories and contribute to the psychological field

• the idiographic approach uses in-depth qualitative methods of investigation which provides a global description of the individual, this compliments the nomothetic approach by shedding further light on general laws or can even challenge such laws.

• This clearly demonstrates that even though the idiographic approach is limited for its focus on fewer individuals and the nomothetic criticism for losing the individual in its research, when used together, they can contribute to creating scientific laws of behaviour.

explain how idiographic & nomothetic align with the aims of science

• the processes used in nomothetic research are similar to those used in the natural sciences - both establish objectivity through standardisation, control and statistical testing.

• researchers using an idiographic approach also seek to objectify their methods through triangulation, whereby findings from a range of studies using different qualitative methods are compared as a way of establishing validity.

• This clearly demonstrates how both the nomothetic and idiographic approaches raise psychology’s status as a science.