Idiographic and Nomothetic Approaches

What are approaches to research?

• Idiographic: Understanding behaviour through studying individual cases

• Nomothetic: Understanding behaviour through developing general laws that apply to all people

What are features of the idiographic approach?

• Rejects Scientific Method

• Study of the individual and not groups

• Cannot generalise to others as we are all unique

• Behaviour must be understood in terms of subjective experience- what it means to the individual (Phenomenology)

• Only the individual can explain what a behaviour means- a detached observer’s explanation is worthless

• Data is qualitative: Non-numerical, descriptive, e.g. thoughts and feelings

What are the strengths and limitations of the idiographic approach?

• Cannot generalise to wider population

• Methods are subjective, flexible and unstandardised, so replication, prediction and control of behaviour is difficult

• Gain detailed and informative descriptions of behaviour

• Can uncover cause for behaviour not identified using nomothetic methods

• Develop a holistic understanding of individual

• Can provide hypotheses for future scientific study

What is the nomothetic approach?

• The main feature is similarities between people and laws governing behaviour

• Three kinds of general laws:

  • Classification:

    • DSM Independent Variable

  • Establishing principles:

    • Confomity and obedience

  • Establishing dimension:

    • IQ

• Uses scientific method and quantitative data. E.g. numerical data: numbers, times, weight or length etc.

• Group averages are statistically analysed, and predictions are made

  • Number of words remembered

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the nomothetic approach?

• Can generalise to wider population

• Methods are objective, measure and can be verified so replication, prediction and control of behaviour is easy

• Generalised laws and principles may not apply to an individual

• Understanding is often superficial:

  • Same score on personality test, but different answers

What is an overview of idiographic and nomothetic approaches?

• Idographic and nomothetic approaches should not be seen as conflicting. It is more helpful to see them as complementary

• The insights from an idiographic approach can shed more light on the general principles developed using the nomothetic approach

What is an example of nomothetic and idiographic approach?

For example, Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation suggests that extreme maternal deprivation is irreversible. This theory was developed using a nomothetic approach. However, the case of Koluchova’s twins demonstrates that in this single, idiographic case, maternal deprivation was overcome

What is an example of a case study and large scale experiment?

• H.M.'s case study, focusing on severe anterograde amnesia following brain surgery, provides insights into the role of the hippocampus in memory

• Large-scale experiments offer broader, statistically significant data on memory and attention in healthy individuals and those with various cognitive impairments.

• H.M.'s study highlights the specificity of memory loss in certain brain areas, demonstrating the hippocampus's crucial role in forming new declarative memories. Large-scale experiments, in contrast, can examine the generalisability of these findings across diverse populations and assess the influence of various factors on memory and attention.