Idiographic and nomothetic approaches

What is ideographic approach?

• An approach to research that focuses more on the individuals as a means of understanding behaviour, rather than aiming to formulate general laws of behaviour

People are studied as unique entities with their own subjective experiences, so their may be no attempt to compare these to a larger group/norm

It)s associated with research methods in psychology that produce rich qualitative data such as case studies, unstructured interviews.

What research methods are employed for idiographic approach?

It’s associated with research methods in psychology that produce rich qualitative data such as case studies, unstructured interviews.

This reflects one of the central aims of idiographic research - to describe the richness of human experience and gain insight into each person’s unique viewpoint

Another example of the idiographic approach

• Humansitic approach

• Psychodynamic approach

• Case studies - H&M

Example of idiographic approach in psychology

• Another example is: Freud’s use of case studies.

  • Freud conducted very detailed investigations into his patients lives in order to understand and help them overcome their psychological disorders. His most famous case studies include Little Hans and The Rat Man.

  • While Freud did try to produce generalisations from his case studies, they are still viewed as an idiographic approach because each person’s psychological disorder derived from their unique childhood experiences.

What is the nomothetic approach?

It attempts to study human behaviour through the development of general principles and universal laws

• produces general laws of human behaviour to provide a standard to which people can be compared, classified and measured so that future behaviour can be predicted and controlled

• E.g DSM

What types of research methods do they employ?

What are examples of the nomothetic approach?

It involves reductionist and deterministic approaches, and employs scientific methods of investigation

Examples of approaches are: behavioural, cognitive and biological

Hypotheses are formulated, tested under controlled conditions and findings generated from many people (or animals) are analysed for their statistical significance

Examples would be Skinner and the behaviourists because they studied the responses of many animals including rats and pigeons, in order to develop laws of learning

Miller and other cognitive psychologists looked at the structure and processes of human memory by measuring the performance of large samples of people in lab tests

Biopsycholgsus use brain scans on countless human brains (as well as the people who own them) in order t make generalisations about localisation of function

The hypothesis in each of these cases is rigorously tested, statically analysed, and general laws and principles are proposed and developed (key features of the nomothetic approach)

1st evaluation for the ideographic approach

The idiographic approach can be used to bring a holistic understanding of individuals

It provides a completes and global account of the individual

This may complement the nomothetic approach by shedding more light on general laws or by challenging such laws

Complete account

• One strength of the idiographic approach is that it contributes to the nomothetic approach

• The idiographic approach uses in-depth qualitative methods of investigation and this provides a global description of one individual

• This may compliment the nomothetic approach by agreeing with or challenging such laws

• For example, a single case may lead to hypotheses for further study (e.g HM)

• Cases such as these can reveal important insights about normal functioning which may contribute to our overall understanding of people’s behaviour

Furthermore, focusing on an individual doesn’t have to be negative. For example, Humanstic psychologists have recently felt there was too much emphasis on measurements and the psychologists had lost sight of what it was to be human

Allport who was the first human to use the terms idiographic and nomothetic argued that a drastic change was needed because only by knowing the person as an individual can we predict what that person will do in any situation

However, the issue with the idiographic approach is the narrow and restricted nature of their work

For example, Frued from the psychodynamic approach uses many concepts such as the Oedipus complex. However, these were largely developed from single case studies, e.g Little Hans, since there is no standard to compare behaviour.

Furthermore, methods associated with the idiographic, such as case studies, tend to be the less scientific. Since they focus on