Issues and Debates: Ideographic and Nomothetic

This contains AO1 and AO3

What is the ideographic approach and its features?

Focuses on how to describe the individual from their own experiences

• The individual is not compared to a norm or a standard

• Uses techniques such as interviews, case studies and is qualitative

• Subjective

What is the nomothetic approach and its features?

An approach which uses general laws of behaviour which are used to describe all human behaviour ➙ used as a standard to compare against

• Zimbardo, Milgram

• Scientific, lab based and quantitative, large sample, questionnaires

• Objective

Ideographic AO3: Strength (contribution)

• The ideographic approach contributes to the nomothetic approach

• Qualitative data from in-depth descriptions of a person helps to form hypotheses which when studied can form general laws of behaviour

• For example, patient HM was used to create the MSM which is now used to describe memory stores in all people

• The ideographic approach is practical and helps to form general laws

Ideographic AO3: Limitation (restricted)

• The ideographic approach is narrow and restricted

• Meaningful generalisations cannot be made without further examples as there is no adequate baseline in which we can compare behaviour to

• Case studies are not as scientific as controlled nomothetic studies and are much more subjective as they produce qualitative data e.g. Hanns

• `Therefore it is difficult to build general laws on behaviour from one person

Nomothetic AO3: Strength (science)

• Nomothetic approach fits with the aims of science

• The processes involved with nomothetic research are similar to those used in natural science e.g. establishing objectivity through standardisation, control and statistical testing

• The triangulation approach (studying a topic using multiple methods, sources, or perspectives to get a more complete and accurate understanding) is often used

• This increases the validity

Nomothetic AO3: Limitation (lack of focus on individual)

• The nomothetic approach loses understanding of the individual

• We know that there is a 1% chance of developing schizophrenia in a lifetime however we know little of what is like to live with it

• Therefore it is hard to specialise treatment for everyone

• The nomothetic approach fails to relate to experience