idiographic debate

What is the idiographic approach

The term idiographic comes from he Greek ‘idios’ meaning on your own or in private. Psychologists following this approach want to find out what makes us unique individuals it is often seen as subjective. No general laws are possible because of chance, free will and the uniqueness of individuals whose experiences and values are subjective

What are they based on

As idiographic theories are based on the assumption that human beings are unique they can only be understood through the use of qualitative techniques that are designed to reflect uniqueness. Case studies, informal interviews, instructed observation and other qualitative methods are idiographic investigating individuals in a personal and detailed way

Strength

• Provides a more complete understanding of the individual that we can know what they will do in any situation. This increases validity and individual feels valued and unique int he research process

Weaknesses

• limited RWA - inability to make predictions lowers its usefulness as predictions are needed to lead to global treatments eg; drugs. It would be too time consuming to produce personal, unique therapies for each person suffering with their mental health

• Non scientific as lack of objective evidence. Subjective experiences cannot be empirically tested open to bias it is time consuming to collect data about one persons and difficult to generalise - narrow and restrictive basis of evidence