Issues and Debates Nomothetic v Idiographic

A prison psychologist used an idiographic approach to study offending. He asked two offenders to record their thoughts about their childhood and their offending behaviour in a journal over a period of four weeks. Qualitative analysis of the journals showed that the offenders often thought about sad childhood events and believed that their childhood experiences had influenced their offending.

Findings from idiographic research like the study described above are iften used as a basis for other investigations. Explain how the researcher might develop the above investigation throigh taking a nomothetic approach. (6 Marks).