Idiographic and Nomothetic Approaches

Approaches to Research:

• Idiographic: Understanding behaviour through studying individual cases

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

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

Strengths and Limitations:

• 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

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

Strengths and Limitations:

• 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

Complementary:

• 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

• 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

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.