focuses on individuals and emphasises uniqueness, favouring qualitive methods in research
nomothetic approach defention?
seeks to formulate general laws of behaviour based on study of groups and use of statistical techniques, attempts to summarise the differences between people through generalisation
idiographic focus on qualitative methods
studying key individuals in depth rather than numerical data from many individuals
focus on the quality of the information
using methods like case studies and unstructured interviews
examples of the idiographic approach
Freud and little hans
memory kf hm
nomothetic and quantitive
nomothetic tends to be based off numbers, these meausres (central tendency, dispersion) require data from a large number of people
examples
eyesneck- large groups of people tested and distribution of all scores shows us what characteristics are normal and abnormal
Social Psychologists, such as Milgram and Asch, used a nomothetic approach to create general conclusions about human behaviour: that situational factors are responsible for both obedience and conformity.
Biological Psychologists nomothetic approach explaining psychological disorders, OCD and depression. pinpoint biological factors, s that are responsible for such disorders and use biological therapies (e.g. drugs) to treat all patients.
