Idiographic and Nomothetic

• Define Idiographic Approach


  an approach that focusses more on the individual and emphasises the unique personal experience of human nature. behaviour must be understood in terms of subjective experience - what it means to the individual.
• Define Nomothetic Approach


  an approach that attempts to study human behaviour through the development of general laws that apply to large groups of people.
• Define Qualitative Data


  qualitative data is non-numerical language-based data collected through interviews, open questions and content analysis.
• Define Quantitative Data


  quantitative data is numerical data that can be statistically analysed from observations, experiments and correlations.
• Methods of Investigation - idiographic

  - case studies

  - unstructured interviews

  - thematic analysis

  - self-reports

  - autobiographies

  - personal documents
• Examples of the Idiographic Approach in Psychology

  Humanistic Psychology

  -focusses on the self-individual

  - self-actualisation

  - free will

  - Rogers and Maslow -> studied the person as a whole.

  - more concerned with unique experiences.

  Psychodynamic Approach

  - Oedipus and Electra complex e.g. Little Hans.

  - Freud uses case studies.

  - Freud produced generalisations from his case studies -> these care still idiographic as they are drawn from unique individuals.
• Method of Investigation - nomothetic

  - lab studies

  - meta-analysis

  - correlations

  - psychometric testing (personality)
• Examples of the Nomothetic Approach in Psychology

  Biological Approach

  - uses fMRI and PET scans

  - portray the basic principles of how the body and mind work.

  Cognitive Approach

  - use of schemas

  - able to infer the structure and processes of human memory -> large samples

  Behaviourist Approach

  - Skinner and other behaviourists studied the responses of hundreds of rats, cats, pigeons, etc.

  - produce general laws of behaviour.
• AO3 Evaluation - Idiographic focus on the individual

  - humanistic psychologists and qualitative psychologists in the latter half of the last century felt that psychologists had lost sight of what it's to be human.

  - Allport, argued that a drastic reorientation was needed and that's what the idiographic approach did.

  - Allport, argued that it's only by knowing the person as an individual that we can predict what the person will do in any situation.

  - strength as results that focus on the individual cna provide us with a more complete understanding of human behaviour.
• AO3 Evaluation - Idiographic lacks scientific rigour.

  - e.g. the humanistic approach, Carl Rogers carried out in depth unstructured interviews in order to understand the unique differences in people.

  - less scientific as the information collected is open to subjective interpretation and is open is bias.

  - taking an idiographic approach may not stand up to scientific scrutiny, so idiographic approaches may not be as credible in comparison to nomothetic.
• AO3 Evaluation - Nomothetic had highly scientific methods

  - useful for predicting and controlling behaviour.

  - e.g. biological psychologists take a nomothetic approach when explaining OCD and claim that OCD is caused by higher levels of dopamine and lower levels of serotonin.

  - drug therapies are developed and work by redressing a biological imbalance. SSRI's are used to treat OCD and increase the availability and uptake of serotonin, thus reducing the anxiety associated with OCD.

  - helps to improve the lives of people suffering from this condition as a result of a nomothetic approach.

  - strength as this arguably gives the discipline of Psychology greater credibility than critics of the discipline may suggest.
• AO3 Evaluation - Combined methods of both approaches

  - Holt argues that the idiographic and nomothetic distinction is a false separation, as many approaches take advantage of both approaches.

  - Holt claimed that there's no such thing as a unique individual and what idiographic approaches actually do is generate principles - idiographic ends up being nomothetic.

  - e.g. in the Psychodynamic approach, Freud used the case study method when detailing the lives of his patients. But, Freud assumed he had identified laws of behaviour and personality development which could be applied universally.

  - could be argued that the distinction between idiographic and nomothetic is meaningless as psychologists should use both methods in their research.