idiographic & nomothetic

• The idiographic approach suggests that everyone is unique so should be studied as individuals.
• Does the idiographic approach aim to produce general laws of behaviour?

  No
• Does the nomothetic approach aim to produce general laws of behaviour?

  Yes
• The nomothetic approach aims to produce general laws of human behaviour by studying large samples. These laws provide a standard against which people can be compared, classified, and measured.
• The idiographic approach collects qualitative data which can come from:

  • Case studies
  • Self-report
  • Journals or diaries
• The nomothetic approach collects quantitative data which can come from:

  • Experiments
  • Correlations
  • Meta-analysis
  • Observations
• A strength of the idiographic approach is that it provides more insight and a complete understanding of the individual, by using qualitative data to provide more meaningful information.
• A strength of the idiographic approach is that it reduces culture bias and ethnocentrism because findings from one culture are not generalised to another, as there is no aim to produce general laws.
• A limitation of the idiographic approach is that it is subjective as its research methods produce qualitative data, for example from case studies and self-report.
• Some psychologists argue that idiographic and nomothetic approaches can be complementary as the same behaviour can be studied through both approaches.
• Is the behaviourist approach nomothetic, idiographic, or both?

  Nomothetic
• Is the biological approach nomothetic, idiographic, or both?

  Nomothetic
• Is social learning theory nomothetic, idiographic, or both?

  Nomothetic
• Is the cognitive approach nomothetic, idiographic, or both?

  Both
• Is the psychodynamic approach nomothetic, idiographic, or both?

  Both
• Is the humanistic approach nomothetic, idiographic, or both?

  Idiographic
• An example of an idiographic approach in psychology is the humanistic approach, which uses interviews and qualitative data to measure individual experiences like self image and congruence.
• An example of a nomothetic approach in psychology is the behaviourist approach, which uses experiments and quantitative data such as in Skinner's study, to produce general laws of how behaviour is learned through operant conditioning.
• An example of the idiographic and nomothetic approaches being complementary is the cognitive approach, which uses theoretical models to explain memory in all humans, but also uses case studies like Clive Wearing but uses these conclusions for general laws about types of memory.