Idiographic

• Focuses on the individual case as a means of understanding behaviour rather than aiming to formulate general laws of behaviour
• Involves studying individuals in order to understand them as unique entities, with their own subjective experiences
• Involves case studies, unique insights, subjective experiences, and consideration of holistic picture (all aspects of an individual)
• There is no attempt to generalise or theorise about others
• Typical qualitative (ie unstructured interviews and self report) - this is against the scientific method
• Examples:

  • Case studies - Clive wearing, Phineas Gage, HM
  • Humanistic approach - rogers client centred therapy
  • Psychodynamic approach - Nature of methods, like the case study of little Hans
• Strengths

  • More complete understanding of the individual (better explanatory power/predictions)
  • Better treatment of the individual
• Weaknesses

  • Qualitative methods - issues with self-report/observations
  • Subjectively
  • Little wider use (little generalisability)
  • Time-consuming
• Strength - Can tailor treatments and drugs to individuals, more likely to recover
• Strength - Qualitative data is easily connected and more detailed, collected through self report
• Weakness - will be expensive and time consuming to tailor treatments to individuals
• Weakness - Harder to analyse and compare to other data, more subjective
• Weakness - Slower and harder to study and account for each individual's behaviour and thought processes
• Weakness - Self report is against the scientific method - not objective or reliable (Social desirability bias)