idiographic

• Idiographic approach


  When an explanation considers the individual & argues that generalising from person to person is difficult because people are unique due to having free will.
• Methods of the idiographic approach

  Self-report methods, Case studies, Unstructured interviews, Thematic analysis
• Psychological approaches which take an idiographic approach

  Psychodynamic & Humanistic
• Advantage of the idiographic approach

  Validity - building trust between a researcher & ppt may lead to individuals feeling that they can give honest answers, eg. David Reimer. Case studies allow for social sensitive areas to be investigated -> David had his penis burnt off as a baby, was raised as a female from 2-14yrs. As an adult he claimed he had always felt male - challenges the behaviourist theory which claimed that gender is due to nature
• Evaluations of dealing with analysing qualitative data - weaknesses

  Not scientific - can lead to researcher bias due to subjective interpretation of data. No empirical support - often rely on a person's memory for an event, so can't be falsified scientifically.
• Second advantage of idiographic approach

  In-depth qualitative methods of investigation. Provide a complete account of the individual which may in fact shed further light on already established laws or challenges. May contribute to our overall understanding of a topic area.
• Disadvantages of the idiographic approach having small sample size

  Not representative, Can't generalise, Low external validity ->eg. although Freud adopted an idiographic methodology using the case study, he generalised his findings to others