AO1 - Idiographic and Nomothetic Approaches

• Idiographic approach - an approach to research that focuses more on the individual case as a way of understanding behaviour
• Idiographic approach:

  • Focuses on individuals as unique, each with their own subjective experiences, motivations and values
  • It is generally associated with methods that produce qualitative data such as case studies, unstructured interviews and other self-report methods
  • The aim of the approach is to gain an insight into the person's unique way of viewing the world
• An example of the idiographic approach is the humanistic approach

  • Rogers and Maslow were interested in documenting the conscious experience of the self
  • They describe themselves as 'anti-scientific' and more concerned about the unique experience of the individual rather than creating 'general laws of behaviour'
• Nomothetic approach - Studies groups of people to produce general laws of human behaviour
• Nomothetic approach:

  • The main aim is to produce general laws of human behaviour
  • It will mainly be associated with the methods that produce large amounts of quantitative data and that are scientific within psychology (experiments)
  • These involve the study of large samples of people representative of the population to establish the ways we are similar and different from one another
  • The approach will often use sampling methods such as random sampling to give a more representative sample
• An example of the nomothetic approach is the biological approach

  • They conduct brain scans to make generalisations about localisation of function in the brain
  • Hypothesis are tested, statistically analysed and general laws and principles of human behaviour are proposed and developed