Idiographic vs nomothetic

• What is idiographic ?

  • study individuals to create a detailed and subjective explanation of behaviour
  • focussed on the uniqueness of each person as well as values, motivation and opinion
  • avoids generalisation and comparisons to the norm
• What methods does an idiographic approach use ?

  • qualitative
  • open ended questions
  • case study
  • thematic analysis
  • self report
  • unstructured interviews
• What is a nomothetic approach ?

  • test large samples to aquire large data sets
  • can represent a population
  • correlational or experimental
  • quantitative
  • uses inferential tests - enables predictions and laws about behaviour to be made
• What are the 3 general laws -nomothetic?

  1. Classification
  2. principles
  3. dimensions
• Classification ?


  People can be classified according to characteristics, attitudes or behaviours -DSM
• Principles ?


  General laws and principles that can be applied to behaviour

  • stimulus response
• Dimensions ?


  Creating a continuum that people can be placed on and compared to

  • introversion/extroversion
• What research methods are used by nomothetic ?

  • experiments
  • surveys
  • questionajre
  • content analysis
  • closed questions
• What is the combined approach ?

  Possible to consider the same topic or issue from both perspectives

  • they both complement eachother and together add rich understanding of human behaviour
• What are the 3 methods of a combined approach ?

  • triangulation
  • inductive
  • deductive
• triangulation ?


  To use multiple methods of data collection on the same topic to increase reliability and credibility
• Inductive 


  Idiographic methods and then larger nomothetic
• Deductive 


  Uses nomothetic methods then idiographic
• What did holt argue ?

  Idiographic approached create nomothetic approaches

  A there Is no such thing as a unique individual - we all strive to be the same
• What is behaviourism ?

  Nomothetic as created general laws to explain behaviour as a whole that is applied to many behaviours
• What is drug therapy for sz?

  Nomothetic as applied to all patients
• What is the psychodynamic approach ?

  Idiographic-> nomothetic

  • used case studies like little hans which fried then made the psychosexual stages from
• Strength of idiographic ?

  • gives rich detail and meaning which reinforces the idea that humans are complex
  • can compliment the nomothetic approach
• Weakness of idiographic approach ?

  • time consuming to complete and require 1 to 1 days collection
  • case studies are single experience
  • cant be generalised
  • lacks population validity
• Strength of nomothetic approach ?

  • more scientific as use of standardised procedures provide predictions and conculiains about behaviour
  • high population validity
• Weakness of nomothetic approach ?

  • statistics and general laws don't tell us the unique experience of having a disorder or being human
  • quantitative data removed the subjective experiences from humans by reducing them to numbers