idiographic vs nomothetic

• what is idiographic?

  • focus on the individual and emphasis the unique personal experience of human nature
• what is nomothetic?

  • concerned with establishing general laws based open the study of large groups of people
• idiographic research

  • case studies
  • unstructured interviews
  • these methods provide an in depth insight into individual behaviour
  • the approach doesn't seek to formulate laws or generalise results to others
• an example of idiographic research 


  SHALLICE and WARRINGTON examined the case of KF who was in a motor bike accident

  his STM forgetting of auditory info was greater than his forgetting of visual info suggesting STM consists of multiple components
• nomothetic research

  • exoeriemtns
  • correlational research
  • psychometric testing (personality)
• nomothetic research example

  • the biological approach is nomothetic when explaining psychological disorders (OCD and depression)
  • they pinpoint biological factors (neurotransmitters) and use biological therapies (drugs) to treat all patients
• nomothetic research example


  the behavioural approach (pavlov and skinner) conducted experiments with animals to establish laws of learning which are generalised to humans
• examples of idiographic and nomothetic together

  • cognitive approach attempt to establish general laws in cognitive processing but utilises an idiographic approach with case studies
  • psychodynamic approach attempts to establish general laws in relation to innate drives while considering unique experience (during childhood)
• is the biological approach idiographic or nomothetic?

  • nomothetic
  • creates universal laws as humans share similar physiologies
• is the behaviourist approach idiographic or nomothetic?

  • nomothetic
  • creates universal laws as behaviour its he result of stimulus-response associations
• is humanist theory idiographic or nomothetic?

  • nomothetic
  • focuses on the subjective human experience and makes not attempt to create general laws
• nomothetic AO3

  • scientific nature - use of quantitative methods, controlled, replication
  • application to treatments - biological psychologists , OCD, drug treatments
• idiographic AO3

  • power of case studies - patient KF, generate further research
  • limitation: unscientific nature - use of qualitative methods, uncontrolled, unable to replicate