Ideographic And Nomothetic

• What is the nomothetic approach?

  Aims to establish laws and generalisations that apply to many people. Focuses onsimilarities between peopleandgaining objective knowledge. Collects large amounts ofquantitative data.

  The nomothetic approach has led to the development of frequency distribution charts which show the range of normal and abnormal characteristics/behaviours.
• What approaches take a nomothetic approach?

  Biological(brain scans),Behaviourist(case studies),Cognitive(brain scan)
• Topic link - Behaviourist


  Skinner and the behaviourists studied the responses of hundreds of rats, cats, pigeons etc. to develop the laws of learning so used a nomothetic approach
• Topic link - Milgram

  Milgram carried out a well-controlled lab experiment in order to investigate the causes of obedience.Milgram discovered that getting an order from an authority figure face to face increased obedience rates supporting a nomothetic explanation for how all individuals respond to an authoritative figure.However, a woman in one of Milgram's later replications of his study was defiant as soon as she heard the learner scream out in pain. later interviews revealed an idiographic reason for her defiance. The woman was a holocaust survivor and had vowed to never harm another human being after her experiences in a concentration camp.This shows that taking a nomothetic approach can sometimes lead to missing the real cause of a human behaviour as it lacks qualitative data.
• What is the idiographic approach?

  Focuses on the uniqueness of the individual. It looks at in-depth details and subjective experiences. Usesqualitative methodssuch as case studies.
• What approaches take an idiographic approach?

  •Humanistic(always)•Psychodynamic(is both idiographic in its nature but with a nomothetic application)
• Topic link - David Reimer


  David Reimer was born a male. 'Bruce'. However, due to a circumcision accident as a baby he was raised as a female 'Brenda' from 2 - 14 years of age. When told about the sex change at 14 years of age Brenda changed back into a male overnight and called himself David. David subjective opinion was that he had always felt male and never associated with anything feminine and felt that his sex was due to his biology. This was a case study and supports the idea that complex issues such as gender can be investigated using an idiographic methodology.However, not scientific!
• Topic link - HM in memory


  H.M. had brain surgery when he was 27 yrs. old. The surgery involved removal of the hippocampus to alleviate the severe symptoms of epilepsy. This study highlighted that the hippocampus is needed to convert STM to LTM. In conclusion, an idiographic methodology was successfully used to identify the importance of the role of the hippocampus in memory formation.However, the idiographic approach is unable to produce general laws or predictions about human behaviour, and that severely limits its usefulness as a source of practical knowledge about the diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorders.
• Conclusion


  It may be more appropriate to combine both idiographic and nomothetic approaches for a more holistic understanding of conditions. In relation to the impact of maternal privation, a mix of the two approaches has enabled psychologists to build a more informed and in-depth theory about the long-term effects of maternal privation. A nomothetic approach using lab experiments such as Harlow's has help Psychology to gain greater scientific status as a discipline.However, if only a nomothetic approach was used then psychologists would have been restricted to conducting lab experimentson animals due many areas being socially sensitive, which causes external validity issues. Further research using an idiographic methodology such as the case of theCzech twinsdemonstrates that maternal deprivation was overcome. Bowlby's theory and conclusions can therefore be challenged.As always, it is best to take a combined approach.