idiographic/nomothetic

• The idiographic approach attempts to study individuals bahaviour based on subjective experience and uniqueness instead of formulating general principles and laws. It focuses on qualitative methods of data collection, such as case studies and unstructured interviews which allow detailed information to be taken. One example of an idiographic study is Freuds case study on little hans. He used detailed interviews about little Hans’ life and behaviour which contributed to Freuds Oedipus and Electra complex.
• nomothetic approach aims to produce general laws and principles to predict and control human behaviour. It does this through group studies, that produce statistical and quantitative data that can be generalised across populations. Radford and kirby suggested that the nomothetic approach has produces three general laws in psychology; classifying people into groups, establishing principles of behaviour which can be generalised to populations, and establishing dimensions in which people can be placed measured and compared.
• An example of the use of the nomothetic approach is within behaviourism. Behaviourists study behaviour as a stimulus and response process e.g through the idea of acquiring and maintaining behaviour through classical and operant conditioning. This therefore allows general ‘cause and effect’ relationships to be established between variables.
• + idiographic approach uses qualitative methods. use of high detailed methods focussing on unique human experience, allows general laws to be challenged. E.g case studies of HM + clive wearing challenged pre-existing evidence on LTM. use of rich and subjective data, both case studies suggested that different types of LTM are located in different regions of the brain - led to further research being conducted regarding memory + localisation of function. This depicts how the use of an idiographic approach can lead to more in depth research which contributes to different fields of psychology.
• A03

  -criticism of being too narrow of an approach. idiographic approach heavily relies on unique + subjective experience, meaning the results cannot be generalised beyond the conditions of the study, thus lacking ecological validitiy. E.g the humanistic approach has been criticised as being ‘too abstract’ as it focuses on singular individuals, which lacks empirical evidence. This therefore means generalisations cannot be made about the behaviour, as there is no baseline study to compare it to. Thus this means the approach lacks internal validity, aswell as scientific rigour and credibility.
• + nomothetic approach is its use of scientific methods. approach uses highly controlled, standardised procedures allowing effects of extraneous and confounding variables to be removed. Constituent parts of target behaviour can be measured reliably through use of operationalised behavioural categories, increasing the validity of the approach. Thus provides objective methods of measuring behaviour accurately, providing the study with high internal validity. Therefore, the approach maintains high scientific rigour and credibility, helping psychology reach its aim of becoming a science.
• A03

  -approach may undervalue the importance of individual experience. approach has been criticised as ‘losing the whole person’ due to emphasis on establishing general laws + principles of behaviour. E.g , in regards to mental disorders (depression), by taking on a nomothetic approach it means that the individualistic root causes of the problem cannot be tackled, meaning the individual may not be provided with best treatment possible - suggest that nomothetic approach is not practical in all instances, suggesting it hasn’t done as much to improve people’s life compared to idiographic approach