Ideographic vs nomothetic

• Ideographic - doing research on one person or one study on a small group, and applying it to a larger group.
• Nomothetic - doing research on lots of people and applying it to everyone.
• Nomothetic research is quantitative.
• Ideographic research is qualitative.
• Majority of psychology is nomothetic, as that means patterns can be identified.
• An ideographic approach is time-consuming and therefore it is difficult for it to be widespread.
• A nomothetic stance means theories are not often an exact fit